Origins I. Filmic Research on Roots, the Home and Their Secrets

The research of origins, of one’s self (familiar, cultural, ethnic) roots, is a recurrent issue that occurs in several recent artistic works, experimental documentaries and multimedia masterpieces. Here it is pursued the assertion of a liquid and plural vision, turned to communitarian universes, in which every individual places himself as source of his own identity. Actually, such inquiry into one’s self beginning, becomes a linguistic research upon the patterns and the original figures of the audiovisual medium, leading to an approach in communicative conditions, featured by immediacy, intimacy and simplicity in filmic grammar. In particular, the art works I will examine (Ottonella Mocellin - Nicola Pellegrini, Messico Famigliare (2009) and Adrianne Finelli, Too Soon Too Late (2009) essentially (re-)use home movies as rough material. Finally, the purpose of this essay is to connect the introspective approach to the identity problem, both from an individual and a cultural point of view, with a consideration about the mediatic configurations implied in it.