In the context of the Master Artistic Research in and through Cinema (Netherlands Film Academy – Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten), I started this research, which resulted in the research publication Future Nostalgias: A research on time, politics and affect (2021).
«Future Nostalgias researches the absence that the act of filming sometimes creates. As a consequence of placing the value of recording a moment not in the moment but in the future – a father filming his children to ascertain future memories; an activist filming a strike to help the cause – the presence of the filmmaker might fade away, as the purpose of the filming wasn’t present at the moment of filming itself.
Eventually, the resulting image might be the basis for a feeling of absence in that future, a nostalgia for something that was not really there. The image of that impasse becomes the hinge to start ‘knitting’ some thoughts on personal history and political activism.
What if the act of filming had the center of gravity in itself, and the resulting image was just a side effect? How to film in a way so as not to subordinate its meaning to a later stage that might never arrive? How to film in and for the now?
Finding the home videos from his early years gave Albert Kuhn the urge and possibility to deal with cinema and time from that perspective. As a result, he started to develop the film Dreams For A Better Past, in which he addresses his family history taking a non-linear cinematic approach.»
Master of Film, Netherlands Film Academy