Feminist counter-cinema and decolonial countervisuality: subversions of audiovisual archives in Un'ora sola ti vorrei (2002) and Pays Barbare (2013)

Abstract

In this article we analyse the Italian compilation films Un’ora sola ti vorrei (Alina Marazzi, 2002) and Pays Barbare (Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, 2013) as examples, respectively, of feminist counter-cinema and decolonial countervisuality working with and against audiovisual archives. By means of a close-reading of the two films from an intersectional feminist perspective, we discuss: on the one hand, the ways in which Marazzi contests the rigid gender performativity of home movies, by restituting her mother’s memory and exposing her sense of discomfort; on the other hand, the strategies employed by Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi in their dismantling of the sexism and racism of the colonial archive, while also warning about the fascist past haunting the present.