Special issue : the (de)colonial pedagogical possibilities of film and film festivals (part 2) [editorial]

Abstract

This two-part Special Issue focuses on the role films and film festivals play in representing the relationships between diversity, modernity, and coloniality, from perspectives of diverse people involved in filmmaking and film festival engagement. The aim is to centre the perspectives of racialized, Indigenous, women and marginalized minoritized peoples within the film and education fields. Part 1, published in Postcolonial Directions in Education, Volume 8, Issue 2 (2019), unpacked the ontological and epistemic problematics that underpin audiovisual artistic forms as historically and politically situated narratives. Contributors engaged the challenges associated with pushing back on hegemonic modes of visual representation prevalent in film and cinematic encounters. Simultaneously, contributors delved into the decolonizing poetics of visual sovereignty and how these could be leveraged to effect social and political learning and transformation. Dr. Dorothy Christian captured this double-struggle by referencing the work of Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay. She pointed out that Barclay’s notion of “talking in/talking out” is central to a decolonizing “Indigenous gaze” that shifts and flips the camera’s lens around, offering new horizons on knowledge and being (conversation of Dr. Christian, with Medel & Mazawi, 2019, p. 165). [excerpt from the introduction]