Anna O and the Case of Displaced Memory

Marie-Josèphe Angélique is the name of a Black slave in New France (Montreal, Canada,1734), who was tortured, hanged and burned down to ashes. She was convicted with arson, burning down much of what is now known as Old Montreal. There is no consensus regarding her innocence nor about the motivations behind the fire. The conflicting interpretations of Marie-Angélique’s case seem to rather reflect internalized notions on class, gender and race.

The video piece uses the case of the hanging of Marie-Angélique as an investigation of postcolonial politics of memory, examining the dynamics of the Black experience as a hybrid negotiation between displaced collective memory and racialized political history.

Credits

16mm found footage to 4k
With texts by Stuart Hall, Sigmund Freud, Afua Cooper and Slavoj Žižek.

Post-production supervising by Oswaldo Toledano
Re-photography by Bogdan Stoica
Music by Christian Olsen
Sound design by Christian Olsen

Production Support

Produced with assistance by Main Film
Centre d’artistes voué au cinéma indépendant

Exhibitions | Screenings

Festival Internacional de la Imagen 2018
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victor@victor-arroyo.com