“In this eclectic video, Giulio uses rhythmical footage and fast montage colliding diverse elements and details consisting of archival footage materials such as a depiction of railway workers or America’s first nations, scenes from the cinematic Western genre, fragments of maps and details of railways and trajectories of movement within these roads. The important message of The Roads Are Not Innocent is the crucial importance of always challenging the universalising tendency of historiography and colonial gaze.” – The Art Columnist
Director: Giulio Gobbetti
Editor: Giulio Gobbetti
Music: Liam McConaghy
Runtime: 4’49”
Project Status: completed
Awarded a Special Mention at the New Reveries: the Power of Archive Now DocHouse Competition 2020. Festival Selection: Lift Off Sessions 2020.
Synopsis. Roads, railways and bridges were, in the height of the colonial era, hailed as emblems of modernity. In reality, colonial powers used infrastructures to exert control over their colonies. Today, this history has been sanitised: although colonisation is often condemned, there is still a narrative that sees Britain and other countries as the great exporters of progress, forgetting that progress was instrumental in both propelling the colonial drive whilst maintaining control over the territory. Through the use of archive material, The Roads are not Innocent looks at the power of infrastructure in an usual and thought-provoking way.