The Fate Of The People: Film Melodrama, Class and Psychoanalysis

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This event will be held in English.

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Melodrama has often been defined by excess: of affect, of incidence, of mortality. But it has also been preoccupied with class. Originating on the Parisian stage during the French Revolution, it spoke directly to the working-classes at a time when the idea of social status as destiny was radically shaken. Reflecting on my own work as well as that of my influences – including Sirk, Fassbinder, Haynes and Zhang-Ke – I propose a journey through this ‘low’ form, one which finds a natural  marriage with the advent of the populist art form of cinema but  that is once again transformed by the arrival of psychoanalysis in Hollywood, the unconscious revealing a slippage between self and social role and thus opening a reach seam for subversive and queer-coded works. Ultimately I will attempt to redefine melodrama as a genre concerned with the violent intersection of self, society and history and that its evolution can help us understand our changing ideas about class and the human subject.

Born in Leicester to Moroccan parents, Fyzal Boulifa is a self-taught writer-director living and working between London and Morocco. His films incorporate non-professional actors to explore the mutability of identity in a working-class context. He has made two feature films, Lynn + Lucy (2020), BIFA-nominated, and The Damned Don’t Cry (2023), recipient of the New Voices, New Visions Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. His short films include Rate Me (2015) and BAFTA-nominated The Curse (2012), both awarded the Illy Prize for Best Short Film at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. He also works as a screenwriter, recently co-writing Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown (2024).

This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.

The Rendez-Vous de l’Institut Series is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

This event will be recorded and may be broadcast as part of our SNF Rendez-vous de l’Institut podcast series. By participating and asking questions, you consent to the use of your voice in this context.