The ‘photofilm’ (Hámos, Pratschke, Tode 2010), a film based essentially on photographs, can be conceptualized as a mnemonic tool and as a mobile archive. Just like an archive, a photofilm isboth a source and a producer of knowledge. And just like an archive, a photofilm is a performative act of remembrance negotiating visual evidence and contextual frameworks (Hall1984). Evoking the “umbilical relationship” between photography and film (Schmid 2019), the photo-film enacts an intermedial encounter that allows us to see a medium ‘otherwise’ (Hallas2023). In its self-reflexive take the photofilm raises questions about the positioning of thephotographer/filmmaker, about auteurism and self-adaptation (Mousavi 2021), about cinematic self-reflexivity, movement/stillness (Mulvey 2006) about temporality, as well as about ontologyand performativity (Azoulay 2008, Edwards 2012, 2020). This talk will look at the processes oftransmediation (Elleström 2020) at work in the photo-film. Mobilizing an intermedial perspectiveon the reuse of photography in documentary filmmaking, I argue, can help us conceptualise the photo-film as a mnemonic tool and a mobile archive. How do instances of media transformationand media representation (Elleström) contribute to creating an audiovisual archive of possibilities?

My theoretical objects for this talk will be works by filmmaker and photographer Sirkka-LiisaKonttinen from the Newcastle-based Amber film and photo collective around the urban redevelopment of Newcastle’s working-class district of Byker (Roe 2007, Leggott 2020. Konttinen’s transmedia artworks portray, explore, and curate a dynamic audiovisual archive that is constantly in the making: an urban archive in becoming, an audiovisual archive of possibilities.