Representations of female characters in cinema have the effect of othering the female in front of the viewer’s gaze. Women’s characters are constructed along the lines of their gender and race difference. In this paper I focus entirely on the character of the woman domestic worker in four films: Ilo Ilo, The Second Mother, The Maid, and At Home. The paper aims to provide a different reading of this mostly trivialized character and rethink its otherness by pinpointing it in biopolitical labor and homes of biopower, namely of affect and oppression. I am interested in how labor can reconfigure the domestic space to a heterotopia, or what I call a ‘heterooikos’, which is the space occupied by the other. Finally, I will attempt an analysis that reimagines otherness captured by cinema, by locating, in the film text, techniques of resistance as a countersuggestion to techniques of character identification. My aim is to provide a different way to interact with subaltern subjects in film by recognizing otherness as part of an ethical response.

The Holocaust is a subject that seems to defy artistic representation by way of its sheer scale of tragedy and subsequent trauma. As I will demonstrate in this paper, it is hard to restore visibility – pictorial links between past and present realities – to crimes that have been deliberately submerged by its perpetrators. I will examine some of the common strategies used in representation of the victims of the Holocaust since the end of the Second World War, in the mediums of film and photography. As my main method of enquiry, I will examine three films from different eras, and of very different approaches in terms of their processing of the proposed original evidence, as examples to illustrate my arguments. In the second chapter Alain Resnais's documentary film Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) is analyzed as a birthplace of the so-called iconography of the Holocaust. Chapter three examines workings of memory through the aesthetic form that was soon to follow; the role and testimony of the survivors is considered through Claude Lanzmann's Shoah. In the fourth chapter a new player is introduced: the second generation witness of postmemory, works of transmitted but unexperienced realities. In this chapter I will closer examine the workings of art in the game of reprocessing the evidence of the Holocaust, and through Dariusz Jablonski's film Fotoamator I aim to critique how the previously discussed approaches serve to further lock the Holocaust in an inaccessible canon. Moreover, the generalization implied – a drive toward universalization of the Holocaust as an idiom or even a metaphor for the dark sides of human history/character – derives from problems of representation; mainly that of anonymity in face of the proposed beauty of the spectacle, of tragedy and suffering in mass-media. A key problem is that any historical document, however we define one, is considered transparent and unmediated, whereas art is clearly something where a degree of mediation is necessarily recognized. In the face of this dichotomy it seems that all the collected "proof" of the Holocaust – witness accounts" photographs" films" material remains – achieves, is to stregthen the prevailing version of history.

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Mitt examensarbete bestod av både en gestaltande och en skriftlig del. Mitt arbete handlade om att göra en animerad kortfilm. Under 10 veckor animerade jag en film som kom att heta The Comet. En film om längtan, saknad och känslan av ensamhet. Till detta skrev jag också en rapport där jag redogjorde min process, inspiration, referenser, resultat och tankar kring min utställning i samband med arbetet. / My degree project consisted of both a creative and a written part. My work was about making an animated short film. For 10 weeks, I animated a movie called The Comet. A film about longing, missing and the feeling of loneliness. In addition, I also wrote a report describing my process, inspiration, references, results and thoughts about my exhibition in connection with the work.

Det finns få studier om äldre karaktärer i animerade filmer. Studierna som gjorts visar att äldre karaktärer har porträtterats på ett oproportionerligt negativt sätt. Dessa studier är nu över tio år gamla och därför behövs ny forskning som undersöker hur äldre representeras. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur äldre karaktärer porträtteras i animerad mainstream-film från år 2017 genom en analys av de fem animerade filmerna Coco, Smurfarna - Den försvunna byn, The Lego Ninjago Movie, Monsterfamiljen och Kapten Kalsong. Med hjälp av en kvalitativ och semiotisk innehållsanalys undersöks vilka identitetspositioner, narrativa funktioner, samt stereotyper och tecken som används för att porträttera äldre. Studien visar en positiv förändring av äldres representation i form av mer nyanserade karaktärer i betydelsefulla roller. De vanligaste stereotyperna kring äldre syns inte i materialet, istället används ledarroller och arketyper så som den vise. Förekomsten av äldre och ålderstecken verkar i första hand vara ett uttryck för visdom och erfarenhet snarare än som ett tecken på deras kronologiska åldrande. / There are few studies that investigate older characters in animated film. Older characters have been portrayed in a disproportionately negative manner according to previous studies. These studies were made over ten years ago, therefore new research is needed to investigate how older people are represented. The aim of this research is to examine how older characters are portrayed in mainstream animated films from 2017 by analyzing five animated films: Coco, Smurfs - The Lost Village, The Lego Ninjago Movie, Monster Family and Captain Underpants. Using a qualitative and semiotic content analysis, we investigate how identity markers, narrative functions, as well as stereotypes and signs are used to portray older people. The study shows a positive change in the representation of older people where the characters have more nuanced and important roles. The most common stereotypes around older people do not appear in these films, instead authority roles and archetypes such as the wise are used. Rather than a sign of chronological aging the appearance of elderly and signs of age primarily seems to be used to convey wisdom and experience.

This study sets out to explore the representations of disability in documentary films. Its starting point is that when such representations of disability films are under examination, one needs to take into consideration a level of complexities that come with disability, the construction and functionalities of representations, and more particularly the impact of documentary films on understanding disability. In order to address this issue, I draw upon disability theory and disability aesthetics, crip theory and crip willfulness, as well as practices of good looking, synthesising in this way a theoretical framework that responds to matters of intersectionality and criticality in relation to the analysis of representations of disability. To this end, I employ a mixed method design, which is based on participant observation, the methods of the written festival and a critical disability studies (crip) analysis for examining selected documentary films alongside a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews that were conducted with disabled viewers who attended the Emotion Pictures – Documentary and Disability Film Festival in Athens, Greece. Its findings indicate that representations of documentary films familiarise viewers with disability. This familiarisation and the development of political engagement by depicting crip killjoys are the key elements that create representations of a different context and meaning in comparison to those produced by media and fiction films. My analysis reveals that depictions of crip killjoys who are conscious of their political identity, speak out and take action are depictions that ask for political engagement. As such, they can produce good staring. Visibility and social dialogue are two of the benefits of disability film festivals that are highlighted by disabled viewers.

Abstract This paper is a study in press reception with the intent to examine how twelve female actionheroes have been portrayed in Swedish media between 1974 – 2006. The purpose is to discern patterns and differences in how the female movie character is received by their contemporary journalists and to relate their views to social and gender related theories.  The female actionhero is an independent and brutal character, often alone and without a mother or a child. This separates her from typical female roles, which historically been characterized by passivity, fear and dependency on the male characters in the movie.  The female actionhero as a character opens up for complex reception. One perspective in the research identifies the independent woman as a feministic icon. Other researchers and writers relate her masculine attributes, sexual charisma and the movies' financial driving force as a projection of male fantasies.  The summarization of the critique expressed by Swedish press journalists based on 124 movie reviews and other film related articles expose noticeable differences. From a girl who stood in the shadow of male heroes to a coarse woman who surpass them. But there are still areas in which 30 years haven’t changed a thing. Critics still fixate on the female heroe's physical appearance and her achievements are with few exceptions compared to men, and not other women. The critic reception also establishes that journalists since 1974 have become less inclined to apply gender or other social theories to the movies and female heroes. A gender related perspective is despite an independent and strong woman in the background for other perspectives while male critics are in comparison to female critics significantly more inclined to apply feministic theories to movies with female actionheroes.

This study deals with a research on what the opening sounds in movies tell us about the story that we are about to follow. The purpose is to examine if and how the sound in the first five minutes of the movie contribute in giving information about the film’s genre. The theoretical base includes both genre theory and Michel Chion’s theory on film sound. Six different movies representing different genres, countries and year of production are analyzed in an audiovisual way. The result shows that the sound in the opening sequence could describe the genre which the movie belongs to, but it doesn’t always work like this. The analysis also shows examples on movies where the sound in the beginning of the movie focus on other things, like describing place or ethnicity. In some of the movies, especially the ones that represent adventure and action, you can hear the genre very clearly. In others, for example the comedy, there is a bit harder to decide if the sound alone could tell us about which genre the movie belongs to, and if the sound is typical for that specific genre or if it could be about almost everything. Furthermore, in some movies it was quite clear that the sound concentrates on describing something else instead, for example the place where the story is set.

This master's thesis is an investigation into Xavier Dolan's depictions of queer and non-normative characters. Through close analyses of the director's first five films, this study identifies Dolan's recurring stylistics and narrative techniques, and how they relate to his cinematic representation of individuals who do not conform to society's norms. The question of how queer subjectivity is presented to the spectator of the films guides the study, which outlines different kinds of subjective images and ways of expressing the inner worlds of the protagonists. As one of the first extensive academic studies of Dolan in English, the thesis carries out a dialogue with the few existing scholarly sources on the filmmaker, while also employing theories put forward by Deleuze, Pasolini, Bonitzer and Foucault, among others. Whereas previous writings on Dolan have focused almost entirely on national aspects of his work – interpreting the films as typically Québécois – this study considers the filmmaker from an international perspective. Although being an auteur study, the thesis highlights current issues of queer self-representation and the voices of the marginalized, proposing that Dolan's work offers non-normative alternatives to heteronormative narrative structures, patriarchal storytelling conventions and traditional family constellations.

Every life tells a story. Film has proven to be a worthwhile medium in which individual lives can be told and thereby will be remembered. In recent years biographical documentaries telling significant life-stories, such as Amy (Asif Kapadia 2015), Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015) and Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010) have taken over our screens. While their narrative style often alludes to common compositions of the fictional biopic, their foundation on indexical sound and imagery makes them differ radically. In this thesis theoretical implications on how to approach and understand biographical documentary within the lager scope of biographical filmmaking are discussed. Subsequently the term biodoc is suggested. It implies a close relation to the biopic without compromising documentary film's autonomy compared to fiction film. Furthermore, this thesis sets out to move toward a theory of the biodoc. By putting together a catalog of key aspects and elements common for the biodoc and discussing them in close relation to contemporary examples of the genre, this thesis provides a first theorization of a diverse and growing phenomenon in contemporary film culture.