고려대학교

Photographic and cinematic appropriation of atrocity images from Cambodia: auto-genocide in Western museum culture and The Missing Picture

Photographic and cinematic appropriation of atrocity images from Cambodia: auto-genocide in Western museum culture and The Missing Picture

In this seminar, based on his paper “Photographic and cinematic appropriation of atrocity images from Cambodia” (co-authored with Keith B. Wagner, Visual Communication, 2019), Michael Unger will provide a general overview of the problematic factors of photographic representation of atrocity in documentaries in which such still and moving images are capable of either sensationalism, commodification, and even re-traumatizing the individuals depicted therein. He will then discuss and focus specifically on how the documentary The Missing Picture (2013) directed by Rithy Panh about the Khmer Rouge, and within the context of other performative documentaries that address atrocity, attempts to instead convey positive notions of commemoration and memory through the use of evocative documentary techniques.

Michael A. Unger is an Assistant Professor of Film at Sogang University. He is a writer, director and editor of documentaries, shorts, music videos and experimental work screened and broadcasted in the United States, Europe and Asia. He is currently in post-production for the documentary Sijo: green hills & blue streams of tradition. Recently he has directed and edited MC Meta music video’s Not So Fast to be released in 2021. He has published work on documentaries, film directors and Korean popular culture in Journal of Film and Video, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Visual Communication, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Asian Cinema and other periodicals.

· Date: May 6, 2021
· Time: 16:00-18:00
· Venue: online seminar (https://zoom.us/j/6915820895 ID: 691 582 0895)
· Language: English
· Hosted by: Critical Global Studies Institute