ABSTRACT
This chapter centers on female traveling bodies, recording devices, and the footprint their interaction leaves by means of the filmic medium. Taking as a point of departure the notion that bodies ground us in time and place and must be scrutinized as central instruments in negotiating constructions of the ‘other’ and the self, Anne von Petersdorff-Campen explores filmic techniques that highlight the physical and social dynamics of embodied encounters of women travelers. Drawing on phenomenological approaches to film and feminist film studies, she investigates the mediation between bodies and unfamiliar contexts through her own filmic work, Wanderlust (2017), and selected scenes in Ruth Beckermann's Eine flüchtige Reise nach dem Orient (1999) and Helke Misselwitz's Tango Traum (1985). Connecting practical examples from documentary filmmaking with theoretical insight, the chapter explores how filmic techniques such as ‘haptic visuality’, ‘embodied cinematography’, and ‘embodied voice-over’ are used to cultivate a more fluid and ambiguous representation of travel experiences and how these experiences can be mediated to an audience through film.
