The Process (2023): Non-Professional Film Performance and Representing Embodied Trauma through Documentary

This article examines the process of collaborating with non-professional actors in the creation of a fictional audio-visual work (a documentary short film) representing forms of embodied vulnerability. It explores how non-professional actors and filmmakers can creatively and ethically utilise actors’ lived experience in the process of creating characters who themselves experience forms of trauma in the fiction like those experienced by the actors in their lives. Drawing on the findings from a collaborative research project on non-professional film performance and embodied trauma, the article examines the ethics and politics of representing trauma through a documentary film with non-professional actors. This is done through meta-critical reflection based on participant observations carried out during the documentary’s rehearsal and development process, as well as close readings of the final edit of the documentary short film.