Reenactment

Reenactment: Hybrid Documentaries and Fictional True Stories explores a series of 21st-century films based on recent historical events that blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction to the point that they become virtually indistinguishable, befuddling what constitutes social engagement and opening up to networked environments and online participatory activism.

It discusses films based on real occurrences such as 12: 08 East of Bucharest, The Paper Will Be Blue, Lemon Tree, The Salt of this Sea, The Social Network; self-reflexive documentaries such as The Look of Silence, This Is Not a Film, Write Down, I Am an Arab, The Viewing Booth, and Exit Through the Gift Shop; and Netflix series such as Narcos. These films incorporate multiple reenactments, scripted scenes, or fictional characters to enhance non-linear narratives. Filmmakers adopt an immersive style by using handheld digital cameras, experimental visuals, and at times performing as themselves in front of the camera.

The question of historical (in)accuracy, scholarly versus marketable understandings of the recent past, and the relationship between the screen and contemporary sociopolitical events is central. On the one hand, the works under consideration are a direct product of the 21st-century digital environment and contemporary political and aesthetic democratization. On the other hand, they reveal an oxymoronic nostalgia for the period that immediately preceded them (the so-called age of three worlds) and has been washed away by the recent upheavals. The return to a pre-digital past becomes, for the directors, one expedient to look at facts with a fresh, non-adulterated gaze from the future.