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Approximations
Approximations is an experimental documentary that captures a cross-country train trip I took with a friend in January 2023. What made the train exciting was all the interesting people I met, but I had almost no footage of them. Given this restriction, I altered my limited archive of desolate landscapes through editing, voiceover, and sound design to piece together my trip and explore how documentary reshapes the truth.
Self-Portrait
Despite the title, I only appear for a few moments in my documentary Self-Portrait. Instead, I chose a circuitous method of self-representation by conducting in-depth interviews with my close friends,asking off-kilter questions like “What keeps you awake at night?” and “What are your thoughts about death?” I displaced my personal anxieties onto them and observed how they mirrored or pushed back against me. With fixed shots and limited cutting, the film uses few interventions to accentuate the discomfort of the participants and encourage the audience to consider the questions for themselves. In its simplicity, Self-Portrait tries to hold space for mortality and playfulness, dread and humor, and to capture honest if uncomfortable conversations between friends.
Sawyer Gouw Ranzetta is a writer and filmmaker from the Bay Area, California. They are in their junior year at Gallatin, concentrating in Nonfiction Storytelling with a focus on documentary, oral history, and memoir. Ranzetta’s documentary practice involves turning the outward-looking medium inward to create personal, self-reflexive docs. Their work engages with themes of mental illness, identity, and community. Their other interests include film criticism and dramatic writing.
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