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    [EFF17P1] Prelude 1: Video Letters

    Cite as: Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew (2023): [EFF17P1] Prelude 1: Video Letters. Birkbeck College, University of London.

    Description

    20 January 2017, 18:00, Birkbeck Cinema

    Film: Video Letters, Stephen Dwoskin and Robert Kramer, France, 1991, digital, 100 minutes, English

    The screening was introduced by Bernard Eisenschitz, film historian.

    In the first Essay Film Festival Prelude we presented the rarely screened series of video letters between the filmmakers Robert Kramer and Stephen Dwoskin made between February and June 1991.

    Steve Dwoskin said of the video letters: “It was more like writing, in that you didn’t have to involve anyone else in it. Not including editing was again like doing a written letter – you don’t really edit your letters when you write to friends – so the idea was simply to just do whatever we could in the camera.”

    Robert Kramer said: “I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the letter, and where to start and how to do it. I would plan this whole thing out. There’s a lot of that feeling which does merge film and performance. I like the tension that’s in that situation and try and work it all out physically. It’s another way of thinking about mise en scène.”

    Supported by Documentaire sur grand écran and LUX Artists Moving Image.

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    Collection Method

    The Essay Film Festival ran between 2015 and 2023, and presented a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works. The events are now archived here for research purposes.

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    Metadata

    Dataset Title:

    [EFF17P1] Prelude 1: Video Letters
    Creators:

    Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew
    Dataset Contributors:

    ContributionNameEmailORCID
    CollaboratorMcCabe, Janetj.mccabe@bbk.ac.ukORCID logohttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-2916-9876
    CollaboratorYapp, Emmaeyapp01@student.bbk.ac.ukORCID logohttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-2646-6066
    Subjects:

    Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    Data collection method:

    The Essay Film Festival ran between 2015 and 2023, and presented a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works. The events are now archived here for research purposes.
    Collection period:

    FromTo
    20 January 201720 January 2017
    Statement on legal, ethical, and access issues:

    All film stills were provided by participating artists.
    Depositing User: Emma Yapp
    Date Deposited: 06 Aug 2026 10:55
    Last Modified: 06 Aug 2026 10:55
    Publisher: Birkbeck College, University of London

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    Cite as: Temple, Michael and Barrington, Matthew (2023): [EFF17P1] Prelude 1: Video Letters. Birkbeck College, University of London.

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