Abstract

A Long Night: An Animated Documentary as a Tool to Represent Difficult Knowledge
in Public Spaces: Transforming Compassion into Action
A Long Night is a 12-minute animated documentary that draws on oral narrative and uses metaphor and symbolism to explore difficult stories of illness, hunger, and torture endured by three Syrian former political prisoners who survived captivity and are now residents of Montreal. For this work of research-creation, I recruited the three narrators through my connections in the Syrian Canadian community and conducted oral history interviews to collect testimonies in the context of the Syrian political history. While the content can be challenging, A Long Night emphasizes the courage of the speakers and the importance of taking action, where possible, against injustice.
Using the framework of difficult knowledge and Foucault’s power and knowledge duality, the film references historical trauma and interprets difficult narrative while exploring its benefits in shaping a new historical consciousness that has been silenced for decades. The film A Long Night is a research-creation project that focuses on adopting strategies to guide its audience to transform their compassion into action while simultaneously being a cultural product that is easy to disseminate through social media and other accessible platforms.
Overall, feedback collected from the audience suggests that the medium of animated documentary is effective at communicating difficult narratives, such as systematic torture and mass violence. Furthermore, it can do so without alienating the audience, and may prompt positive action.