A palimpsest-image: place, space and film geographies

This thesis argues that landscape, place and the material image can be an emotional and narrative catalyst in the context of essay/documentary/art house films. It proposes the notion of the palimpsest-image as an orbit around three gravitational vectors: the relationship between place and space in film, the association of different art forms in the creation and interpretation of an image, and the simultaneity of discourses involving complex combinations of memory, history and imagination. Not necessarily present all the time, these three vectors interact, whether in the interpretation and organization of the theoretical discourse, or in the consideration of the practical work in its artistic and conceptual dimensions.

The core research addresses the possibility of forming film geographies through the arrangement of film space and its interpretation of place. The theoretical framework draws on history, geography, art history, film studies and the work of contemporary filmmakers, photographers and painters. This framework is related to the practical research centred on a film made with images recorded in the seven capital cities of countries from the former Yugoslavia. These cities are a platform for two objective ideas: first, to discuss questions of identity, memory, history and place in the context of an imaginary city, Novi (2012-2015), portrayed as a spectral topography between past and present, symbolism and triviality; and second, to delineate a cinematic place that proposes the notion of film geography as a concept that surpasses the mere identification of geographic realism in films.