Negotiating Human and Non-human Entanglements in Experimental Cinema

This chapter contributes to the field of ecocinema studies, arguing that in its challenge to normative ways of seeing the world, experimental film is inherently ecological. It is particularly suited to reimagining “nature” and the entanglements of human and non-human lives. Yet although there is a growing body of scholarship on the representation of non-human animals in film, the subject has been routinely overlooked in experimental cinema studies. Through a discussion of two recent films—Laborat by Guillaume Cailleau (2014) and Blua by Carolina Charry Quintero (2015)—I explore the relationship between human and non-human bodies on screen, paying particular attention to questions of vulnerability, bodily empathy, and the politics of looking. The chapter concludes with a personal account of filming in a Welsh dairy farm, weaving subjective reflection on the process together with theoretical meanderings. By experimenting with different forms of writing, and eschewing the more traditional scholarly approach, I hope to reveal new connections between the intellectual and the experiential in practice-based research.