Borrowing and expanding upon Mary Ann Doane’s definition of the indexical sign as one that is “haunted by its object” (Doane 2007b, 134), Olivieri presents several examples in which the filmed reality inhabits, intrudes upon, and makes itself continually present in the filmic documentary sign.
Haunting here refers to the specific indexical quality of the relation between sign and object, the manner in which the object affects or determines the sign (Peirce 1958, 8.177), or the way in which “the world presses on” the cinematic sign (Comolli 1999, 40).
The dissertation shows that the relation between reality and the documentary sign can be understood as one of ‘haunting’. To different extents, and in multiple and overlapping ways, these films address the issue of representation(s) of non-Western, and especially female subjects, the relation between sign and reality and the power dynamics implicit in documentary filmmaking. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage (1982) and Ursula Biemann’s Europlex (2003). Domitilla Olivieri’s dissertation explores such intricate interrelations through the analysis of three films: Kim Longinotto’s Sisters in Law (2005), Trinh T. The multifaceted relation between these three fields can be summarised as revolving around the debates on reality, truth, representation of the Other, knowledge production and power. Feminism, documentary film and visual anthropology are the three domains that this study connects.
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