From oral history to the research film: The audiovisual as a tool of the historian

Abstract

An analytical essay of the process of image production, audiovisual archive formation, analysis of sources, and creation of the filmic narrative of the four historiographic films that form the DVD set Passados presentes (Present pasts) from the Oral History and Image Laboratory of Universidade Federal Fluminense (Labhoi/UFF). From excerpts from the audiovisual archive of Labhoi and the films made, the article analyzes: how the problem of research (the memory of slavery, and the legacy of the slave song in the agrofluminense region) led us to the production of images in a research situation; the analytical shift in relation to the cinematographic documentary and the ethnographic film; the specificities of revisiting the audiovisual collection constituted by the formulation of new research problems.