french video essays

Text size: A A A

About the BFI

Strategy and policy

Press releases and media enquiries

Jobs and opportunities

Join and support

Become a Member

Become a Patron

Using your BFI Membership

Corporate support

Trusts and foundations

Make a donation

Watch films on BFI Player

BFI Southbank tickets

• Follow @bfi

Watch and discover

In this section

Watch at home on BFI Player

What’s on at BFI Southbank

What’s on at BFI IMAX

BFI National Archive

Explore our festivals

BFI film releases

Read features and reviews

Read film comment from Sight & Sound

I want to…

Watch films online

Browse BFI Southbank seasons

Book a film for my cinema

Find out about international touring programmes

Learning and training

BFI Film Academy: opportunities for young creatives

Get funding to progress my creative career

Find resources and events for teachers

Join events and activities for families

BFI Reuben Library

Search the BFI National Archive collections

Browse our education events

Use film and TV in my classroom

Read research data and market intelligence

Funding and industry

Get funding and support

Search for projects funded by National Lottery

Apply for British certification and tax relief

Industry data and insights

Inclusion in the film industry

Find projects backed by the BFI

Get help as a new filmmaker and find out about NETWORK

Read industry research and statistics

Find out about booking film programmes internationally

You are here

The best video essays of 2017

It’s been another boom year for the art of movie-based movie criticism – for better and sometimes worse. We asked 33 top practitioners and scholars to pick out the best.

Kevin B. Lee , David Verdeure Updated: 10 January 2020

Web exclusive

A frame/container/frames from Charlie Lyne’s Frames and Containers

Introduction

Has the video essay become a victim of its own success? These digitally produced, critical (or at times, not-so-critical) reworkings of film and media continue to proliferate at a rate beyond what anyone can possibly keep up with. Their ubiquity marks them as a sure sign of film culture’s passage into the era of digital and social media. As an open-source method to express our media-based experiences to ourselves and others, the video essay can be seen as a powerful means by which a generation of digital natives makes sense of its contemporary condition of audiovisual over-saturation. At its best, the video essay provides a compass to navigate an ever-expanding ocean of media.

But with so many video essays being produced, we now seem to be engulfed in an ocean of compasses, as the form expands across multiple contexts. On online platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, movie fans use them to express their passion and expertise amongst peers. In film studies classrooms around the world, teachers not only use video essays as a teaching tool, but also have students make their own videos, demonstrating their ability to analyse media through media making. Video essays find their way into academic journals as supplements to (or substitutes for) text-based scholarship. They are screened in film festivals as introductions to films, or as standalone works of art. (Obversely, they’re also increasingly an object of commodification. 2017 saw more explicit attempts to harness, and thus rein in, the power of the form to serve the interest of commercial websites, from movie streaming start-ups to venerable film criticism sites. In this regard, the video essay has become a mirror of the movies it studies, prone to product placement, overzealous formatting and sequelisation.)

As video essays make their way through different venues, the same holds for video essay makers. This year began with notable video essayist kogonada premiering his first feature film, Columbus , at festivals and later in cinemas. After several years producing video essays for Fandor, Kevin B. Lee moved on to a residency with the Harun Farocki Institute . At the close of the year, the phenomenally successful video essay channel Every Frame a Painting by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos announced they would be shutting down, partly due to a waning enthusiasm for the form. In their postmortem reflection Zhou admitted : “I felt trapped by what we’d created – and also trapped by that success.”

While Zhou and others may feel their engagement with video essays is exhausted, there is no shortage of newcomers eager to take their place. As the landscape continues to both shift and expand, we wonder where exactly where can one find work that truly stands out.

In an admittedly quixotic attempt to try to make sense of an increasingly unruly landscape, we conducted the following survey with the input of peers who have demonstrated their accomplishment and enthusiasm for this field. While this is the largest video-essay poll conducted to date, there are no doubt many other great works and creators not mentioned in this poll, simply because our network hasn’t encountered them, so we should acknowledge the limitations of this exercise. Nonetheless, it may stand as a navigational device in development, mapping out just a few of the places where outstanding work in this form can be found.

— Kevin B. Lee and David Verdeure

Luís Azevedo

Video essayist

The Art and Ethics of Digital De-Aging Leigh Singer

Leigh Singer’s two-parter explores the limitations at the new frontier of CGI. His video delves into the limitations of digital de-aging and brilliantly conveys the ethical unease of digital resurrections.

The Legacy of Paranoid Thrillers Travis Lee Ratcliff

Ratcliff peruses through the history of one genre and indelibly ties it with its context, opening timely parallels with our present.

Delphine Imprisoned Ricardo Pinto de Magalhães

A gaze-challenging multi-frame experience.

The Empty Screen Mark Rappaport

A multifaceted approach to our relationship with the screen.

In Praise of Blur Richard Misek and Martine Beugnet

A poetic look at the beauty and functionality of one of cinema’s imperfections.

When Words Fail David Verdeure

A beautiful combination of graphic and sound design.

Past Futures: Nostalgia in the Age of Escapism Asher Isbrucker

An avid examination of vicarious nostalgia through the discovery of old home movies.

The Letter That Changed My Life Will Schoder

A recombination of archival footage structured around an old letter from Will’s grandfather.

Fidget Spinners: The Toy That Changed America The Nerdwriter (Evan Puschak)

A brilliant parody documentary.

Conor Bateman

Writer, video editor and managing editor of  4:3

Films desiertos: por una geopoética del desierto cinematográfico Gala Hernández

A tripartite horizon line: 2.35:1 | 1.66:1 | 1.66:1. Silhouettes move through the seemingly endless expanse in all three frames. After two minutes, the meditative qualities of this comparative framework emerge, only to be abruptly cut off by a black screen. The first part has come to a close. As for the second? Enter old hands ( Michael Snow , James Benning ) and new ( Inger Lise Hansen , Emily Richardson ).

The landscapes of Gala Hernández’s probing study Films desiertos are distinct in colour, format, texture yet they are bound across decades by similar strategies of representation: movement within and without, the scorching heat rendered as an alien barrier. The natural world is unknown, even when captured on film. The pursuit of that unknown, though, is exactly what draws us to landscape. This, in its simplicity and elegance of form, is one of the best video essays of the year.

Frames and Containers Charlie Lyne

Instructive and playful, Charlie Lyne’s first video for academic journal [in]Transition takes an Eisenstein essay as its inspiration and investigates the ideology embedded in aspect ratio. Though the obvious delights are the depth of research and eclectic selection of films, it’s the presentation that I’m most drawn to, whether in the simple but haunting music loop by Anthony Ing (more on him in a sec) or the illustration of aspect-ratio experiments hiding in plain (read: 16:9) sight. Also, “an amazingly bolshie piece of work” might just be the best throwaway line in a video essay this side of Kentucker Audley .

Frames and Containers by Charlie Lyne

Silencer Tope Ogundare

Of the videos selected as part of Mubi and Filmadrid Festival Internacional de Cine’s The Video Essay programme, a promising series filled with fascinating ideas often dampened by conventional execution, one work that stood out: Tope Ogundare’s Silencer. Beginning with white text on a black screen, Ogundare establishes a personal bugbear: if a shot is fired in an empty park in Michael Antonioni’s  Blow-Up , why can’t he recall ever hearing a gun go off?

Rather than just presenting an analysis of the film’s soundtrack himself, Ogundare positions another cinematic obsessive, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) in  The Conversation , as his surrogate. In an ingenious act of cinematic mash-up, Harry replays a conversation from Blow-Up over and over until a point of discovery is reached. But, though the video essay’s title suggests a possible solution, true confirmation is elusive. After the myriad rewinds and reversals, though, finding an abnormality is satisfying enough.

Title Drops Roman Holiday

‘Matt’, who goes under the pseudonym Roman Holiday for video essay work, is a prolific supercut maker on Vimeo. A lot of the videos he makes, though, tend to be mere catalogues (i.e. all the shots in  American Psycho filmed in close-up, presented in chronological order). That said, sometimes the effect of cataloguing works wonders. Two years ago, he made a supercut of close-ups in  Psycho that is fascinating not in terms of it conveying any pattern of composition but, much like Daniel Martinico’s cheeky  24 Second Psycho , testing the ability of the viewer to follow the plot within a much faster narrative framework.

This year, the video of his that I was drawn to was also a pointed act of context erasure. Title Drops is, as one would expect, a catalogue of film clips in which a character says the name of the film they are in. It is also gleefully nonsensical and inadvertently distressing as it goes on and on and on.

The Truth LJ Frezza

Also a supercut, but an ingenious one. LJ Frezza riffs on his brilliant Seinfeld video Nothing with another video about empty spaces, this time interior settings in episodes of The X-Files. The sheer volume of material requires some very clever editing and Frezza delivers in spades: the clashing sound of clips ratchets up tension, in a sense like the back half of Too Many Cooks.

Day After Day Anthony Ing

A masterful recut from Charlie Lyne collaborator Anthony Ing that sees Doris Day trapped in a prison of her own (movie)making. She turns a corner and travels through time and space, falls in and out of love, loses her mind and, at one brief point midway through, takes charge of narrating the story, only for control to be wrested from her by a successive line of men, who carry her off and away. In a short obsessed with identity, Jimmy Stewart’s cameo (excerpted from  The Man Who Knew Too Much ) calls to mind another Hitchcock film entirely:  Vertigo .

Motifs of Movement and Modernity Patrick Keating

I can’t really stand video essays that serve as lectures. After only two video essays, though, I know that I will always make an exception for Patrick Keating. Information dense and nimbly assembled, his videos illustrate concepts swiftly and compellingly. In the essay which accompanies the Motifs of Movement and Modernity in the journal Movie, Keating seems to hit at the heart of his fascination with the video essay form: “the audiovisual essay seems like an ideal tool for a ‘motivic’ approach to film history.” This is to say, it is the ideal format for analysis of visual motifs. I can’t think of anyone who does this kind of detailed analysis better than Keating.

I would be remiss not to mention a few other great 2017 video essays about visual motifs in film. kogonada’s  Once There Was Everything , which looks at the significance of doors in the films of Robert Bresson, harks back to his 2015 video Mirrors of Bergman .

Richard Misek and Martine Beugnet’s  In Praise of Blur , which is unfortunately not a filmic paean to Magic America but is rather a beautifully executed video essays that matches its form to its subject. And Sandra Teixeira’s Sounds of Ethnographic Experience puts two Lucien Castaing-Taylor films side by side, identifying patterns in the approach of the director and his collaborators to ethnographic study.

Ivana Brehas

The Master | The Sweetness of Freddie Film Radar

This essay is incisive, sweet, and brings up new points of view I hadn’t considered before. It reveals a context of inspiration and meaning behind The Master of which I was previously unaware (see: the references to Let There Be Light and even Baraka ). Freddie was always a captivating, mysterious character to me, but this essay helped me realise just what it was that made him so fascinating and sympathetic. The exploration of his primal motivations and behaviour is great. The formal qualities are equally lovely, it’s clear that the essayist has done their research and cares! Hooray! A very well put-together essay.

Born Sexy Yesterday   Pop Culture Detective

Pop Culture Detective has been doing great work throughout the year ( Predatory Romance in Harrison Ford Movies is a must-watch), but this one’s a standout. The infantilisation of women in our media is an epidemic that so often goes unnoticed. The trope he identifies is a harmful representation of an entire gender, and it has a real and damaging effect on women the world over.

Ex Machina, The Control of Information Lessons from the Screenplay (Michael Tucker)

Thank goodness for Michael Tucker. A lot of film education, for better or worse, can seem perpetually skewed towards directors, approaching things from their perspective only. I’m so glad that this channel exists and is focused on screenwriting specifically. My favourite thing about this essay is its great insights into all the ruthless editing that shaped Ex Machina into the sleek, sophisticated story it is today. Kill your darlings, indeed.

Why Bruno Mars’ ‘24K Magic’ Makes You Dance The Nerdwriter (Evan Puschak)

It’s nice when video essays aren’t about cinema at all. A reminder that the form has such vast potential. Plus, music history is ridiculously interesting and 24K Magic is very funky.

Philip Brubaker

Filmmaker, video essayist and podcast host of In The Queue: Film Conversations with Andrew and Phil

I gotta say, I really like parody. Not just a workaround to achieve Fair Use immunity, those videos are often very intelligent. Many video essays are self-important and pound into the viewer’s head the genius of the video’s subject, or of the essayist themselves. That said, I also like serious examples of the medium. Genuine, thoughtful analyses of film always pique my interest. If I am moved, that also endears the video essay to me.

Steven Spielberg: The Power of Touch Vince di Meglio & Matt Steinauer

Intimate and warm.

Jack Frost the Snowman Nelson Carvajal

Another seamless trailer mashup parody by someone who does them very well.  I smirked and laughed throughout.

What Is Result Direction Travis Lee Ratcliff

Great informative piece for aspiring feature film directors, like me.

She’s All That and the Power of Transformation Kentucker Audley

One of the most astute (and hilarious) takedowns of both videographic film study seriousness and Hollywood sexism.

Performing Adulthood: Mike Nichols’ “Carnal Knowledge” and “The Graduate” Luís Azevedo

Excellent use of graphics to accentuate a comprehensive reading of two like-minded films.

Women’s Time-Image Jessica McGoff

A refreshing perspective in the world of video essays.

How David Fincher Hijacks Your Eyes   The Nerdwriter (Evan Puschak)

Truly surprising insight into what makes David Fincher’s technique so captivating.

The Childhood Whimsy of Wes Anderson Philip Brubaker

There are others I’ve done that I really like, and are more scholarly, but this one is a pleasure to watch. Shared narration by my wife and I.

Darren Aronofsky’s Extreme Close-Ups Jacob T. Swinney

The supercut master.

Harry Dean Philip Brubaker

Oh, what the hell, I had an extra slot. I made this tribute for Harry Dean Stanton’s birthday, and when he died it became the most popular thing I’ve ever done on social media. Rest in peace, one of my favourite actors.

Nelson Carvajal

Video artist and founder of  FreeCinemaNow.com

Letter from Marker Luís Azevedo

Chris Marker is one of my idols, and a titan of influence in the moving image essay. In the spirit of Marker, Azevedo employs the third party voiceover trait to bring to life Marker’s writings. It reinstates the power of juxtaposing impressionistic image-making with feelings and thoughts.

The Unloved: The Mangler Scout Tafoya

Tafoya has done what so many video essayists can’t: deliver a moving performance in their narration. Time and time again his ‘Unloved’ videos come from a place of deep affection, and it’s largely due to his vocal performance.

The Coen Brothers: Raise the Evil Dead Philip Brubaker

Brubaker’s tone here wisely leans more towards mass appeal zippiness as opposed to academic knowledge-dropping. No doubt lots of the preproduction went into studying the film history details between the Coen brothers and Sam Raimi but watching this feels like watching an entertaining documentary short for a college cinematography class.

Not Another Camelot [How We Got from JACKIE to Melania] Kevin B. Lee

As one of the pillars of the video essay form, Lee once again challenges our notion on “what a video essay should look like” by manipulating the very desktop we watch our moving image content on. This was a timely piece, from the beginning of the year, when the nation was still processing the shock of the election and no less the new first lady.

Vanishing Point: a visual essay Zoya Street

What’s special about Vanishing Point is how it employs quite literally the essay ‘text’ and footnotes and brings them to life. It gives an impression on what all essays might someday look like in school English classroom, with each student typing away and editing on their tablets or smartphones.

La La Land: Movie References Sara Preciado

I’m a big employer of the side-by-side clips in many of my video essays as of late. This piece by Preciado spoke to me because I appreciated the work ethic in accumulating the clips – but, more importantly, I can identify with the artistry of finding the right moments to punctuate on, in regards to the music and feeling.

Denis Villeneuve Through Glass Mikolaj Kacprzak

Is there a bigger director working today than Denis Villeneuve ? The masterstroke here by Kacprzak is by focusing intensely on an aspect of Villeneuve’s style that is not an obvious one upon first viewings of his films. And isn’t that the ultimate point of a video essay – to show others what no one else is seeing?

Tracy Cox-Stanton

Video essayist and editor of The Cine-Files

Facing Film Johannes Binotto

This simple and concise study wonderfully brings together the classical and the avant-garde, evoking questions that are not so simple after all.

Once There was Everything kogonada

A beautiful and effective hook opens the video: the first shot of Robert Bresson ’s first film begins on a door; the final shot of his final film ends on a door. And it just gets better from there! I especially appreciate the way the voiceover adds a critical component, but leaves plenty of space for the essential noises of Bresson’s films.

The SENSES of an ENDING   Catherine Grant

A sound-a-rific example of the epigraphic video. I like the way it experiments with the text, using the same font for the film’s subtitles and the scholarly quotes, and merging the second quote with the film’s credits. As we contemplate these wonderful ideas (from Deborah Martin and Sophie Mayer) about this scene’s sensory qualities, we recognise the materiality of text as well.

The Sea Speaks Cristina Alvarez-Lopez and Adrian Martin

I sometimes wonder if it is enough to merely re-cut films and hope that, through careful juxtaposition and layering of the films’ already existing images and sounds, a video essay adds something new. While I usually desire some additional element of sound or image that is the video essayists’ alone, I think The Sea Speaks makes an evocative and effective statement merely with a montage of Jean Epstein ’s films.

The Black Screen Richard Misek

Both of these videos, as part of [In]Transition’s double issue on Indefinite Visions , offer thoughtful, playful, substantive and elegant meditations on cinematic vision.

In Praise of Blur by Richard Misek and Martine Beugnet

Ray/Godard David Verdeure and Emmanuelle André

Also from the Indefinite Visions issue, this video contemplates the “multiple image” aesthetic shared by Nicholas Ray and Jean-Luc Godard . The video offers its own exciting intervention in multiple image, suggesting three different ways it might be viewed – side-by-side, superimposed via video or (ideally) projected onto opposing sides of a semi-translucent screen.

Noir Jukebox Corey Creekmur

The video wonderfully conveys the nervous wildness of film noir , illuminating the jukebox’s role as catalyst; but it also invites us to contemplate the jukebox’s own material existence as we recognise the vitality of this sleek chunk of metal. I love the way it defamiliarises these common objects; the cash registers are amazing too.

A Woman’s Search for Meaning: Notes on Cleo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond Serena Bramble and Arielle Bernstein

An illuminating and smart study of female agency and representation in these two films by Agnès Varda . I especially like its ambitious and effective links to contemporary media texts, and the way it uses two different female narrators, mirroring the female performers’ search for meaning within the films.

Opening Choices in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious John Gibbs and Douglas Pye

A beautiful example of how videographic possibilities can enhance traditional close analysis. In particular, the video uses multiple screens and repetition (in addition to the voiceover) to demonstrate how the opening scene of Notorious (which was revised after the film was completed) illuminates the film’s key motifs.

Allison de Fren

Media maker and scholar

Age-Pocalypse Now: Digital Aging Onscreen Leigh Singer

A smart foray into not just the uncanny, but also the ethical terrain of CGI de-aging and resurrection.

An exemplary instance of what video essays do best: bringing to foreground for contemplation what normally remains invisible, in this case, the frame surrounding the cinematic image.

How Not to Adapt a Movie The Nerdwriter (Evan Puschak)

For its expert use of audiovisual rhetoric to level the kind of critique that GIS fans like me were hoping for.

A stunning cine-poem on indefinite vision.

Koyaanisqatsi and Its Complex Legacy Brows Held High by Kyle Kallgren

Breathtaking in its scope, Kallgren’s analysis had me alternately gasping and chuckling at the cultural normalisation of Koyaanisqatsi ’s (read: global capitalism’s) visual repertoire.

A masterful demonstration of how the most modern of art forms – the cinema – conveyed the experience of modernity.

The Weight of Gravity Filmscalpel

For the compelling way in which it grounds the high-tech wizardry of Gravity in cinema and art history.

Steven E. de Souza

Screenwriter and film commentator for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Premiere and Empire magazines

Noir Jukebox Cory K. Creekmur

This struck me mainly because it had never struck me in the first place. Like Waldo, once you find one Wurlitzer, damned if you don’t realize one’s lurking in every frame: with its penetration of both culture and landscape, the jukebox all but demanded a walk-on in every mid-century contemporary film. Perhaps the bane of set designers, in the hands of the right filmmakers a conveniently placed jukebox could provide diegetic content that could impact characters and viewers alike.

Born Sexy Yesterday Jonathan McIntosh, Pop Culture Detective

I watched this essay with some trepidation: with an eye on her return to the screen, I have been shepherding the current reboot of comic-book legend Will Eisner’s Sheena Queen of the Jungle character, who first appeared 80 years ago, a year before Superman and four years before that Jane-come-lately Wonder Woman. Every month, this trope lurks like quicksand on the edges of our storytelling, but I was relieved to see we seem to be in sync with McIntosh’s message to future tale spinners: innocence is not sexy; knowledge and experience are. (Yes, she’s still drawn sexy… but by women.)

Goodbye Uncanny Valley Alan Warburton

While not ostensibly a film essay, Warburton segues into tentpole movies, and overall builds a case that the audience’s presumption that CGI is undetectable has brought us to a point where an audience aware that anything they see on screen can be fabricated can come to question everything they see.

This commanded my attention because, like John Snow (the epidemiologist, not the King of the North), Warburton has identified the well that’s poisoned the soul of the audience with an insidious virus which leaves its victims indifferent to special effects for effects sake: call it CGI Fatigue. Like the virus that compels Amazonian carpet ants to climb tall leaves of grass until their brains explode, this one compels audiences to stay home, making studio executives’ brains explode.

Goodbye Uncanny Valley by Alan Warburton

How Action Movies are Spectacular… and Boring Science of Editing Series, This Guy Edits/Sven Pape & Dr Karen Pearlman

In a perfect companion piece to Warburton, Sven Pape and Dr Karen Pearlman don’t flag computer graphics per se as a contributor to the boredom factor setting in with current blockbusters, instead defining their bête noire  as ‘spectacle’, and its cardinal sin as interrupting emotional narrative. However, as most of the examples they cite are chock-a-block with CGI, their critique leaves the door open for further debate: is a spectacular sequence dependent on cast and crew rather than zeroes and ones permissible, even at the risk of narrativus interruptus ?

One of the key points of Alan Warburton’s Goodbye, Uncanny Valley (above) is that widely available and increasingly powerful software suites have made CGI so ubiquitous across all media that we have arrived at a post-truth era, when knowing that anything can be fabricated, the audience may soon trust nothing… fertile ground for the seed of doubt a Jingo Appleseed could plant and call Fake News… 

How an 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger Film Predicted Our Future Daniel Oberhaus / Motherboard

So, last, and probably least (as this selection could be accused of nepotism, or more accurately, onanism), this essay claims Fake News and much more of our 2017 gestalt was prefigured 30 years ago.

Daniel Clarkson Fisher

Video activist and student in the MFA documentary media programme at Ryerson University

Lyne does absolutely first-rate work here, grappling with Sergei Eisenstein ’s essay The Dynamic Square and the “enduring cinematic tussle between frame and container”. Engaging, inspired and downright revelatory, this is what video essayism is all about.

A Thin Red Photogram: Regarding a Millisecond in Malick’s Antiwar Epic RW

A closer look at a deliberately inserted, nanosecond-long flash of red in Terrence Malick’s 1998 masterpiece The Thin Red Line is only the beginning of this brilliantly impressionistic meditation on the use of red in war films. ‘RW’ also considers the colour’s relationship to blood, nationalism, emotion and the rest of the cinematographic palette in films like Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985).

Ultimately, the essay makes a very convincing case that Malick’s use of the colour is unique among war films, and “goes hand in hand with [The Thin Red Line’s] endeavour to awaken us to the wonders of what [the character Witt] defines as ‘another world’, which is actually a different way of perceiving and co-inhabiting this world, the only one we have.”

This paean to Chris Marker was hands-down the most beautiful and eminently rewatchable video essay I saw this year; the way that Azevedo weaves together the mighty essay filmmaker’s words (read by Marta Pereira) with footage from the work itself is both exquisitely and insightfully done. Committed Marker disciples will be in hog heaven, and it definitely serves as an enticing entry point for the uninitiated.

Letter from Marker by Luís Azevedo

A Male Eye. John Berger Marina Trigueros

In commemoration of the eminent art critic, Trigueros reads passages from his classic Ways of Seeing over footage from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished 1964 film L’Enfer . It’s the perfect way of illustrating how film often reflects Berger’s observations about the male gaze.

Cameraperson to Person Conor Bateman

Kirsten Johnson’s 2016 documentary ‘memoir’ Cameraperson employed a singular, almost indefinable structure to tell its story. Bateman heads to his editing timeline to break it down in this ingenious exploration of a monumentally great film.

The Unloved – Beloved Scout Tafoya

This heartfelt tribute to the late Jonathan Demme argues that the director’s largely ignored 1998 adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel is actually “his magnum opus.” With emotion apparent in his voice by the end, Tafoya finds in Demme’s uniquely humanitarian cinema a clarion call to viewers: “We must always move forward, and find it in our hearts to love with abandon.”

WTF IS THAT? The Pre- and Post-Cinematic Tendencies of Paranormal Activity Allison de Fren and Brian Cantrell

Responding to Steve Shaviro’s article The Glitch Dimension: Paranormal Activity and the Technologies of Vision , de Fren and Cantrell underscore how the Paranormal Activity series scares its audience using a range of techniques, including those pre- (eg anamorphosis) and post-cinematic (eg glitch art). It’s a perceptive look at how this seemingly vapid series actually tells us a lot about where visual art has been and where it seems to be going.

The Future Doesn’t Exist Until We Get There: Musical Power in Ava DuVernay’s I Will Follow (2010) and Middle of Nowhere (2012) Meghan Joyce Tozer

Video essayists have really slept on the work of Ava DuVernay . No more, I think, after this excellent analysis of the use of music in her first two narrative films. Created for the 2017 Music and the Moving Image Conference , Tozer’s video essay makes clear how, “by musically privileging the perspectives of black, female characters in both films, [DuVernay, singer-composer Kathryn Bostic and music supervisor Morgan Rhodes] subtly encourage the audience to empathise with the real, underrepresented people who share those characters’ identities,” as well as “create a literal and figurative second voice through which the protagonists’ experiences are communicated”.

Storaro on Color: Bulworth Michael Mclennan

Overlaying comments from cinematographer Vittorio Storaro onto footage from director Warren Beatty’s underappreciated 1998 satire , Mclennan creates here an essential little masterclass in storytelling with colour. It’s straightforward, but elegantly so.

#movieofmylife   Kevin B. Lee  (for the Locarno Film Festival)

Lee’s contribution to the Locarno Film Festival’s #movieofmylife series is both a touching remembrance of his grandfather and a meaningful rumination on the intrinsically personal nature of our relationship with films (in this particular case, Yasujirō Ozu’s 1953 classic Tokyo Story ).

Chloé Galibert-Laîné

This year I started teaching a ‘history of the video essay’ class in Paris, which gave me a great opportunity both to (re)discover the French scene and to follow my students’ recommendations. I was very impressed by the diversity of formats I discovered and thought it could be useful to contribute a selection of French videos:

The oldest source of French video essays, together with Allociné’s more popular but less substantial equivalent, is the online series Blow Up, produced for Arte by Luc Lagier since 2010. Lagier himself has produced many great videos this year, but also invited several filmmakers and researchers to contribute to the series, including:

Jake Gyllenhal par Laetitia Masson Laetitia Masson

Masson’s videos are always personal letters to actors (or sometimes directors).

Vous connaissez Ret Kid – adaptation turque de Lucky Luke? Trufo

In his videos, Trufo investigates long forgotten (or lost) films, documenting his research process.

I was really impressed by the formal creativity that is demonstrated by French YouTubers when they talk about cinema. One defining feature is the key role acting plays in these videos, with the narrators taking on a theatrical part, with a costume, a specific language, a fictional name…

The Devil’s Rejects Le Fossoyeur de films (aka François Theurel)

The most famous French video essayist, Theurel has been producing video essays for over five years. In them he embodies the fictional character of a gravedigger looking for old B-movies.

Le miracle de l’image documentaire Les Chroniques du désert rouge (aka Baptiste Sibony)

A more confidential, younger channel, the form of which is closer to the standards of international video essays production, using film excerpts and an analytical voiceover.

Room 237 – Cinéphile facile #14 Amazing Lucy (aka Lucie Bellet)

A female voice in this ocean of male cinephiles, Bellet does a great job bringing together analysis and humour, film excerpts and Internet imagery, with a very compelling editing style. Her reading of Room 237 is amazing.

Unknown Movies #26 – Final Cut INTHEPANDA (aka Victor Bonnefoy)

Another popular channel with a very intriguing format, where the narrator presents himself as a serial killer passionate for cinema, and where the analytical moments of the video are embedded in long fictional scenes.

Fictional mashups: besides the unclassifiable Mozinor, who has been producing incredibly popular ‘détournements’ of movie scenes for over ten years, several French filmmakers have been producing great mashups this year. (Though Fabrice Mathieu alas didn’t produce anything as great as his short film In the shadows)

Hell’s Club Official Antonio Maria Da Silva

“There is a place where all fictional characters meet… Outside of time, outside of all logic, this place is known as HELL’S CLUB.”

Munchsferatu Julien Lahmi

Also artistic director of the Mash Up Film Festival , his films are creative reappropriations of film clips, embedded in a new narrative.

Video essays about new media:

Internet a tué la télé? – NEON FLIM

A newcomer on YouTube who is developing a promising format, using a laptop and video projections.

Tu mens Simon Puech

Mainly known for his videos on videogames, this YouTuber has launched a new ‘concept’ last year for two-minute videos about contemporary society and new media that are worth watching, if only to observe an original use of film clips.

Ian Garwood

Video essayist and Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, University of Glasgow

To manage this task, I decided to focus on audiovisual essays published in the last year that have used voiceover/disembodied voices in particularly illuminating, thought-provoking and evocative ways:

Simulacrum (for Carrie Fisher) Catherine Grant

The Thinking Machine 4: Wish I Had a River Cristina Alvarez Lopez and Adrian Martin

A Male Eye: John Berger Marina Trigueros

Dubbing: Making the Voice Visible Bea Domeova

Motifs of Movement and Modernity by Patrick Keating

Procedural: Zodiac and the Digital Cityscape Conor Bateman

My Crush Was a Superstar Chloé Galibert-Laîné

Peet Gelderblom

Director, editor, video essayist

On a general note: I’ve seen a lot of unimaginative appreciations and easy clickbait this year. Is it interesting enough for a video essay to summarise an actor, director, genre or cinematic technique by simply presenting a few superficial qualities, sprinkled with dummy-proof titles and crappy stock music? I would hope not. The growing greed for more eyeballs and a fear of legal issues aren’t exactly helping the genre forward.

What I look out for are video essays that offer unique perspectives, creative deconstructions and, ultimately, new ways of seeing. Give me a viewpoint that truly informs, opens or tickles the mind.

My favourite of the year:

How David Fincher Hijacks Your Eyes The Nerdwriter (Evan Puschak)

A perfectly executed, eye-opening video essay by the always interesting Evan Puschak, who goes so far as filming himself in the style of David Fincher to make his point. I thought I had picked up on just about every directing tactic filmmaker Fincher deploys. And yet this video essay showed me something I had overlooked – that Fincher’s typical way of using the camera is intrinsically linked to his main obsession: human behaviour over time.

How David Fincher Hijacks Your Eyes by Evan ‘The Nerdwriter’ Puschak)

I also enjoyed:

The Art of David Lynch Menno Kooistra (VoorDeFilm)

Menno is a friend of mine and I know him as a film enthusiast in the most exuberant sense of the word. With this video essay he delivers a very measured, purely visual piece that puts the work of David Lynch side to side to its surreal inspirations.

Strange Continuity Adam D’Arpino (Aeon Video)

Some of the ideas in this video have been explored before by Walter Murch in his book In The Blink of an Eye, but it is refreshing to see a similar philosophy explained in audiovisual terms. What this also proves is that video essays can be made by a collective: Adam D’Arpino based it on an essay by Jeffrey M Zacks, uses Karl Miller as narrator, music by YACHT/Dave Depper and opens with hand-drawn animation (!) by Ermina Takenova.

Jacques Tati, Where to Find Visual Comedy Andrew Saladino (The Royal Ocean Film Comedy)

A video essay offering plenty of smiles.

Honourable mention:

The visually and intellectually striking lectures of John P. Hess ( Filmmaker IQ )

Ethan Gilbert

Video essay enthusiast

John Williams and the universal language of film music Dan Golding

Koyaanisqatsi and Its Complex Legacy Brows Held High

Koyaanisqatsi and Its Complex Legacy by Brows Held High

The Power of VHS | SCANLINE H. Bomberguy and Shannon Strucci

Rogue One: A Star Wars Legacy Sideways

Framing Megan Fox – Feminist Theory Part 3 | The Whole Plate: Episode 7 Lindsey Ellis

PlayTime, Controlled Chaos The Royal Ocean Film Society

Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda Folding Ideas

Daniel Golding

Academic and video essayist

Master of None: iPhone and Bicycle Thieves Nelson Carvajal

La La Land, Movie References Sara Preciado

Two of my favourite video essays this year work in very similar ways: they’re simply unadorned comparisons between recent screen works and the films from which they take inspiration. I’m including them here because they’re both the kind of video essay that seems to make itself in really obvious and uninteresting ways, but in both cases actually revealed more about the work than I was anticipating. I found both Master of None and La La Land ’s homages to be pretty uninspiring on first viewing, but these videos illustrate that there’s both more and less at work than I had seen.

Tramp The Dirt Down, Landscape in Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Turkey Shoot (1982) Conor Bateman

This clever and sardonic video essay takes a great work of Australian trash and makes it precisely what it is not.

Catherine Grant

Professor of digital media and screen studies, Birkbeck, University of London

1.  My crush was a superstar Chloé Galibert-Laîné

2. A Male Eye. John Berger Marina Trigueros

3. “Twin Peaks: The Return”, Then He Kissed Me and The Thinking Machine 9: The Sea Speaks Cristina Alvarez López and Adrian Martin

4. In Praise of Blur Martine Beugnet and Richard Misek

5. Frames and containers Charlie Lyne

6. Dead Time Catherine Fowler, Claire Perkins, and Andrea Rassell

7. Goodbye Uncanny Valley Alan Warburton

8. Why a Blockbuster is Spectacular and Boring Sven Pape/“This Guy Edits” and Dr Karen Pearlman

9. An Introduction to Terence Davies’s SUNSET SONG Oswald Iten  (or watch it in German )

10. FACING FILM Johannes Binotto

11. Cat People as Meshwork Tracy Cox Stanton

The Per una controstoria del cinema italiano /Towards a Counter History of Italian Cinema project organised by Filmidée and Chiara Grizzaffi with multiple videos and authors.  Watch the trailer here .

Chiara Grizzaffi

Scholar and Co-editor, [in]Transition

I have had the privilege to watch and to contribute to the publication of many groundbreaking video essays this year. Besides all of them (I would never be able to choose just one or a few!), these are my coups de foudre :

I Furrow My Own Film Inside Those I Pass Through Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Not a Grand Dame Catherine Grant

The Sound of JACKIE Oswald Iten

Missing Episode Ross Sutherland and Charlie Lyne

#movieofmylife Kevin B. Lee  (for the Locarno Film Festival)

#movieofmylife by Kevin B. Lee

H. Perry Horton

Video content editor, One Perfect Shot and creator @CinemaGrids

12 Angry Men – A Lesson in Staging Andrew Saladino/The Royal Ocean Film Society

The Graduate, Exploring the Generation Gap Jack’s Movie Reviews

Camera Angles and Movement: Analyzing the Coin Toss Scenes in No Country For Old Men Sareesh Sudhakaran / wolfcrow

Kelly Reichardt: “Elaborated Time” Travis Lee Ratcliff

Abiding the Gulf War: In the Parlance of Our Times Bradley Weatherholt / Ministry of Cinema

You Can Change Your Nickname Only Twice: Identity in the Films of Yorgos Lanthimos Conor Bateman

Where a Gun Begins Larry Erens / Filmscalpel

Rear Window, Turning Audience into Voyeur Matt Draper

Oswald Iten

Scholar and video essayist

Telefoni Neri Hannah Leiss (all eyes | all ears)

This feels like a short film about the inability to communicate and the melancholy inherent in some of my favourite Italian films. The rhythm is just perfect and I love the fact that it’s achieved without additional music.

Raging Bull, and Cut. Jop Leuven (Love of Film)

A simple concept with a strong impact. Even though I have analysed this scene for Raging Bull several times before, the visual fracturing made me see it in a different light, as if my perception of time had altered for those few minutes. Besides, I learned a thing or two about how my eyes constantly wander around all the frames on the screen, even though only one contains movement.

This Land of Broken Dreams Catherine Grant

The disparate layers of image, music and words effortlessly work as one. Probably because the music and the spoken words seemed to be competing I actually paid attention to the lyrics of the well-known song What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted? for the very first time.

Special mention:

How Wonder Woman’s theme music went from bombastic to smart Dan Golding

Maybe not a favourite but still important to me because Golding’s film music analyses are unusually well-informed and he actively takes part in the ongoing video essay ‘conversation’ about the quality of current blockbuster film music.

Rishi Kaneria

Filmmaker and video essayist

There’s so much good content out there in terms of video essays, yet so much of it feels the same. Some may not readily identify my main pick as a video essay, but it stood out to me:

history of the entire world, i guess Bill Wurtz

…which I choose for its creativity, energy, unique voice and ambition. In addition to all the comfort food in the video-essay genre, I also enjoy seeing things I’ve never seen before, and content that challenges our expectations and stretches the definition of ‘video essay’. As a content creator myself this video fills me with excitement and a feeling of endless possibility. And that keeps me inspired.

A Brief History of Radiohead Pitchfork

Sting’s Name Change Blank on Blank

Why cartoon characters wear gloves Vox

The Partition of India and Pakistan, Explained Al Jazeera

Young Thug, Wyclef Jean [Official Video] Young Thug

How Do You Edit an Animated Film The Royal Ocean Film Society

What To Do If Your Parachute Fails austinmcconnell

Inglourious Basterds, The Elements of Suspense Lessons from the Screenplay

How Not to be Boring The School of Life

Miklós Kiss

Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies at the University of Groningen, NL / co-author of Film Studies in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

This highly informative video, one among the most educationally potent works of 2017, looks into “the other side of Uncanny Valley’. Following a rapid and illuminating walkthrough of the history and frontier of the phenomenon, claiming that the photorealistic CGI has won (meaning that image technology has already bridged the uncanny valley), this well-structured video gives a glimpse into the future of computer-generated renders in the domains of post-truth reality, post-cinema and theoretical photorealism.

The Museum of Lars Von Trier, Art References Titouan Ropert

This simple split-screen video elevates the ‘know’ genre (of comparative videos revealing artistic influences) by sensitive editing and subtle animations, blurring the line between expertly sampled fine-art references and Von Trier’s moving images.

The Magnificent Anders(s)ons, The Look of Reality Luís Azevedo, Beyond the Frame

I’m normally the last one to fall for such a title, comparing apple-Wes with pear-Roy, just because of their names’ similarity. But then comes Luís, with his trademark deadpan narration, tons of research, playful jokes and one of the most fluid editing styles I’ve seen, and I’m already bought at the five-minute mark of this 15-minute treadmill of bright insights.

In terms of videographic expression there’s nothing new here. Still, this concentrated juxtaposition of blurry images – gently supercut and sensitively interpreted by Misek – is a powerful reminder of what cinema could be but, through its technological efforts for visual ‘perfection’, perhaps less and less is. As Misek puts it: “A brief respite from the visual precision of the ultra-high definition image.”

Puschak is probably the most fluent video essayist out there. His effortless style stands out, whether breaking down jokes (of Louis CK … I know, still), analysing sound (when Listening to Blade Runner ) or even saving a mediocre film by reshuffling its plot ( Passengers, Rearranged ).

My choice went for his Fincher video, showing that little camera movement trick that has been always there yet which most of us have failed to spot. Alongside these masterfully crafted videos, it would be highly educational to watch a Nerdwriter video about how the Nerdwriter makes a video.

Denis Lavant Wins Michael McLennan

A well-thought, well-done little idea: a running competition among film protagonists while listening to David Bowie’s Modern Love. Make it loud (and wait for the joke at the end)!

Kevin B. Lee

Filmmaker and critic

Ecstasy Hu Di

The Empty Screen by Mark Rappaport

Koyaanisqatsi and Its Complex Legacy Kyle Kallgren (Brows Held High)

Snake Oil for Niggertown Fever Steven Boone

What Happened to Her Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

Où en êtes-vous, Christian Petzold? Christian Petzold and Christoph Hochhausler

Wyclef Jean Ryan Staake and Young Thug

Honorable mentions:

The 2017 Chris Marker Legacy Awards (for most Markeresque video essays) goes to Letter from Marker  by Luis Azevedo, and Once There Was Everything  by kogonada.

The Video Essaying Film History Award goes to the  Per una controstoria del cinema italiano  (Towards a Counter History of Italian Cinema) project organised by Filmidée and Chiara Grizzaffi, and Motifs of Movement and Modernity by Patrick Keating.

Charlie Lyne

The Hollow Coin Frank Heath

Rat Film Theo Anthony

The Whole Plate (series) Lindsay Ellis

The Zen in: Cuphead Goldvision

Silica Pia Borg

The Art of Editing and Suicide Squad Dan Olson

I Am Not Your Negro Raoul Peck

Once There Was Everything kogonada

Once There Was Everything by kogonada

Jessica McGoff

Consent in Cinema Ivana Brehas

I saw this video at the start of this year, admired its personal quality and was drawn to its sense of anger. It articulated the frustration that comes with watching art made by abusive men. Now, after more and more of this abuse continues to come to light, it plays as vital and prescient.

WTF IS THAT? The Pre- and Post-Cinematic Tendencies of Paranormal Activity Allison De Fren and Brian Cantrell

The video essay, itself fitting comfortably within post-cinematic discourse, can be an excellent tool to explore post-cinematic tendencies. This essay does so informatively and engagingly, whilst also taking the study of genre seriously.

AT THE LIMIT (Or, Vice Versa) Catherine Grant

Deleuze studies lends itself well to the format of the video essay, so much of it involving play, remix, becomings. This essay so elegantly and artfully provokes thought. Catherine Grant continues to be at the forefront of using the medium to do so.

My favourite thing about this video essay is how it puts a film out in to the world. It talks of Tokyo Story not just as study of object but as a material presence. Briefly, but with a deep sense of emotion, it communicates cinema’s tangibility within and upon our lives.

If Lee’s video signals cinema out in the tangible world, Lyne’s video explores the ‘containment’ of it within the screen. This video has a cogent grasp on the realities of watching cinema in the digital era, and vividly updates theory to suit the malleability of the frames it offers us.

Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy Daniel Mcilwraith

This video presents an engaging exploration of a trilogy that perhaps best sums up Kiarostami’s work. The video balances play with a sense of investigation, mirroring the trilogy’s approach. Made just a few months after Kiarostami’s death, it also serves as a reminder of all that we lost.

Daniel McIlwraith

The Swamp (La Ciénaga): a videoessay Monica Delgado

The SENSES of an ENDING Catherine Grant

The SENSES of an ENDING by Catherine Grant

Richard Misek

Filmmaker and academic

My two favourite video essays of 2017 are Charlie Lyne’s Frames and Containers and Mark Rappaport’s The Empty Screen . In approach they are each other’s opposite: Lyne’s history of aspect ratios is conversational and expository, Rappaport’s collage of film clips featuring cinema screens is sparsely worded and oblique.

Yet in a way they are also each other’s mirror. Lyne’s video demonstrates how films have adapted to fit new containers such as web browsers, mobile screens and VR headsets; Rappaport’s video demonstrates how, long before the LCD screen, the cinema screen was already a physical (even tactile) interface between viewer and image.

I highly recommend both, together. Lyne’s for the provocative questions that it poses about how cinema can find a place for itself within emergent media; Rappaport’s for its reminder of what, despite the multiplicity of screens in the world, makes the cinema screen such a singular and powerful object.

Jason Mittell

Professor of American studies and film and media culture

Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix Jennifer Proctor

The two best video essays I saw this year are not (yet) publicly available online, as both filmmakers are screening them in festivals. Together they make a powerful but disturbing pair, sharing approaches, topics, and attitudes. What Happened to Her compiles scenes of dead women from crime films and television; Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix assembles images of women in bathtubs across cinematic history. But neither would be seen as a “supercut,” as each is expertly crafted in their argumentation and design, and together make a powerful case for the impact of video essays as a means of feminist critique.

This is the best video essay I saw this year that’s available freely online. It starts as a polished and sophisticated version of an explanatory work of film history, exploring particular facets of camera movement in early Hollywood. Then slowly it becomes a form of visual poetry, expressing its arguments through its unexpected motion and captivating frame design.

In Praise of Blur Martine Beugnet and Richard Misek

When done right, a video essay both reveals new ideas about its topic, often calling our attention to something we’ve seen but never noticed, and creates a compelling aesthetic experience in its own right. This hypnotically poetic collaborative video has made me notice blurred images in my everyday viewing, and reframed them as a compelling way to see the world.

Like Keating’s piece, Lyne’s video focuses our attention to frames within a larger container, presenting a series of ideas and concepts that are native to the videographic form, seemingly requiring this method to present its compelling arguments.

Screenwriter and managing editor of No Film School

The Handmaid’s Tale: Framing Strong Women ScreenPrism

How Does Horror Comedy Work? Patrick H. Willems

Hayao Miyazaki’s Cosmologics Adrian Randall

Captain Fantastic: The Unofficial Reading List Hint of Film

Best Shots of All Time CineFix

Wes Anderson: Set Design Candice Drouet of Really Dim

My Favorite Movie Memory: The Tragicomedy Now You See It

Scorsese Onscreen Fandor

Moonlight Explained: Symbols, Camera, and More ScreenPrism

Milk in Movies: Why Do Characters Drink It? Now You See It

By far, the most memorable video essay of the year for me was ScreenPrism’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Framing Strong Women. It just totally eviscerated that show’s metaphors, motifs, themes and cinematography. I loved it and truly learned a lot.

Speaking of ScreenPrism… they’ve really been killing it. I can always count on them for beefy, in-depth film studies.

Leigh Singer

Film writer and video essayist

Unseen Screens: Eye Tracking, Magic And Misdirection Tessa Dwyer & Jenny Robinson

Letter From Marker Luis Azevedo

Why Horror VHS Artwork Was So F*Cked Up Adam Tinius

Stalker, Sculpting In Sound Alpha Alpaca Pack

John Williams and the Universal Language of Film Music Dan Golding

The 3 rd Shot: Superimposition in Film Philip Brubaker

How David Fincher Uses Pop Music The Discarded Image

Showing Realistic Grief: Manchester by the Sea Thomas Flight

Jacob T. Swinney

One Way to Deconstruct There Will Be Blood – or any movie by The Nerdwriter (Evan Puschak)

Quentin Tarantino: The Feminist Filmmaker?   Philip Brubaker

These Are Films That Influenced The Master   Philip Brubaker

Alfred Hitchcock // Point of View   Jorge Luengo Ruiz

The Directors Series – The Coen Brothers/Christopher Nolan   Raccord

Scout Tafoya

Director, critic, video essayist

Facing Film by Johannes Binotto

INTERVIEW Sofia Coppola: The Beguiled and Before the Shining Candice Drouet

Alien: Covenant – Art References Herrozzy (Santana Lopez)

Letter from Marker and Greta Moves Luís Azevedo

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Abstractions Camila Ausente

Milad Tangshir

Reflexive Memories: The Images of the Cine-Essay Nelson Carvajal

Irina Trocan

Film critic and researcher

By now there are so many good video essays being made that I’ve given up trying to be objective. Here is my top ten, favouring personal stylistic preferences and cinematic interests and striving to strike some sort of overall balance, but without a doubt, all of them are really, really noteworthy. A couple of them are student works, which really proves that video-essay-making is (also) a vocation!

New Forms of Racism in the Post-Cinematic Dispositif v2 Jace Alexander Casey

It’s hard for written criticism to keep up with the minute alterations of digital images, showing them allows for more accuracy of detail. This robot-narrated, split-screen comparison in audiovisual makes a persuasive point about racial effacement in CGI-heavy blockbusters.

The Thinking Machine 6: Pieces of Spaces Adrian Martin & Cristina Alvarez-Lopez

Quoting from a film can severely distort the meaning of the excerpt, so AV essays aren’t always necessarily direct. It gets even trickier when dealing with sensitive material, and in this case, a ‘found footage’ film, Peter Tscherkassky’s experimental Outer Space is compared to its ‘raw’ source, Sidney J. Furie’s narrative fiction film The Entity.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN ascending length Jason Mittell

How much to quote from a film to still fall under the Fair Use provision? Two minutes? Ten minutes? How about all of it? Jason Mittell’s rearrangement of Singin’ in the Rain by shot length gives a good sense of its rhythm and the various types of narrative tropes within it, but obviously it does not replace or even resemble the experience of watching the original film.

The ever-growing body of fictional images can be used to tell a different story than the ones they were shot to narrate. This montage of naked young women’s corpses from male-detective-centred TV shows and thrillers exposes their inherent voyeurism. Do the detectives prove themselves by fighting for doing justice to the fragile victims who lay helpless in front of them? Yeah, but only after taking a good look.

There’s structure in poetry, as this video essay argues with the evidence on screen: Kirsten Johnson’s work autobiography shows the unacknowledged director behind the cinematographer, and this video essay shows the editor behind her.

Cameraperson to Person by Conor Bateman

The Sound of Jackie Oswald Iten

Film sound is transient, and this makes it difficult to analyse in specific terms, but this video essay shows it’s by now means impossible. Commenting on Mica Levi’s soundtrack for Jackie, it resorts to repetition and precise visuals, in various shades of pink, following the film’s lead.

Showing and telling at its best, with the occasional punchline thrown in, it analyses the film frame throughout the cinematic/theoretic past, browser-window present and the five-minutes-in-the-future promise of VR.

I do hope that, in their quest for legitimacy, video essays will not collectively forget to be lighthearted. This mashup of Jack Frost and The Snowman trailer has many inspired visual solutions and is surely preferable to watching either of the two films.

Delphine Aprisonada Ricardo Pinto de Magalhães

Delphine Seyrig has worked with so many indisputable auteurs that hardly any critical attention focuses on her authorship within the films. With split-screens that overcome the challenge of harmonising very different rhythms of narration, this video is an ode to a goddess of opaque film acting.

Per una controstoria del cinema italiano Filmidee

Video essays, ideally, have more freedom in retelling the history of cinema than canon-comprehensive, the-world-history-in-fifteen-hours audiovisual histories. It can also evoke film memory rather than compress it, a supercut with the mischiefs of Totò can spark nostalgia in viewers who know him, only to become creepy by accumulation. This series is the result of an initiation into video essays, avoids the most famous Italian directors and shifts gears often enough to keep spectators guessing, three excellent reasons to trick this poll by naming a series rather than a single title.

David Verdeure

Filmscalpel

It’s been a strange year. For video essays too. It seemed like the political turmoil and tribulations sucked the air out of the internet, making it hard for anything else to thrive or even survive in that online space. Making and watching video essays felt frivolous, given the state of reality.

Then again, the best video essays find ways to create their own atmosphere and to breathe life into art and reality. They reshape the object of their studies into a visual form that is both a revelatory end-point and a provocative starting point for further exploration. And sometimes they’re a little frivolous.

Here are ten such essays, in alphabetical order.

The Eternal Virgin Jorge Suárez-Quiñones Rivas

For the way this hypnotic study of Setsuko Hara, the favourite actress of Yasujirō Ozu, adopts the formal rigour of Ozu himself.

For its comprehensive and creative charting of the past, present and future of CGI in cinema and the visual arts.

For the aesthetic pleasure of seeing its on-screen texts not only comment on but also commune with its images.

Lego Movie Oswald Iten

For its methodical and keenly observed look at how state-of-the-art CGI is used to mimic more rudimentary forms of animation.

The Sea Speaks Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

For the way this poetic montage of Jean Epstein excerpts floats ideas of femininity and the maritime.

The Sea Speaks by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Sergei / Sir Gay Mark Rappaport

For its inventive, inquisitive and irreverent exploration of Eisenstein’s sexuality.

Shining360 Claire Hentschker

For its use of 360 degrees and VR technology to create a visualisation that is both an architectural wonder and a warped mindscape.

Star Tribute Videos Catherine Grant

For the way Grant uses these homages to get not just to the heart of the deceased performers, but also of her own cinephilia.

Tramp the Dirt Down Conor Bateman

For its ingenious (and revelatory) parody of an Ozploitation classic. (And because Bateman’s Zodiac and the Digital Cityscape could also be on this list, for the eloquent and elegant way in which it ties together film and video games, criticism and academia, futurism and nostalgia).

Tension & Horror in Comics Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

For the astute ways in which this series of sequential art analysis videos dissects visual storytelling.

2017 in review: all our coverage

See all our coverage

The Digital Edition and Archive quick link

Log in here to your digital edition and archive subscription, take a look at the packages on offer and buy a subscription.

Access the digital edition

Further reading

Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent

The essay film

Andrew Tracy , Katy McGahan , Olaf Möller , Sergio Wolf , Nina Power

Reach for the heavens: Vertical Cinema at Rotterdam 2014

Michael Pattison

The best video essays of 2018

David Verdeure , Irina Trocan

The best video essays of 2019

Ariel Avissar , Will DiGravio , Grace Lee

Back to the top

Commercial and licensing

BFI distribution

Archive content sales and licensing

BFI book releases and trade sales

Selling to the BFI

Terms of use

BFI Southbank purchases

Online community guidelines

Cookies and privacy

©2024 British Film Institute. All rights reserved. Registered charity 287780.

See something different

Subscribe now for exclusive offers and the best of cinema. Hand-picked.

The best video essays of 2022

Our annual celebration of audiovisual essays polled 44 international voters and includes recommendations of more than 180 videos.

For the sixth edition , the Sight and Sound poll for the best video essays of the year has one consistent trait: diversity. The more frequent formats of YouTube explainer videos and Vimeo-published cinephile formal play/educational endeavours remain predominant, but are not singularly representative. The nominated titles range from exceptional TikTok content (which doesn’t even take the title for brevity – competing against a 30-second montage) to short or feature-length essay films, documentaries, as well as art museum/gallery installations and live performances in academic contexts.

The 2022 video essay retrospective was compiled with the help of 44 voters (from 21 countries) for the ‘Best of’ or ‘ Emerging voices ’ sections. The contributors bring in their expertise as video essayists (several of whom earned nominations in the poll from their peers), film/art critics, film-studies academics (professors, researchers) and festival curators, collectively building a list of 250 nominations, or 181 distinct titles.

Considering how the definition of ‘video essay’ varies depending on the voter, it’s no surprise that the length of one such work produces even less consensus. The average runtime is 23.2 minutes, although 70% of nominated videos are 20-minutes or shorter, with some nominations reaching 3 to 6 hours in length. 

While it has never been the case in the audiovisual realm that ‘best’ and ‘most popular’ are overlapping concepts, our video round-up reveals an almost shocking disparity in this respect. Platform-produced view counts range from single-digit numbers to above 10 million, in the case of Dan Olson’s acclaimed take on NFT s, and several million views for works by Andew Saladino/Royal Ocean Film Society and Jacob Geller. 

Streaming is, however, just one possible venue for the dissemination of digital audiovisual essays, and perhaps not the most transparent one (let’s remember that intentionally watching 30 seconds on YouTube counts as a ‘view’). About a dozen titles nominated by our voters have screened in cinemas. Others were made for film/media studies classrooms and conferences. It’s worth noting that academic events either large ( NECS , Visible Evidence, SCMS ) or specialised (‘Interrogating the Modes of Videographic Criticism’ and ‘Videoessays and Academic Filmmaking: Practices, Pedagogies and Potentials’ at Aarhus University, the Theory and Practice of the Video Essay Conference at UM ass Amherst) have helped part of the videographic community stay in touch throughout the year. 

Further, many titles below were published in academic journals. The well-known [in]Transition (represented in the poll by 11 titles), NECSUS (8 nominations) and Tecmerin (6 titles) are joined by fellow scholarly publications in welcoming audiovisual work (Open Screens published Liz Greene’s multi-nominated Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name; MSMI commissioned Evelyn Kreutzer’s Footsteps, and 16:9, Movie and Journal of Embodied Research also get mentioned).

In the overwhelming volume of possible videos to watch and share, making a choice involves either bookmarking or acknowledging published work. Among the handful of tenacious video essayists and publications whose fine work periodically inspires rhapsodic descriptions, several titles get nominated repeatedly – to name only three makers, Johannes Binotto, Liz Greene and Barbara Zecchi get 14, 9, and 8 mentions, respectively, in the poll. Most titles or authors, however, are mentioned – ‘bookmarked’ – only once, which to us increases the archival value of every contributor’s discoveries. Interestingly, some voters have decided on self-imposed limitations, either by topic (eg. video games), length (keeping all nominated titles short), the cinematic power of nominated videos or defining ‘noteworthy’ as videos one can learn from, etc. Many have expressed their difficulty in choosing just one video by a certain maker.

In thematic terms, cinema is still the prevalent topic, and several of the oft-voted titles tackle familiar subjects in peculiar or innovative ways: intertextual comparison (Hoffman’s Maria’s Marias), deformative criticism (O’Leary’s Men Shouting), archival reconstruction or even fantasising (Zecchi’s video essay on Flor de España), memory and audiovisual language (the Once upon a Screen series, the Art & Trash works on noir, and several of the films made for/prone to festival screenings.)

The corollary of cultural memory, oppressive erasure, also haunts works like Spencer Bell or Eva Hageman’s Shiplap. Johannes Binotto’s continued series Practices of Viewing invites viewers to take distance from contemporary/historical viewer habits. Technology makes its appearance thematically, whether in a discussion of state-of-the art visual effects (whose artisans go unacknowledged and poorly paid), a debunking of NFT myths or a survey of wellness apps employing cognitive-behavioural therapy.

One recurring motif had to do with sound and the moving image, whether in the second NECSUS issue on ‘Sound and the audiovisual essay’ or in less theoretically bent edits. Score and soundtrack were as instructive as sound design and silence. Matthew Tomkinson’s [wings flapping] remixes clips throughout an economic 30-second work. Even when sound is not the topic, multiple nominees were noted for their own inventive sound design techniques. kaptainkristian (Kristian T. Williams) explores two works from seemingly dissimilar mediums in Cowboy Bebop x Blade Runner – Cycle of Influence, revealing how they are in concert together, creating an illuminating experience specifically through sound design.

The deliberate use or absence of sound was another theme found throughout this year’s nominees. Breaking the Silence and Singing by Barbara Zecchi is but one notable, multiple nominee that plays with the filmic modes alongside its source material. Ian Garwood’s careful analysis of pop songs’ place in scholarly video essays curiously intersects with Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin’s lyrical demonstration of Marianne Faithful’s nouvelle vague aura in Thinking Machine #58: As Tears Go By.

Labelling nominated works by country (a very approximate move, in the realm of independent digital production), the list includes 26 different nations, though with clearly uneven presence – the US still dominates the chart, many countries appear through one nomination, and often the frequency of one country is determined by individuals (Stephen Broomer, Colleen Laird and Dayna McLeod represent Canada almost by themselves). However, the fact that long-standing venues of global cinephilia like MUBI , Little White Lies and Desistfilm support video essays is encouraging. The partnership between MUBI and FILMMADRID produced six nominees by different creators in a range of languages about films from all around the world. While the poll continues to be awash with English language videos, this year featured contributions in Farsi, French, German, Czech, Icelandic and Spanish, just to name a few. Maryam Tafakory’s brilliant Nazarbazi was nominated by six different contributors, and unfolds in both Farsi and English.

Throughout the year, as this community has gathered both online and in person at various film festivals and conferences, those in attendance as both presenters and spectators have been able to similarly work in concert. As the association of video essayists grows, the boundaries of the videographic form expand, and the multi-authored Hands of the Future is further evidence. The desktop documentary has become one of the most popular emerging modes of criticism, with more than 10 nominees inviting their audiences into their personal screens. It also provides the starting point for Cormac Donnelly’s Can I Remember It Differently?, which takes as its subject matter revisiting Minority Report (2002) but uses a whole array of videographic techniques to peel back the layers.

Donnelly’s piece is just one of the multiple videos nominated from [in]Transition’s series, Once upon a Screen: vol. 2. Edited by Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer, the volume features videos from numerous creators – working with each other’s materials to different ends – challenged to create around the theme of memory, a prompt that led to an array of analyses as varied as their methodologies. With four mentions in the 2022 poll, the TV Dictionary was yet another collection curated by Ariel Avissar for the second year in a row that proved to be a well of inspiration. The structure of the exercise invites creators to play within the set parameters to their hearts’ desire, to colour both inside and outside of the lines.

Further, what is made clear throughout the poll’s nominations is how much this is in fact a welcoming and interconnected community, beyond social media affordances that we’ve learned throughout the years to distrust. We hope this poll is a due celebration and self-examination of the videographic community’s great potential and a catalyst for future inspiration. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Most nominated videos

Liz Greene’s Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name earned 7 mentions, whereas Maryam Tafakory’s Nazarbazi , Eva Hageman’s Shiplap and Maria Hoffman’s Maria’s Marias all got 6 mentions. Cormac Donnelly’s Can I Remember It Differently? was mentioned 5 times, among other nods to videos from the Once upon a Screen series. Kreutzer’s Footsteps , the collaborative Hands of the Future and Binotto’s Synced also got 5 mentions. The Filmkrant Thinking Machine series by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin is represented in the poll by 7 different videos.

Ariel Avissar

Johannes binotto, philip józef brubaker, nelson carvajal, tracy cox-stanton, will digravio, chloé galibert-laîné, ian garwood, jacob geller, tomas genevičius, libertad gills, catherine grant, chiara grizzaffi, delphine jeanneret, miklós kiss, jaap kooijman, evelyn kreutzer, kevin b. lee, adrian martin, daniel mcilwraith, queline meadows, jason mittell, carlos natálio, nuria cubas, javier h. estrada and gabriel doménech, alan o’l eary, inney prakash, julian ross, josé sarmiento, jemma saunders, dan schindel, meg shields, shannon strucci, scout tafoya, max tohline, irina trocan, david verdeure, ricardo vieira lisboa, barbara zecchi, all the votes.

Film theorist, curator and occasional video essayist, Charles University in Prague and Národní filmový archiv

Punctured Sky by Jon Rafman

Rafman again embarks on a journey through the most bizarre places, memories, and artefacts of our online culture, a hauntological quest for a computer game from his youth that is riddled with detours, stutters, and clues that go nowhere. This time, Rafman’s trip involves passages familiar from desktop documentaries, disclosing software interfaces and search engines as fundamentally unable to find what we truly want and trapping us in endless loops of desire. Punctured Sky highlights the difficulties of rescuing our formative experiences with old video games and early internet aesthetics within the bounds of ubiquitous nostalgia and its vicious circles.

Safari(Browser)_The_Nature_of my_Computer.mov by Megan Dieudonné and Andrea Rüthel

This precious discovery from the 2022 Marienbad Film Festival also adopts the form of a desktop documentary. It focuses on images that almost every computer user from the 2000s took for granted – the default Windows and Mac wallpapers. Pictures of idyllic, unobtrusive landscapes that served as a pleasant background for our everyday encounters with software landscapes of a much more complicated kind. The authors treat these visual equivalents of Kenny G songs seriously, searching for the provenance of the original photos and the ‘real-life’ places they depicted and speculating on the wallpapers’ ideological functions and their possible alternatives.

Skin Pleasure by Marius Packbier and Aïlien Reyns

Skin Pleasure showcases the strengths of audiovisual research by examining not only specific objects but also the conditions under which researchers engage with them. The video essay confronts us with a counter-image of watching online pornography, showing us the interface (or ‘skin’) between the perceiving subject and the Brobdingnagian mass of titillating videos. The essay transcends the subject-object boundaries by inventing new ways of clouding, obscuring, and blurring our vision of recognisable figures (yet without ever withdrawing from figuration altogether). If there ever was a case study of haptic criticism, it is this film.

Can I Remember It Differently? by Cormac Donnelly, inspired by a memory text by Ariel Avissar

In my favourite piece from the Once upon a Screen project, Cormac Donnelly attempts to remember his feelings about Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002). Here the author reaches beyond the desktop and employs physical archival sources such as film magazine reviews, marketing material, a CD - ROM press kit, or a Nokia mobile phone to refresh his recollections. The interplay of online and physical materials, guided by a personal voice-over and clever split-screen structure, captures the transitional period of the early 2000s quite effectively. Overall, the video essay’s playful yet historically authentic approach is something that makes it stand out.

Filling (Feeling) the Archival Void: The Case of Helena Cortesina’s Flor de España by Barbara Zecchi

Another videographic essay with archival ambition and whimsical undertones concentrates on the first female-directed Spanish film that did not survive in any material form. The essay is a speculative exercise in reconstructing a missing film through alternative historical sources (the preserved film synopsis, photographs, posters, newspapers, scenes from contemporary silent films, etc). Again, a strong authorial presence makes these archival snippets meaningful and enables Zecchi to reconcile subjective imagination with historical validity. In doing so, the archival void of Flor de España becomes filled with possible histories as well as possible futures.

Home When You Return by Carl Elsaesser

This homage to Joan Thurber Baldwin’s amateur melodramas from the 1950s proposes yet another answer to how a certain archival void – this time of a film genre – could be filled with speculative yet historically relevant content. The melodrama that Elsaesser aims to recover is not precisely that of glossy visuals and exaggerated emotions but that of unfulfilled longing. Empty interiors of a classic 1950s home infiltrated by blurred faces, fleeting voices, and letter excerpts render melodrama through the viewpoint of reflective nostalgia, a history that cannot be restored and survives only in the form of indistinct spectres.

Murky Waters: Submerging in an Aesthetics of Non-transparency by Jaap Kooijman and Patricia Pisters At first glance, Kooijman’s and Pisters’ work could resemble another supercut – a compilation of swimming pool scenes from mainstream cinema. However, the crystal-clear water surfaces soon start to descend into opaque, unknowable depths. Thanks to the meticulous editing, sound design, and, above all, superimpositions, the video essay portrays this journey to the other side of life with frightening easiness.

[Back to top]

Video essayist and media scholar at Tel Aviv University

The Writing Process by Colleen Laird

Colleen Laird is one to watch out for. A newcomer to the field, her work is impeccably impressive (impressively impeccable?) right off the bat, and always fun to watch. It was difficult to pick which of her videos to spotlight here, so it might as well be this one.

Tennis | House by Kevin L. Ferguson

Not gonna say anything about this one – just give it a watch. Be prepared to be confused in the beginning (or possibly all the way through?).

What the Internet Did to Garfield by Super Eyepatch Wolf

The best feature-length video essay presented by a guy wearing a Garfield costume you’ll see all year. Not for the faint of heart.

Empowering the Accent: An (Accented) Video-essay   by Barbara Zecchi

A riff on/response to Ian Garwood’s The Place of Voiceover in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism , this reflection on the accented voice is as playful as it is timely.

TV Dictionary – I May Destroy You by Joy Hunter

I told myself I’d never pick a video made for a project I organised myself for one of these polls, but Joy Hunter’s take on I May Destroy You is just that good.

The Great Wedding Day Supercut by Yaron Baruch

140 weddings from 10 decades of cinema, skilfully edited into 18 minutes of pure, unadulterated matrimonial bliss.

And be on the lookout for these fantastic unpublished works, which may or may not become publicly available in the coming months:

• Knit One, Stab Two  by Alison Peirse
• Young (Woman) Filmmaker(s)  by Katie Bird
• GeoMarkr  by Chloé Galibert-Laîné
• Music Video Space by Mathias Korsgaard

Lecturer in media and cultural studies, video bricolageur, leading videoessayresearch.org

Breaking the Silence and Singing by Barbara Zecchi

“The voice of protest is the voice of another which seems to have bred in us the instinct to enjoy and fight rather than to suffer and understand.” Virginia Woolf

When I hear a voice it means that I become its vessel, literally and physically. In order to be audible your voice must resonate in me. Again.

Once upon a Screen: Can I Remember It Differently? by Cormac Donnelly

Films change when our life changes. In this beautifully delicate, tender and thoughtful video, analytical re-watching becomes an almost therapeutic endeavour. I know the feeling when certain films by including just the slightest hint at a child’s harm have become unwatchable. But there is something so soothing and so wise in Cormac’s piece that through video essay means we can counter not only films but also our own anxieties. Wasn’t it Godard who insisted that film history should be not just about what was, but what could have been, what still could be?

her eyes, in other words, her mouth by Maíra Mendes Galvão

This essay reminds me of a whole series of videos I was so lucky to see when teaching two workshops at UM ass Amherst. But I am particularly struck by this one by Maíra for its combination of a deceivingly reduced form and radical closeness which turns the video into an experience both visceral and explosive. I will never ever be able to watch Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962) with the same eyes again. And if you watch Maíra’s video you will know that I mean this literally.

L’unique. Maria Casarès. 1922-2022 by Carmen Ciller and Irene Azuag

I am ashamed to admit that I wasn’t aware of the actress Maria Casarès. I had never seen the full film by Cocteau, and the clips I knew only showcased Jean Marais. All the more this video essay has put a spell on me, convincing me that at the centre of Orphée (1950), probably unbeknown to its director and critics, there was always someone else. Even if I don’t speak the video’s language, I think I fully understand – hypnosis does not depend on linguistics. It’s this video that I have running endlessly on my screen.

Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name by Liz Greene

Showing is not repeating. The late bell hooks’ call for an oppositional gaze which allows to find “spaces of resistance” even within the most toxic material, is taken literally by Liz Greene. This reversal of a racist film does not erase the violence and abuse the film is both proof of and instrument for. How could it? But Liz’s reading against the grain of the film’s narrative allows that something else can be seen than what was intended. It makes me aware of my responsibilities in what and how I watch, and of its emancipatory potentialities.

Simultaneous Tensions: The Duo-Vision of Wicked, Wicked by Stephen Broomer, Art &  Trash

My list had to include a piece by Stephen Broomer whose experimental films fascinate me but whom I got to know as a video essayist only this year through his brilliant series Art & Trash. There are too many titles I could pick, but I am drawn to this one in particular, because, when I first watched it, I had the video accidentally played a second time in the background. This resulted in a very confusing soundtrack of double takes – so fitting to the video and to Stephen’s videos in general: They always ring twice. And more.

Maschinenmensch by Wickham Flannagan, Batuhan Buldu, Ruya Nese

We are quick to say that sitting in a cinema is not only a visual but a body-altering experience. We have read all the theoretical texts about it. But rarely have I seen it made felt so harshly, so disturbingly, and so uncannily like in this video. But please be warned and don’t watch this unprepared. I fear a trigger warning is in place here.

TV Dictionary — The Leftovers by Ariel Avissar

I need to include this not because I consider it Ariel’s best but because it is testament not only to the brilliance and addictiveness of the still going strong TV Dictionary series but also to the playfulness, cleverness, and sheer generosity of its inventor. I can’t think of another initiative that made so many finally try their first video essay, while also reinvigorating all the pros.

Bold Decade Films

Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name   by Liz Greene

Greene plays the video clips that feature forgotten actor Spencer Bell in reverse while she narrates the injustices the black thespian faced in Hollywood in the early golden age of cinema. The otherworldly body movements are interesting, but come to a brilliant apotheosis when Bell appears to be pulled backwards by a lightning bolt that captures him like a rope. The poetic entrapment for a black character actor is a potent visual in a video essay that otherwise features many academic touchstones and Greene’s consistent narration that seeks to right a wrong in Hollywood history.

Solaris-2001-McKenna-2022 by Brian D. McKenna - Offscreen

McKenna posits that Tarkovsky’s Solaris is a direct reaction to Kubrick’s 2001, and he juxtaposes many synced movie clips to demonstrate his thesis. I may not agree with him, but I could look at these juxtapositions all day, from sheer admiration for technical interplay between the two films. He wisely ends his narration midway through and allows the films to talk to one another; films which are allowed to play simultaneously, much like a Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz experiment.

Synced by Johannes Binotto

Binotto excels at interacting with his video subjects, in this case a dreamy scene of French teenagers dancing under coloured lights. By stepping through the scene frame by frame, Binotto transforms the media object by nearly (and then literally) touching it. He also has a talent for not letting his narration slip into academic-speak and he repeatedly shows how what matters most in a video is what movie fans love: the feel of the film.

Bicentennial Yang by Nelson Carvajal

Carvajal has a great talent for mashing up two tangentially related movies and creating trailers for a new, imaginary film. His command of narrative is why I chose this new work of his. I haven’t seen Bicentennial Man or After Yang, and yet because of his editing, their merger is seamless and crystal clear.

Bid Up by Will DiGravio

Personal Shopper as Vlog by Alessia Duarte, Laura Fritschi und Naomi Jackson

The Unloved, Part 104: Ambulance by Scout Tafoya

Why THE BATMAN Is So Beautiful by Patrick Tomasso

Are TV Shows Now Being Shot for TikTok? by Kevin B. Lee

Captain Marvel as Military Propaganda by Tony Ninov

Professor at Savannah College of Art and Design, founder and editor of The Cine-Files

I have selected the five videos that make up the collection Sound and the Audiovisual Essay Part 2, edited by Liz Greene in NECSUS . Each of these videos is wonderful in its own right, but together they represent a brilliant intervention in audiovisual approaches to the study of sound – so diverse, lively and rich!

Synced by Johannes Binnotto

The Place of the Pop Song in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism by Ian Garwood

Le Plaisir: Voices and Viewpoints   by John Gibbs and Douglas Pye

Irresistible Instrumentalism: Materially Thinking Through Music-making in the Story Worlds of Silent Films   by Catherine Grant

The Gravity of the Acousmêtre: Listening via the Radio and Through Paratext in Film by Liz Greene

Host,  The Video Essay Podcast ; creator, Notes on Videographic Criticism

These seven videos/projects/films, for me, epitomise the greatness of this form: they provide a new way of seeing and engaging with familiar images, sounds, and mediums. Each taught me how to be a better watcher, listener, and reader. They inspired me, and I look forward to returning to them time and time again in the years to come.

Shiplap by Eva Hageman

Beginning with clips from HGTV programming, Hageman analyses the history of ‘shiplap’ through the lens of Waco, Texas, unpacking its racist roots and revealing its hidden, violent history. Construction, reconstruction, deconstruction, all take on new meanings in this video, both as it relates to the process of videographic criticism and the content of the work itself. What sticks with me though is Hageman’s remarkable voiceover, guiding us through this “American nightmare.”

Speaking Nearby by Amaya Bañuelos Marco

Video essays offer a unique way to shape one’s own viewing choices. Not until watching this fantastic piece did I finally watch Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage (1982) and Margot Benacerraf’s Araya (1959). I not only found a way into these films because of this work, but my experience was enriched – and my understanding deepened – as a result of watching all three together.

Accidentally Sexist – How to Rewrite an Icky Scene by Afterthoughts

An analysis of a single, sexist scene becomes a wide-ranging video about sexist writing, sexism in professional athletics and e-sports, bad writing, talking about sexism online, the nature of analysis and persuasion, and so much more. Through a mix of virtuosic pacing and editing, coupled with a voiceover that guides us through each step of the way, this video by Afterthoughts is a new gold standard for me in how video essays can engage in close analysis to not only better understand a scene, but make its audience better viewers.

Makeover Movie by Sue Ding

A superb deconstruction of the makeover movie trope featuring the thoughts and conversation of the director’s friends as they watch a cut of the video. What sits with me is the ways in which this video blends together the experiences of individuals with the remixed films to understand the degree of universality that can often be found in the deeply personal.

A deeply moving, personal, political, and revelatory work that showcases the potentials of videographic criticism as it relates to the archive. Video essays can not only animate the archive, but attempt to fill, as this video essay does, voids in the archive. A work that charts the way forward for what video essays can do and be.

Las Marías de María / Maria’s Marias by Maria Hoffman

Multiscreen juxtaposition sits at the foundation of videographic criticism. In this video, Hofmann places The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965) beside “its almost unknown German original,” Die Trapp-Familie (Liebeneier, 1956) to challenge the cultural and critical histories of the film. With a mix of archival audio pulled from various sources, the video will leave anyone who watches it with a new and greater understanding of Wise’s film (and a desire to watch Liebeneier’s), showcasing the power of this form to alter our engagement with otherwise familiar images and sounds.

Footsteps by Evelyn Kreutzer

A personal anecdote comes to inform a reading of a key motif in Hitchcock’s films: sounds of feet. Though the films of Hitchcock are the corpus from which this video draws, it becomes about the sounds of feet in film in general, and thus how we interpret them in our own lives, through the screen or otherwise.

Video essayist, senior researcher at the Lucerne School of Art and Design (Switzerland)

My selection profiles practitioners whose videographic work I discovered this year – being either newcomers to the field, or makers who weren’t yet on my personal radar.

Meeting Meat Joy by Chloé Lavalette and Rémi Dauvergne

Based on a deep, clumsy and humorous Skype encounter between French researcher Chloé Lavalette and legendary artist Carolee Schneemann, this evocative experimental essay explores whether – and at what costs – spectators should help artworks escape the intentionality of their authors and the zeitgeist in which they were made, and questions the contemporary affordances of a certain feminist legacy.

So I Didn’t Sleep Very Well Last Night by Dayna McLeod

Produced in the context of the amazing Sociability of Sleep collective research project, this hilarious video performs as a dream confessional as much as a playful exploration of the aesthetics of social media filtering, while gently poking at female (self-)representation in visual media and mainstream culture.

Ob Scena by Paloma Orlandini Castro

A thoughtful exploration of the aesthetics and politics of online pornography, this video essay features one of my favourite videographic dispositif of 2022: a projection box with hand drawings on transparent layers, used here to demonstrate the genitalia-centredness of most pornographic visual compositions.

Crushed by Ella Rocca

A playful, moving and brave desktop exploration of what it means to have a ‘crush’ on somebody. I was especially drawn to the way this video essay incorporates interview footage in the flow of screen recordings – the intimate conversation between the two protagonists reintroducing reciprocality and otherness into what might have otherwise remained a distanced foray into the arguably creepy mechanisms of online stalking.

Echos of Dreams by Emily Su Bin Ko

Having only seen it once, my memory of this video essay is as free-floating as I remember its narration to be. I was most struck by its intermingling of found footage and performative re-enactment, as well as its evocative exploration of what ties together spectatorial (female) identification and embodiment.

Navigators by Noah Teichner

As challenging as it is gratifying to watch, Noah Teichner’s years-in-the-making, feature-length Navigators revisits an episode of anarchist history through a careful re-editing of Buster Keaton’s filmography. Shot and edited entirely on 16 and 35mm film, the essay unfolds as a both rigorous and poetic work of visual and literary historiography.

Senior lecturer in film and television studies, University of Glasgow

My list contains video essays that fall under five minutes. There are a couple of motivations for establishing this arbitrary temporal parameter. Maybe it’s just me, but aren’t video essays getting longer these days, in the world of the YouTube monologue, but also that of the academic journal? Yet, the time available to view them hasn’t been extended, so it might be useful to highlight some short, sharp examples of the form. Also, in my teaching, I routinely ask students to produce work within miserly time constraints, so this list provides an illustration of what can be achieved within those limits.

[wings flapping] by Matthew Tomkinson

TV Dictionary — Line of Duty by Lucy Fife Donaldson

Improbable Dialogism or the Art of Flying by Barbara Zecchi

True Enough by Chloé Galibert-Laîné

Lost Wave by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Philosophical Frameworks and Feminist Praxes in Lady Bird (Gerwig, 2017) by Rob Stone

I know this exceeds my arbitrary time limit, but this is actually comprised of three videos, two of which are under five minutes. Even if the third comes in at a mighty 11 minutes (and one second), it still retains the other two’s trailer-like properties, each serving as an accompaniment to ideas also explored in the longer form of a monograph.

Video essayist, writer about games/art/phenomena

in this one i die and go to hell. by Leo Vader

After slipping on a toy car and knocking himself out, Leo has an extended argument about going to hell with a divine version of himself. It’s funny in the way only a Leo Vader video can be (“Oh, the Youtuber who jacked off all the time? I’m sorry, we actually had you in the Mother Theresa section”), while simultaneously reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of knowing our actions are largely meaningless while still attempting to live well.

Gears Through the Years: A Gears of War Campaign Retrospective by Noah Caldwell-Gervais

Noah applies his razor-sharp thematic analysis to the gore-soaked shooters in the “Gears of War” game series and emerges with a surprisingly nuanced portrait of how military valorisation influences a society and the individuals within it. An exhaustive but eminently watchable video that ultimately reclaims Gears of War as far more than a bro-y cover shooter.

Cowboy Bebop x Blade Runner — Cycle of Influence (feat. Spike) by kaptainkristian

Within the worlds of Blade Runner and Cowboy Bebop, style is inextricable from substance. Kaptainkristian delivers on this legacy with a stunningly edited meditation on the influence each property had on the other. The script is lovely and it ends with Steve Blum reciting the tears in rain speech (!), but the visuals are where the essay truly shines, blending together Blade Runner and Bebop so effectively they meld into one unbroken dystopic flow.

The Thinking Machine #62: The Cinematographer’s Signature by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

A good video essay is probably something that shows not only what can’t be described in words, but also what can’t be seen at first glance. Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin’s essay on cinematographer Michael Ballhaus’ virtuoso shot in The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) once again demonstrates the duo’s virtuosity.

Closing Distance: The Cosmic View, the Terrestrial Horizon, and Jean-Claude Labrecque’s Essai à la mille by Stephen Broomer

Borrowed Dreams: Joseph Cornell and the Archive as Psychic Imprint by Stephen Broomer

These are two excellent video essays (among many others) by Stephen Broomer about experimental filmmakers Jean-Claude Labrecque and Joseph Cornell who are often undeservedly forgotten in the global context of film history. An intriguing analysis of film language and techniques.

Hands of the Future by Sabrina D. Marques, Mehdi Jahan, Dan Shoval, Adrian Martin (Voiceover)

Trapped in the eternal moment of the present, the characters in this wonderful essay confirm their creator’s statement that “each hand is like a screen yet to be filled by a movie”.

Le Plaisir: Voices and Viewpoints by John Gibbs and Douglas Pye

“Good criticism should imply a conversation”, claim John Gibbs and Douglas Pye. Their dialogic video essay form was inspired by Max Ophuls’ wonderful Le Plaisir (1952), and the end result is a great example of metacriticism.

Once upon a Screen: Radical Elsewhere by Philip Józef Brubaker

Gilles Deleuze’s ideas, and especially his warning about the danger of being caught in other people’s dreams, continue to inspire great films and video essays. And that familiar feeling that the movie knew me better than I knew myself.

I’m always interested in video essays’ attempts to analyse the relationship between video and sound. Johannes Binotto shows that the coupling of optics and acoustics in cinema has never been taken for granted and that it is still an area open to experimentation.

Audiovisual essayist and professor of film at the University of Reading

Tracing the Threads of Influence: George Hoyningen-Huene and Les Girls (1957) by Lucy Fife Donaldson

Dance, Camera, Dance: Directorial Choreography in the Live Anthology Drama by Peter Labuza

Temporal Ghosts | David Lowery’s A Ghost Story  by Enrique Saunders

Filmmaker, video essayist , researcher and film professor at Universidad de las Artes.

GeoMarkr by Chloé Galibert-Laîné

Smart, fun and exciting video essay, full of surprises.

The Hands of the Future by Sabrina D. Marques, Mehdi Jahan, Dan Shoval, Adrian Martin (Voiceover)

One of my favourite subjects in film. Beautifully done and covering a wide range of films.

Letter Across Oceans: To Tiziana Panizza / Carta a través de los océanos: A Tiziana Panizza by Catherine Grant and Paul Merchant

An epistolary video essay on one of the most brilliant filmmakers working today.

Four Ways to Be a Woman Artist… According to the Movies by Susan Felleman

The first video essay by Felleman, on a very interesting subject. Hard to forget this video essay because the tendencies it describes continue to be reproduced in contemporary film and TV .

Zohra, The Second Woman by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Video essay on the haunting presence of actress Zohra Lampert in two films, Opening Night (John Cassavetes, 1977) and Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961).

Paisaje — Movimiento by Mariana Daniela Torres Valencia

Beautiful meditation on the work of Artavazd Peleshyán; full of texture, colour and movement.

Screen media-maker and publisher of scholarly video essays, and a former professor of screen studies.

I thought I might retire from voting after last year’s S&S poll. I was convinced otherwise by the amazing scope and quality of this year’s videographic criticism in my own academic field of film, television and screen studies. All the videos below have scholarly value, but all are also powerful and beautiful films that work amazingly well on big and small screens in the wider public domain, and in film festivals, too.

Nazarbazi   by Maryam Tafakory

My absolute favourite was Maryam Tafakory’s latest exquisite work Nazarbazi. This film will last the test of time, but also speaks so potently to our present moment.

We published Shiplap at [in]Transition , where it was brilliantly evaluated by two wonderful peer reviewers Terri Francis and Brandy Monk-Payton. Everyone should read their thoughts on it. For me, the work showed how one can make politically and intellectually important work about the most banal vernacular forms of throwaway television in poetic and haunting ways.

Liz’s work gets more and more powerful and pertinent with each passing year. She is a truly outstanding practice-researcher working with videographic criticism, and deserves all the awards and accolades she receives. Spencer Bell… is the first published part of a new research project she has begun on The Wizard of Oz universe. She made another of my favourite video essays this year as part of her academic research The Gravity of the Acousmêtre , published at NECSUS .

Mirror, Mirror by Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer

My favourite video in the Once upon a Screen vol. 2 collection on formative movie experiences, led by Avissar and Kreutzer, which we’re publishing at [in]Transition . The entire collection is brilliant. But Mirror, Mirror epitomises the project as a whole and is the most amazingly collaborative videographic work, incorporating the texts, editing, voices, and filmic and televisual references of five participants: Avissar, Kreutzer, Barbara Zecchi, Alan O’L eary, Maria Hofmann, who contributed other videos and texts to the project, with Johannes Binotto, Philip Brubaker, Cormac Donnelly, Jiří Anger Veronika Hanakova, Clair Richards, Julia Schoenheit, Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Gregory Brophy and Will Webb.

Mad Men’s Babylon by Ariane Hudelet

Intertextuality – “the shaping of a text’s meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, or by interconnections between similar or related works perceived by an audience or reader of the text” [Wikipedia] – is always my favourite scholarly subject, and this video is always going to be my favourite video on that subject. Hudelet weaves a virtuosic videographic argument of magisterial proportions and beauty. Love it!

Practices of Viewing: Screenshot by Johannes Binotto

Johannes has had another astonishingly inspiring year of videographic production, of which the Practices of Viewing series is probably the peak. It’s hard just to choose one PoV work from him, but Screenshot is the one that returns to my mind most often, so it definitely gets my vote. I can’t wait to see what Johannes makes next. He is an artist and a scholar of the most important kind – someone who works with his most personal vulnerabilities and his practical inventiveness, as well as with his incredible breadth of knowledge and learning.

The Thinking Machine #61: Rose // Eros by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

My favourite video essayist duo continues to produce the highest quality work week in week out, including for their amazing Filmkrant column The Thinking Machine . It’s hard to choose just one work by these makers (I also love no. 55 The Unbreakable Frame ), but no. 61 Rose // Eros is just the most beautiful video one can imagine on my second favourite subject: intratextuality – the study of internal aesthetic and textual connections. It teaches us about the motifs, figures and transformations in Werner Schroeter’s 1986 masterpiece The Rose King and is a masterpiece itself in so doing.

Associate professor in film and sonic arts, Northumbria University

I have not had the opportunity to watch widely this year. Instead, my list (in alphabetical order) includes works that chime closely with my area of research into sound, music, David Lynch, and archival studies. Some of these works are by established video essayists and some are by researchers/artists new to publishing in this form. I find all of these works to be an inspiration. 

Johannes Binotto offers a compelling example of sync and the early use of Walkman sound in film, unpicking theories of film sound, the split subject, and disruption on screen. Like much of Binotto’s work, the elegance of the piece is frame perfect.

Lucy Fife Donaldson’s account of George Hoyningen-Huene’s contribution and collaborations with George Cukor, Gene Allen and Orry-Kelly is a thorough investigation drawing from archival research. This audiovisual essay was published in December 2022 in Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, issue 10 .

Ian Garwood riffs on his Indy Vinyl project by producing an audiovisual essay that considers how pop music is and can most effectively be used in this format. Garwood details the influence of other practitioners on his approaches to the audiovisual essay and points to how to best do this work audiovisually.

John Gibbs and Douglas Pye allow us to listen in the dark to their binaural recording of a conversation about Max Ophuls’ Le Plaisir (1952). This requires time and a sustained listening session but the rewards are as pleasurable as they are illuminating.

Irresistible Instrumentalism: Materially Thinking Through Music-making in the Story Worlds of Silent Films by Catherine Grant

Catherine Grant investigates musical accompaniment in early film through remix practice and textual engagement with film music theory and history. Grant draws together key performances of early music representation to allow us to listen differently.

Footsteps by Evenlyn Kreutzer 

With her focus on the musicalised rhythmic approach to film sound studies, Kreutzer invites us to pay attention to the interplay of sound effects and an absence of sound in Hitchcock’s films. This will be the inaugural audiovisual essay published by the journal, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image in December 2022.

Wild at Heterosexuality by Dayna McLeod

McLeod’s performative style and editing prowess underpin her sharply humorous queering of David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990). This work leaves me gasping for breath!”

Postdoctoral fellow at IULM  University

Climate Fictions, Dystopias and Human Futures by Julia Leyda, Kathleen Loock

Sleep by Johannes Binotto

The Cinematographer’s Signature by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Irresistible Instrumentalism by Catherine Grant

Angstlust by Alan O’L eary

A History of the World According to Getty Images by Richard Misek

Lecturer at University of Art and Design HEAD – Genève, co-director Festival Cinéma Jeune Public, curator at Locarno Film Festival, Int. Short Film Festival Winterthur and La Fête du Slip

F1 ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now  by Fox Maxy

Fox MAXY is a California-based artist and filmmaker of Kumeyaay and Payómkawichum ancestry. The experience of being Native American is a central theme in her work, which deals with Native American identity and culture, and the power of decolonisation. Her films are made of digital collage portraying political and formally playful expression of modern Indigenous life. Her work has screened at MoMA, LACMA , Rotterdam, and BlackStar Film Festival among other places. In 2022, Fox was named as Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellow. She represents one of the most interesting and daring voices of contemporary filmmaking.

Il faut regarder le feu ou bruler dedans (Watch the Fire or Burn Inside It)  by Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel

Il faut regarder le feu ou bruler dedans (Watch the Fire or Burn Inside It) is a cry to save the land from mass construction and mass tourism through the voice of a young woman healing it by burning the land. For years the island of Corsica has been stricken by devastating wildfires. Here, a woman chooses to care for the earth by burning it. She documents the process, allowing a few musical detours along the way. Their filmography includes: Tant qu’il nous reste des fusils à pompe (2014), Notre heritage (2015), After School Knife Fight (2017), Jessica Forever.

Lake of Fire   by Neozoon

The fear of death can only be conquered if people believe in a powerful saviour – otherwise eternal damnation in hell is waiting. The documentary film collage Lake of Fire shows how the dualistic view and way of life of certain believers additionally fuels the climate change-related hell on earth in a dangerous way. NEOZOON , founded 2009, is a female art collective based in Germany and France. The collective is interested in the role of the animal, whether living or dead, and its relationship with humans in an urban environment.

A Winter’s Elegy   by Aakash Chhabra

Aakash Chhabra subtly explains the weight of the caste system. The history of the cast-off town of Panipat is the one of its migrant workers, found in the folds of fabric sold in its marketplaces. The film essay combines everyday images in this cloth-recycling wasteland with the testimony of a young woman who grew up under the industrial tin sheets.

O mar também é seu (The Sea Is Also Yours)   by Michelle Coelho

Michelle Coelho’s work focuses on agrarian conflicts, violation of rights, and social mobilisation. In this film, the power of the dream and storytelling takes another dimension. A woman dreams that she is transformed into an animal. Between sleep and wakefulness, she remembers her abortion and the ghosts that have accompanied her since. Other women of the island reveal mysteries that help her heal the wounds caused by the violence that nightmarishly condemns women in her country.

Bigger on the Inside   by Angelo Madsen Minax

From an isolated wooded cabin a trans man star gazes, scruff chats with guys, watches youtube tutorials, takes drugs, and lies about taking drugs – feeling his way through a cosmology of embodiment. Bigger on the Inside probes the boundaries between interior and exterior, the micro and macro, to consider bodily insides as passage way and portal, relative to the immensity of longing. Nudes and landscapes are equally erotic. Eros as an issue of boundaries: When I desire you, a part of me is gone. Land is surreal. Memory is porous.

The Spiral   by María Silvia Esteve

A WhatsApp audio begins, and with it, a downward spiral unfolds. The voice of a woman sinking into a health anxiety attack, quickly entangles a complex labyrinth of fears and emotions. The Spiral is a dive into a lonely ride, an hypnotic escalation towards childhood, family, and the loneliness of “home”. Does home really feel like home?

Associate professor in audiovisual arts and cognition at University of Groningen, NL / co-author of Film Studies in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

Au cinéma! by Johanna Vaude

A lovely tribute to the theatrical experience. Supercutting excerpts from films depicting a variety of film viewing acts in the cinema, it could be a scene from György Pálfi’s mashup film “ FINAL CUT – Ladies and Gentlemen”.

Letter Across Oceans – To Tiziana Panizza  by Catherine Grant and Paul Merchant

“The messages in bottles don’t often arrive safe and sound”. Beautifully thought-out, written, paced, sound designed piece of poetic audiovisual work. A subtle but passionate contribution to the growing body of environmental audiovisual works.

Harnessing Perversity: J.G. Ballard, David Cronenberg and Crash  by Jonathan Bygraves

Simple but effective little video, exploring the commonalities between the work of J.G. Ballard and David Cronenberg, made for Watershed’s screening of the 4K restoration of Cronenberg’s Crash (1996).

Scholarship from the More-Than-Human? Constraint and Cognitive Agency in Videographic Criticism by Alan O’Leary

“What happens when arts and media cross previously established boundaries?” “What happens when scholarship crosses previously established boundaries?” Although, as O’Leary puts it, it is only a ‘draft video presentation’ (originally produced for the 6th International Society for Intermedial Studies Conference), I enjoyed it more than anything I’ve read on the topic because it is not only arguing for the value of parametric and other constraint-based videographic methods, but also, through its triptych-clear visual didacticism, make the viewer experience such scholarship.

Sound of Metal: An Exploration into the Internal Focalization of Sound & Silence by Ümran Bayazit, Aleksandras Gasiunas, Meke Levenga, Nenritji Esther Suwa, Maartje Westenberg

Everyone understood the lesson (Ruben learned) at the end of Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal (2020). However, to understand how such a powerful takeaway is primed throughout the film, culminating in the final scene, you need a thorough and sensitive close analysis. I’m happy to share the work of my BA students that accomplishes exactly that.

Associate professor media studies, University of Amsterdam, organiser ASCA Videographic Criticism Seminar

Published in [in]Transition, Eva Hageman’s Shiplap takes a seemingly random and recurring item from the makeover television series Fixer Upper to expose histories of racism. The strength of the audiovisual essay is its subtlety. Rather than crudely connecting the triviality of the television genre to the seriousness of a hidden histories, the audiovisual essay shows the connection by carefully unraveling the different layers, similar to the way the layers of drywall are removed to reveal the shiplap.

Maria’s Marias by Maria Hoffman

Published in Tecmerin, Maria Hofmann’s Maria’s Marias presents a compare and contrast of Die Trapp-Familie (1956) and The Sound of Music (1965) in a continuous split screen, thereby cropping the images from both films. The soundtrack consists of a collage of voices from a variety of sources, telling different stories about the cinematic representations of the Von Trapp family’s history. The result is a fascinating comparison, which may not say much about “the essence of Austrian culture,” but does raise questions about cinematic storytelling and the possibilities to disrupt such narratives.

Published in Open Screens, Liz Greene’s Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name not only brings attention to the 1925 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, but also highlights the forgotten role of Black American actor Spencer Bell, who plays the lion. By selecting only the scenes featuring (the silent) Bell, and playing them backwards, Greene invites us to look critically at the representation of Blackness. Greene’s voiceover presents an explanatory narrative, but also reflects the author’s archival search and emphasises her own subject position, clearly speaking with a female voice and non-American accent.

Postdoctoral researcher and video essayist, Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf

Practices of Viewing: Dubbing by Johannes Binnotto

A fascinating ‘anti-cinephilic’ take on film sound, exemplified through a cinephilic darling (Hitchcock). The role and influence of dubbing onto a specific film experience and (even more so) on the ways in which many of us first encountered and now remember cinema deserves much more attention, especially now that video essay culture seems to be more and more concerned with questions of language, multi-linguality, accented voiceovers, and related questions of (sonic) diversity and inclusivity. Binotto’s use of repetition, slow motion and multiple languages makes a powerful case for listening more closely.

The Mechanics of Fluids by Gala Hernández López

In this desktop documentary, Hernández López immerses herself and us into the darkness of incel networks on the internet, a subculture that appears both hidden and in plain sight, that hides behind online anonymity, yet produces real-life terror. Through a variety of screen-capture and animated stylistic approaches and voice-over narrations, the filmmaker manages to evoke a peculiar, troubling, affective response, lingering in-between empathy, rejection, and confusion. A great space to find oneself in after seeing a film, if you ask me.

A very recent and very personal short video made by prolific video essayist Barbara Zecchi that is simple in its structure and stylistic approach, and to a large extent lets the images and sounds speak for themselves. I was very moved by her use of close-ups on children’s faces as they are gradually literally and figuratively finding and fighting for their voices.

This video joins scenes of palm reading from various filmic sources. It evokes a very strong sense of tactility, not just in terms of its imagery but also in terms of what videographic practices FEEL like (touching a film, sticking films together, arranging them…). Its portrayal of the past and future of its various characters’ life lines suggests that it’s as much about the past and future of film itself – a longing for the touchability of analog film perhaps, produced in a form (the supercut, the video essay) that thrives digitally.

A very interesting study in adaptation and transatlantic cultural influence, framed through a playful nod to kogonada’s seminal What Is Neo-Realism?

I’ve rarely seen the split screen being used so well and so strikingly for the purposes of comparison – a comparison that goes way beyond the specific films and national genres at its forefront.

Auditorium by Johannes Binnotto

I’m considering this a ‘bonus pick’ so to speak because I got to witness its making and because it is a personal memory for me. Produced with, for, and through a strong sense of community and playfulness, it carries a lot of joyfulness and tenderness that speaks so much to this year, in which we could gather in large groups in person again.

Locarno Film Festival professor for the Future of Cinema, USI  Lugano

Sound and the Audiovisual Essay, Part 2: The Theory, History, and Practice of Film Sound and Music in Videographic Criticism  by Liz Greene, Johannes Binotto, Ian Garwood, John Gibbs and Douglas Pye, Catherine Grant

While my favourite video essay from last year was a series produced by a single author, this time I was most impressed by Liz Greene’s curation of five original video essays by six different authors, each taking a distinctively different approach to exploring cinematic sound. Maybe it is cheating to lump them together, but I was struck by how collectively they form as deep and complementary an exploration of a single subject as one could wish for. Simply a landmark achievement in videographic sound studies, as well as a model for thematic curation to create connections between authors.

Nazarbazi by Maryam Tafakory

Tafakory’s expansion of her previous video essay Irani Bag is a quantum leap in what we might call ‘videographic poetics’. A montage of nearly 100 classic Iranian films, on-screen text, rhythm and sound are all choreographed flawlessly into a meditation on cinematic and real world separation, prohibition and longing.

The Potemkinists / Potemkinistii by Radu Jude

Sergei Eisenstein’s silent masterpiece Battleship Potemkin (1925) is brought out into the open, literally, with an open-air dialogue that recounts how historical events counter Eisenstein’s telling. Unexpectedly timely, it explores the longstanding tensions between Russia, Ukraine and Romania, and in doing so casts a fresh critical light on a canonical work of cinema.

Platformer Toolkit by Mark Brown

This is a beautifully presented and addictively interactive introduction to the design considerations that go into a video game. While it might seem more like a tutorial at first, it’s self-designation as a ‘video essay’ is well-earned, as it uses its chosen medium to shed critical insight upon it. In any event, it opens wide the possibilities for interactive and programmed interfaces for video essays and videographic scholarship.

Fixing My Brain with Automated Therapy by Jacob Geller

This stretches what I would feel comfortable calling a video essay. A 53-minute on-camera monologue that starts out as a review of therapy apps, which steadily deepens into a provocative critique of how Cognitive Behavioural Therapy ( CBT ) may be the preferred psychological treatment model for the booming industry of AI -driven therapy. Left me thinking about the relationship between artificial intelligence and human wellness, computer vs. human programming.

Like There’s No Tomorrow by Joel Blackledge

Among the video essays published on [in]Transition this year, this one really got me in how it drew attention to a trope that had been hidden in plain sight: the role of retro pop culture in Hollywood sci-fi and dystopia movies. A powerful melancholy exudes from the accumulation of these tropes, while Blackledge’s narration raises several provocative interpretations for its significance. It also received some of the most rigorous peer reviews of any video essay this year (from notable post-cinema scholars Selmin Kara and Shane Denson), altogether setting an exemplary instance of generative discourse.

What Rules the Invisible by Tiffany Sia

Another selection from the circles of experimental cinema, Sia intricately edits decades worth of amateur travelogue footage of Hong Kong, interspersed with her mother’s account of life inside the colony. Words confront images to reveal what they don’t show and what their creators can’t see.

Film critic and audiovisual essayist

Sordid Scandal by Amalia Ulman

This was first presented as a video performance piece in 2020, but only made available as a stand-alone work in the wake of Ulman’s brilliant 2021 feature El Planeta. A dizzying détournement of the slideshow presentation format, it delves deep into the sordid scandal of film culture.

Hardly Working by Total Refusal

I figured that Machinima (recustomising parts of video games) was a played-out or co-opted game by now, but the collective Total Refusal have revitalised this audiovisual genre with a superb analysis of the luckless lives of extras in Red Dead Redemption 2. And how many audiovisual essays thank Karl Marx in the end credits?

An amazing montage, harsh and lyrical (not to mention timely), which guides us to read the extremely eloquent absences and silences in a period of Iranian cinema.

Johanna Vaude is a superstar of audiovisual montage; her work crosses effortlessly between avant-garde traditions and first-rate televisual entertainment. There have been many ‘spectators within the spectacle’ supercuts, but none quite like this.

Hands of the Future by Sabrina D. Marques, Mehdi Jahan and Dan Shoval

A beautiful and original choice of motif: palm reading scenes in cinema. Poised between chance and destiny, fate and possibility. These three cinephiles dive deep. Full disclosure: that’s my voice at the start delivering the opening narration.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening by Bianca Stigter

One of two feature films on my list. This extraordinary 69-minute piece is an incredible work of historical excavation, slowing down and looking closely to discover what is lost and hidden in documentary traces.

Moonage Daydream by Brett Morgen

Why did I pick it? Why the hell not?!? Watching this dazzling compilation/remix of David Bowie footage (much of it previously unseen), I thought: it’s one big audiovisual essay! Some magnificent sequences, and a compellingly restricted point-of-view.

Video essayist, filmmaker

My Place by Miguel G. Otero

Negative Space by Colleen Laird

transitional steps [Sirk | Stahl | Stairs] by Johannes Binotto

From One Shore to the Other / De una orilla a la otra by Valentín Vía Vázquez

Video essayist (as kikikrazed) and moderator of The Essay Library Discord server

Cowboy Bebop x Blade Runner — Cycle of Influence by kaptainkristian aka Kristian T. Williams

kaptainkristian is known primarily for his slick visual style, but this video’s standout is its sound design. In his exploration of the reciprocal influence between Cowboy Bebop and Blade Runner, Williams blends together the two worlds until they become one. The sequence where Steve Blum (who voices Spike in Cowboy Bebop) reads the ‘tears in the rain’ monologue from Blade Runner is my favourite video essay moment this year.

The Strange Beauty of Absurdle’s Algorithm by Max Tohline

It’s always a treat to see a gaming video essay that plays with the game itself – the script of this essay’s narration follows along with different rounds of Absurdle, a variation on the popular Wordle. The clever wordplay and rhyme scheme make this essay on the meaning(s) of ‘play’ in video games and video essays extra fun.

Platformer Toolkit by Game Maker’s Toolkit aka Mark Brown

Advertised as an “interactive video essay,” the Platformer Toolkit is an unpolished platformer game that gives you the tools to improve it. It’s a great example of using interactivity to talk about an interactive medium. To learn more about it before playing yourself, see the short video about it on his YouTube channel .

Everything Everywhere All At Once by @pbpbbpbppb aka Pavan Bivigou

This is one of the rare TikTok essays that made me completely pause my scrolling and let it wash over me. I think about the final line, “all the other yous are rooting for you,” constantly.

Rabbit, Candide, and a World Gone to Hell by The Nukes

I don’t want to say too much about this one, because I think it is better to experience it for yourself. All I’ll say is that I found it to be incredibly striking and original. Just watch it – and then watch it again.

Zoopraxography for Lovers (Cinema’s First Kiss Was Between Two Women) by Lily Alexandre

Lesbian author and activist Madeline Davis once said, “our community has a past, but no history.” In this video essay, Alexandre begins with a history lesson on early photography and deftly weaves in the story of two nameless women seen kissing in a Muybridge motion study. By situating this kiss within a larger history of film, their story is lifted out of the shadows, and it feels as if a missing piece is being restored. All of this builds to a deeply moving ending that left me speechless.

Film and media professor at Middlebury College; project manager of [in]Transition: 

Is ‘Cancel Culture’ Really a Threat to America? by Michael Hobbes

Journalist and podcaster Hobbes has made a career debunking media myths, and his first video in years is a stellar example of his work – it’s the video I share with anyone complaining about ‘cancel culture’, effectively rebutting all of the hand-wringing and victimisation discourse to anyone willing to listen. My favourite example from 2022 of the possibilities of the YouTube-style video essay, and one that should be seen by more people within the video essay community.

A masterclass in using subtle videographic techniques to create a work that is both intellectually and emotionally powerful, Greene’s choice to reverse the scenes of Bell makes the original unearthed footage uncanny and unsettling. Together with her measured and thoughtful narration, alongside wisely selected quotations, the deceptively simple video exemplifies what academic videographic criticism can offer.

Academic videographic criticism has not given television as much attention it deserves, and when it does, videos typically ignore popular “everyday television” forms like reality TV . Hageman’s video treats the home makeover genre as an archival site to explore racial and material histories, presented with an otherworldly style that makes the critical insights feel more tangible and real than the constructed norms of the genre it mines for footage.

Succession but It’s Arrested Development  by Luis Azevedo

This needs to be experienced in tandem with Azevedo’s Arrested Development but It’s Succession  - these complementary masterful intercuts of two iconic TV series demonstrate the power of sound to signify tone and genre. I prefer this sitcom-isation of Succession, largely because it masterfully uses Arrested Development’s fractured complex storytelling to convey a somewhat coherent narrative arc, and lets us see the comedic tones of these dramatic performances shine through.

Line Goes Up: The Problem with NFT s by Dan Olson

I rarely have time or patience for the 2+ hour video essays that have become quite popular (especially with my 16-year-old!), but this one is an exception. Olson presents a comprehensive case for why NFT s, and their associated crypto, Web3, and blockchain trends, are total scams. While I don’t think it ultimately needs to be a feature-length documentary, it’s an utterly captivating and convincing example of this YouTube format — and it has proven to be rather prescient since it was released in January 2022.

Once upon a Screen: Can I Remember It Differently?  by Cormac Donnelly

2022 saw a rise in interesting collaborations within the videographic world, including a group Exquisite Corpse experiment , and the recently-released Once upon a Screen vol. 2 projects. From the latter collection, this video, based on Ariel Avissar’s written memory, stuck with me the most, as Donnelly uses a wide range of videographic techniques to create something that is simultaneously embedded in his own personal history, and captures Avissar’s writing. Both authors’ written commentaries add rich layers of reflexivity and revisioning to the project, which I nominate as emblematic of the bold possibilities of videographic collaboration.

Film teacher and researcher at Escola das Artes in Católica University (O Porto); film programmer at IndieLisboa Film Festival; film critic at À pala de Walsh website

Can a visual essay be a remedy against that awkward moment where you thought you have seen something that was not on the film? Cormac Donnelly’s reverses that more common preoccupation while taping into one’s memories and fears. Profound yet comical, Can I Remember It Differently? show us how cinema touches trauma and memory and how artistic expression is a way to deal with those remembrances.

Practices of Viewing: Loop by Johannes Binotto

Cinema as memory plays out as rituals of repetition. Part of the series Practices of Viewing, Binotto’s piece reflects on how the end of looping in cinema could represent a loss. Loop implies difference, and multiplying the doors of entrance and comprehension. Psycho (1960) is a perfect place to disseminate voyeurism.

This clever and provoking work deals with how image construction in home and garden television shows – specially based on the ideals of renewal, family and hospitality – pose questions about, as Eva classifies it, “race, place, and memory”. Shiplap, then, becomes more than a type of lumber used in interior design, but a symbol of covering nightmare stories about inequality, racism, marginalisation and displacement.

Temporal Ghosts. David Lowery’s A Ghost Story  by Enrique Saunders

Touching and intelligent essay by Enrique Saunders, which addresses the features of the long take and slow cinema on a moment in A Ghost Story (David Lowery). What is appealing here is that the spectral quality of cinema, literalised by the theme of the film, achieves a dimension of temporality, of being able to live inside an image for a while, and what that duration and insistence might do in terms of dramatic discomfort. Moreover, every image and its reversal is also a way to propose spectator as the true hors champ of cinema.

Mr Bean Is a Masterpiece of Hitchcockian Suspense by Lara Callaghan

What is most surprising in this Lara Callaghan’s piece is how her analysis of a Mr. Bean moment, using Hitchcock techniques and universe, walks a thin line between engaging audiovisual analysis and comic material. Is this low culture vs serious culture? Or is it a lesson in engaging in an argument, without ever losing grip of proof, expectation and spectator’s surprise?

Ragtag by Giuseppe Boccassini

Giuseppe Boccassini’s 84-minute video essay is a great work. A compilation of suggestive moments from the noir universe that, more than editorialising strong moments from the genre, aims at conveying violence, paranoia and fear through repetition and insistence. A video essay that renders the nightmarish quality of the noir, the creative instrument metamorphosing itself to portrait form and content.

As Tears Go By by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

For some time now, The Thinking Machine, the series by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin for Filmkrant has been an indispensable project to understand visual essays potentials. This year it was difficult to choose a favourite, but As Tears Go By touches me particularly, in how editing makes impossible dialogues take shape. Anna Karina and Marianne Faithful’s dialogue is trapped in men’s universe: the words and the images. This piece is a small key out of imaginary imprisonment.

FILMADRID International Film Festival programming team

Hands of the Future by Sabrina D. Marques, Mehdi Jahan, Dan Shoval, Adrian Martin (voiceover)

Back to Theaters by Victoria Oliver Farner

Deconstructing the Construction: The Female Images in Chinese Detective Films, 2010-2020 by Ying-Hsiu Chou (University of Washington)

Maria’s Marias by Maria Hofmann (University of Minnesota)

Chantal Akerman: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy by Andrea Nouga Feliu

The French New Wave: A Free Woman Under the Male Gaze by Laura Romero Sánchez

Associate professor of film and media in digital contexts at Aarhus University, Denmark; visiting researcher in the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures, University of Leeds, UK ; author of Workshop of Potential Scholarship: Manifesto for a Parametric Videographic Criticism, NECSUS  2021

Affective Atmosphere: Embodiment and the Film Frame by Pavel Prokopic

The poll asks for suggestions of ‘noteworthy’ (rather than ‘best’) video essays. Writing as a maker, I have interpreted this to mean video essays I can learn from, not so much in terms of what they’re trying to tell me, but in terms of their methods, techniques and rhetoric. In this first choice, I think there’s too much onscreen text; still, I admire how it’s placed as commentary in one vertical of the triptych. The faces and voices, colours, lighting, textures and split-screen in the video essay are exquisitely beautiful. The combination of affect and alienation is unusual and impressive.

I dislike the frenetic voiceover style of the YouTube argumentative video essay, however well-intentioned or put together. Why are they so keen to tell me what to think? In Shiplap, Eva Hageman performs, for me, a more effective inquiry into race, place and memory, deploying found footage, archival materials and text to suggest an analysis that must be completed by the viewer. Voiceover is either sourced from the footage or whispered by the author herself. I hope to learn from Hageman’s political use of juxtaposition and implication, and her refusal to restrict the video’s analytical thrust to a single direction.

TV Dictionary—Blob by Barbara Zecchi

This contribution to Ariel Avissar’s ever-expanding TV Dictionary deals with a phenomenon of everyday avant-gardism that has been a staple of Italian television for decades. Blob is meta-television: a twenty-minute absurdist montage of clips drawn from the broadcasting of the previous day. Chris Keathley suggests that video essays can be most effective when they borrow the aesthetic strategies of the media object analysed, and Barbara Zecchi does this here with great wit. Notice the use of horizontal scrolling text and the fragmenting of the onscreen definition read by a variety of ‘accented’ and AI voices. The video essay ends perfectly.

The Spaces Beyond: Experimenting with the Theory of Audiovisual Concrète by Holly Rogers and Heather Britton

The voiceover is well-performed and informative in The Spaces Beyond, and the makers’ concept of ‘sonic elongation’ will become standard. I sympathise with the reflection on the politics and potential of constraint-based videographic work around minute 21:00. But what I will take from this video essay is the treatment of on-screen text in the first and final minutes. The formatting is at once crude and sophisticated, with banal sans-serif fonts in regular or bold framed in text boxes, unfurled, or floated and superimposed on other text and images and, of course, sound. The whole thing goes powerfully rogue from 22:15.

Maria’s Marias by Maria Hofmann

The title of this video essay, which contrasts German (Die Trapp-Familie, 1956) and Hollywood (The Sound of Music, 1965) adaptations of the memoir by Maria von Trapp, is ambiguous. Does the possessive belong to von Trapp, or to the author of the video essay? Both, of course: in fact, Hofmann sings Edelweiss (‘not,’ it turns out, ‘an Austrian song’) on the soundtrack, but hers is just one of many voices that form the video essay’s dialogic chorus. It’s the complex interaction of split-screen (borrowed from kogonada’s What Is Neorealism?) and fugue of voices that I will take from this video.

Can Everyone See My Screen? The Desktop as Videographic Canvas and Professional Profile by Juan Llamas Rodriguez

Videographic events, like the ‘Videography: Art and Academia’ symposium in Hanover this November, have increasingly featured performative presentations, where points are made as much through the form as in the content of the ‘talks’. Can Everyone See my Screen? was recorded rather than performed live at Hanover, but it featured its maker mimicking the tics and hesitations of speakers on the videotelephony platforms with which we have become so familiar. Rodriguez’s video-presentation showed how the ‘illustrated lecture’ can be an ironic and reflexive mode, and it challenged us to deploy the clumsiness and glitchiness of Zoom (etc) for epistemic ends.

Nest by Hlynur Pálmason

I’m going to call Nest an essay film, though it’s unclear if it’s that, or a documentary, or something else again (it credits a stunt coordinator, which is a relief if you’re a parent who’s watched the film). The film follows the construction of a treehouse in a wild corner of Iceland over several seasons from the perspective of a single static camera. The lesson is that a radically constrained approach to (essay) filmmaking can generate spectacular results: beauty, in the patient record of landscape and weather, and incident, in the observation of animals and the filmmaker’s own (exploited?) children.

Founder/director, Prismatic Ground; co-director of programming, Maysles Documentary Center

Proof of Self by Maya Daisy Hawke

Created for a Masterclass presentation, Hawke’s precis on editing folds her experience working on the feature documentary Navalny into a fully considered reflection on self, work, and art.

I Am the World  by Che Applewhaite

“Imagine, the first time you hear someone say…must have been in the image you just saw.”

Animal Spirits by Hito Steyerl

This year at Locarno Kevin B. Lee highlighted Hito Steyerl in the filmic context as ‘The Future of Cinema’ at Locarno. Steyerl also featured alongside Lee’s work, and that of Tracy Cox-Stanton, Coco Fusco, Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Charlie Shackleton, and Marina Trigueros, in a video essay exhibit at Michigan State University’s Broad Museum.

Vecino Vecino by Camila Galaz

A deft consideration of family, politics, time, and cinema. An attempt to forge past and present by recreating the image.

Subliminal desire in a cinema under duress.

True Places by Gloria Chung

Chung’s mediated relationship to landscape evokes a terrain of memory and distant sensation.

Four/Three Songs Without Z. by Karthik Pandian, Andros Zins-Browne, Zakaria Almoutlak

Note: Released in a single-channel version this year as Three Songs Without Z.

As Mine Exactly by Charlie Shackleton

An ‘anti- VR piece narrated live by its author, seated directly across from his headset-strapped audience of one, Shackleton’s desktop reflection on his mother’s epilepsy was one of the most moving artistic experiences to be had this year, and another fine notch in the filmmaker’s lengthy conceptual belt. 

Assistant professor, Leiden University; co-organiser MoMA Doc Fortnight 2023

Moune Ô by Maxime Jean-Baptiste

Constant by Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner

Private Footage by Janaína Nagata

The Revolution Will Not Be Air-conditioned by Bo Wang

Heat Waves by Kent Chan

Desistfilm co-director, MUTA Audiovisual Appropriation Festival (programmer, curator)

The Stairwell: Memories and Mirages of Film Noir by Stephen Broomer

Colligare herbarium et insecta by Nicolás Onischuk, Agustina Arrarás

Richard Kerr: Field Trips by Stephen Broomer

Itinéraire pour une terre rare – De la pomme de terre au coltan en passant par des écrans by Seumboy Vrainom

Remix/Remaster by Cristina Álvarez López, Adrian Martin

Itinéraire d’un homme fragile sur Mozilla Firefox by Seumboy Vrainom

Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFT s by Dan Olson — Folding Ideas

Not film related. But undoubtedly, the best video essay made in 2022.

Audio-visual PhD student at the University of Birmingham 

life and death of the image by Ella Victoria Wright

This extraordinary piece is both affecting and unsettling, utilising AI technology to reanimate prisoner photographs from Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is one of the most moving videographic works I’ve ever watched, and poses important ethical questions about how essayists engage with sensitive archival material.

I love the collaborative nature of the Once upon a Screen project. The very conscious integration of personal subjectivities creates unique resonances for every viewer, which is perhaps why, having become a parent last year, Cormac Donnelly’s video particularly stood out to me.

A wonderful example of how a short and simple concept can convey clear and impactful argumentation. In just 30 seconds, the sound choices made in this study have completely changed the way in which I look at subtitles and consider what they convey to those who are unable to listen simultaneously.

Video Venn: Documentaries, Essays and the Pedagogy In-Between by Richard Langley

Having studied an earlier iteration of the documentary module discussed here 12 years ago, this pedagogic exploration of the subject matter using its very material encapsulates, for me, the fluidity and constant evolution of both teaching and film.

The combination of one of my favourite films (The Sound of Music) with one of my favourite ways of working (multiscreen composition) was probably always going to appeal, and it was intriguing to finally see some clips from Die Trapp-Familie. However, it is the clever weaving of both films with archival audio that really engaged me in Maria’s Marias, providing new perspectives on a much-loved story and its telling.

169 Seconds: Parasite – Props at the Periphery of Perception by Mathias Bonde Korsgaard

Delightfully alliterative title aside, this short study brilliantly spotlights the level of detail in Parasite, making me want to watch it all over again.

Freelance critic

Listed simply in order of posting date:

Fear of Cold by Jacob Geller

The Super 8 Years by Annie Ernaux, David Ernaux-Briot et al.

Intimate Tresholds by Desiree Garcia

action button reviews boku no natsuyasumi by Tim Rogers

Embodied Diegetic Sound by Allison Cooper

The People You’re Paying to Be in Shorts by Jon Bois, Alex Rubenstein, Seth Rosenthal, Kofie Yeboah et al

Conforme by Johanna Vaude

Film archivist and critic, leading The Queue over at Film School Rejects

Realism and Fantastic Cinema by APL attanzi

It’s difficult to make a case for non-invisible visual effects these days without tripping over a dozen or so discourse landmines. And I appreciate how emphatically this video essay makes a case for effects that read as effects in a way that invites would-be detractors to the table. I think the way this essayist presents their argument respects those it’s trying to convert, and that makes the overall rhetorical effect that much stronger.

The Secret Ingredient That Makes Raimi’s SPIDER - MAN So Great by Patrick (H) Willems and Siddhant Adlakha

There’s a sub-set of younger millennials who were just the right age for the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy … and just a little too old to be truly swept up the MCU madness that we’re still very much dealing with. I’ve always had a hard time articulating why these newer MCU movies feel so different from Raimi’s trilogy (outside of the obvious). But Willems and Adlakha have definitively cracked the code here, I think. Thorough, well-argued, and radiating with truthiness, this is easily one of my favourite watches of the year.

Nothing but Trouble Is a Very Weird Movie by Zane Whitener (In Praise of Shadows)

I’m a sucker for detailed eulogies of famously chaotic film curios. And they don’t come much more chaotic (or curious) than the 1991 horror-comedy Nothing but Trouble, which pretty much singlehandedly robbed us of Dan Aykroyd, director. Whitener does a heroic job performing this sarcastically in-depth autopsy, which will, I hope, keep the legend-like aura surrounding this film alive.

The Catharsis of Body Horror by Yhara zayd

If there were an Olympic medal for teasing the YouTube censorship algorithm, it would go to this video essay. In all seriousness, this is one of the more lucid and well-argued articulations I’ve ever seen of why something as carnal and goopy as body horror might feel meditative, academically fulfilling, and even spiritual. This essay also offers a thoroughly compelling taxonomic analysis (ruin, release, and rebirth) to a sub-genre often dismissed as unworthy of such analysis.

How Nope Tricks Your Ears by Thomas Flight

Flight’s style – which has always prioritised variations of scene analysis – is allowed to fully flex in this captivating and insightful breakdown of how use of sound design in Jordan Peele’s Nope can teach us about the difference between horror and terror. I adore the way that Flight invites us to see (or rather /hear/) Peele’s decisions for ourselves. It’s as effective “show don’t tell” pedagogy as you’re liable to find.

The Visual Effects Crisis by Andrew Saladino (The Royal Ocean Film Society)

As always, Saladino brings a level of graphical finesse and polish that remains unmatched by any of his peers. This video essay is a spectacular reminder that the antagonism between CGI people and practical effects people is a red herring. The real villain isn’t the false dichotomy of tangible vs digital. The real villain is capitalism.

Twin Peaks Explained ; Twin Peaks The Return & the Golden Age of TV   by Maggie Mae Fish

I am cheating, I’m sure, by including a two-parter. But frankly, them’s the breaks. Maggie Mae Fish keeps the Socratic Method alive by engaging with fictional interlocutors in a valiant and self-effacing attempt to divine an answer to the question “why is Twin Peaks like that?” Not only do these two essays sarcastically mock the always mockable dude-bro-explains-media-to-you genre, Fish successfully collates various strings of knowledge and insight into a genuinely compelling thesis.

Video essayist at StrucciMovies

Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery by Defunctland

Watching this YouTube video essay by someone who seems to harbour shame about making YouTube videos (or at least performed shame for thematic connectivity and impact) is fascinating. This video tells a gripping story, taking unexpected twists and showcasing slick visuals and admirable depth of research, while simultaneously calling into question its own worth and validity. It’s a strange and compelling balance that made me question my own assumptions about creating for the internet, which in 2022 seems preferable to traditional outlets. After all, this video is more compelling than any ‘legitimate’ feature documentary I’ve seen in quite some time.

Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery by Kevin Perjurer

I could watch history lessons about arcane theme park history all day and Perjurer’s the best in the biz.

The New Silent Cinema by Yacov Freedman

Yacov looking into a new trend that has personal significance. A way to find something deeper in the mainstream.

Johannes’ series continues to beguile. You can’t go wrong with his work, a first rate mind close by. 

Georges Franju and the moving frame by Johannes Binotto

A beautiful detour into a beloved figure’s working method

A Dress to Bring Out the Devil in You by Chris O’Neill

Available on Arrow’s Blu-ray of I’m Dangerous Tonight. 

Chris, a kindred spirit, looking into the genius of my beloved Tobe Hooper.

Film Thought 3. Godard Is Dead by Will DiGravio

Will’s honesty and curiosity are beautiful things.

Riotsville, USA by Sierra Pettengill

A recontextualisation of American police practice and the image of America that it goes to great length to keep secret. 

Honourable mention: Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Adventure , about American TV , another reflection of the American identity.

Independent scholar

Terra Femme by Courtney Stephens

I can’t choose between Bianca Stigter’s Three Minutes: A Lengthening and Courtney Stephens’s Terra Femme. Thankfully, I don’t have to. It was a happy serendipity that 2022 saw the wide release of both: they’re both feature-length theatrically released film essays, both just over an hour long, and both take amateur footage as their subject. And after that, they feel like inversions of one another that somehow arrive at the same place. For its part, Terra Femme unearths private globe-hopping travelogues shot by a handful of women with a variety of stories, reasons, and aesthetics.

Meanwhile, Three Minutes: A Lengthening painstakingly reworks the tiny fragment of time described by the title: barely a glimpse of a Jewish village in Poland in 1938. But both films crack their images open to reveal presence and absence, time and space, archive and database, memory and mystery, and more. By the end of Stephens’s film, I imagined millions of other images, shot and unshot, by an endless caravan of other journeyers. By the end of Stigter’s, I couldn’t help but believe that the entire world somehow refracted through those infinite three minutes.

How to Explain Your Mental Illness to Stanley Kubrick by Philip Brubaker

After years of insightful and witty video essays that regularly graced this list, @lensitself went soul-baringly personal here and, appropriately for the subject matter, threw every form of essayism he could think of at the screen. The embrace of this film is staggering – a kaleidoscope of approaches to mental illness as well as to videographic criticism including montages and supercuts and experimental deformations and re-enactments and explainers and personal documentary. But they all work together so totally because they all come from a place of needing us to un-see something familiar, so we can see it again for the first time.

The End of History by Scout Tafoya and Tucker Johnson

A ten-part series on Ridley and Tony Scott. It’s sprawling and digressive, with a daunting running time, but by episode five I never wanted it to end. What a forgotten pleasure it is to see clips play long, for the time to think with and against the essayist, and for theses to emerge, full of thorniness, from a space of lifelong consideration and contradiction. A successor to the classic auteurist texts on Ford and Hawks, yes, moreover a cortege, draped in sweat and intestines, for both American cinema and some of the illusions I once had about it.

Breath of the Wild fixed stamina, it’s perfect now, we did it by Afterthoughts

This is everything a YouTube video essay can and should be. Breathlessly paced, thoroughly witty, perfectly cut, light to the touch, every idea illustrated with an image. If you’ve ever taught any kind of visual design philosophy (or ever assigned any Edward Tufte) and wish you had something specific and engaging on video game UX / UI , slide this into a reading list and become a hero to your students. Or, you know, just watch it for fun, because it’s so so much fun. It sets a standard for demonstrating how something small can make a huge difference.

Film-with-live-orchestra Concerts: A New Hope by Sureshkumar Sekar

My favourite peer-reviewed video essay of the year. The scope is remarkable, encompassing formal analysis, film history, personal memoir, cognitive neuroscience, and a bit of comedy to offer interdisciplinary insights into how our brains are newly wired in the 21st century. And all from the unlikeliest place: film-with-live-orchestra concerts. I didn’t think there was anything to this topic either, but I was wrong, too. Turns out, the screen is part of our mind now. Our old ways of being won’t survive without the screen, but when the screen meets them, that new experience can blow us away.

Queer Relativity by Aranock

What starts as a nice time-hopping reference to Dr Manhattan’s experience of time in Watchmen turns into a structural argument: we are always all of ourselves at once. Identity encompasses every aspect of that transformation. And thus what seems merely an examination of temporality and queer subtexts in Star Trek, Blade Runner, and the like, turns into a powerful and compellingly personal portrait of how meaning in art, and therefore identity more broadly, are formed through community and connection. A powerful statement in how examining one’s life, through essay and through art, across time, helps make it worth living.

Freelance film critic, lecturer in film studies, UNATC  Bucharest

This is a film best watched twice. Depending on your expectations, you will see, in subjective order, a sensuous, immersive arthouse film and an extensive study on Iranian cinema analysing how filmmaking restrictions – in showing actors touch, depicting women’s gazes – are persistently and creatively subverted in both popular and arthouse cinema. The text on screen is bilingual, and to me as a foreigner the lines in Farsi are both beautiful calligraphy and markers of insurmountable distance. I will perhaps never access Forough Farrokhzad’s poems, as I hope to have more directly seen the films of Panahi, Samira Makhmalbaf and Mehrjui.

Mirrors of Digital Landscapes by Jáchym Šidlák/Film a doba

Keeping an audiovisual creation coherent in following a broad theoretical argument is no easy task, and it should be even more challenging when Bill Morrison, gameplay architecture and post-apocalyptic films (with or without live-action plots) are all thrown into the mix. Following Jennifer Fay’s exploration of Cinema in the Time of Anthropocene, Jáchym Šidlák’s video makes you gradually feel totally trapped in contemporary visual culture, a trap that only its material decay might help you escape.

The Depp-Heard Trial Is an Ugly, Scary Trial by Social Media by The Take (eds. Susannah McCullough and Debra Minoff)

Leaving pop culture behind, if you afford it, is certainly liberating, though the 2022 Depp-Heard trial was a reminder that no reality exists apart from pop culture and social media: a click-count success that few people with jobs could follow entirely and a catalyst for gendered prejudice in ways that were both obvious and hard to unpack. You can dislike Heard and be shocked at the misogyny of the trial’s most vocal commentators. In this high-strung environment, to use a cliché when it feels justified, the Take’s prolific, perseverant and rigorous cultural criticism is what we need right now.

Hanging Portraits: Obsession and Resurrection in Laura by Stephen Broomer / Art &  Trash

The age-old distinction between the didactic and the poetic in videographic criticism might leave the impression that any commentary must choose between the two, though Hanging Portraits is clearly an exception. Heady like Preminger’s missing-leading-lady romance and lucid in navigating its connection to noir tropes, Stephen Broomer’s video essay will leave you with the impression that you’ve already seen the film five times and you’re just dying to watch it again soon.

I would pause my life for any Max Ophüls lecture, and plenty of videographic research on the author’s films (by Tag Gallagher and Mark Rappaport, to only cite classics) has made me happy that I stayed. Gibbs and Pye engage in a very complex game of identifying perspectives in Le Plaisir – whether it’s Maupassant’s, Ophüls’, the multilingual ‘Maupassant’ voiceovers’ or the multiple main and transient characters’, in this very subtly narrated film.

An additional, cheeky text-on-screen voice frequently contradicts the two critics’ statements, inadvertently reminding us that precision was never the highest goal of cinephile commentary.

Deconstructing the Construction: The Female Images in Chinese Detective Films, 2010-2020 by Ying-Hsiu Chou/Tecmerin

Noir has the contradictory legacy of eschewing wholesome, conventional female protagonists and replacing them with a different male fantasy. Eight decades after its so-called classical stage, in the age of big-budget spectacle and global circulation of genres, China/Hong Kong-produced detective films have accumulated to a parallel canon to the US /French ‘patient zero’, one that tells a not-so-different story. The video alternates supercuts of recurring unimaginative moments and in-depth looks at behind-the-scenes footage and actresses’ testimonies on the exigencies of their role. Tl; dr: it’s still sexist; but the often surprising details collected here are worth your full attention.

Footsteps by Evenlyn Kreutzer

I first became fascinated by videographic criticism seeing how closely and minutely it can analyse creative decisions behind great cinema. This potentiality hasn’t yet been exhausted even for canonical authors, and Evelyn Kreutzer proved herself particularly brilliant in recognising great work when she hears it. Hitchcock’s characters are often in motion and their footsteps are an important part of the tale they tell – because they make audible what is temporarily not visible, or maybe because they’re silent like a ghost’s.

Creator, collector, and curator of video essays under the nom de video Filmscalpel

Over the past years, videographic strategies have increasingly been applied to other visual regimes than those of movies and television shows alone. Video games in particular have been the subject of great video essays. Interestingly, those essays were made by very diverse practitioners: from academics over avid gamers to modders . That is why I chose three fine examples of video essays about games for this year’s poll. 

NPC s or Non-Playable Characters are the digital extras of video games. They are bit players in the truest sense of the term: they populate the background but have no agency or narrative importance. Hardly Working puts four such NPC s from the successful game Red Dead Redemption 2 in the spotlight. The collective Total Refusal questions capitalist work regimes in this fine piece of machinima. The detached and mockingly objective tone of the voice over commentary references that of nature documentaries and describes NPC s as capitalism’s ideal workforce: unquestioning, without autonomy, unbothered by boredom. 

Elden Ring —  PS1 Trailer Demake by Hoolopee

This year’s action role-playing game Elden Ring boasts impressive and cutting-edge visuals. But in this cheeky video 3D VFX artist Hoolopee “demakes” the hit game’s trailer to how it would have looked if it had been made for a 1995 PlayStation system. Videographic appropriation and video game nostalgia blend in his backdated trailer. The result is a charming little piece of performative criticism that questions games studios’ single-minded pursuit of photographic realism.

There have been attempts at interactive videographic criticism before, but most of those were gimmicky and didn’t use the viewer’s input in any meaningful way. The Platformer Toolkit however is interactive video essaying at its finest. This impressive tool by Mark Brown of Game Maker’s Toolkit lets you play around with the controls of a basic platform game’s protagonist. It demonstrates how design decisions shape the gaming experience and how aesthetic aspects and the enjoyment of gameplay are closely intertwined. Oh, and the toolkit also introduces you to intriguing game design terminology such as “coyote time” and “adding juice”.

Film critic (www.apaladewalsh.com) and film programmer (Serralves Foundation, IndieLisboa IFF )

ragtag by Giuseppe Boccassini

Zig-zag editing of noir films, between Martin Arnold and a broken record. A looping effect turns into a hypnotic journey through recurring tropes, gestures and glances. Film history in a table tennis match with itself.

Filme particular by Janaína Nagata

Desktop cinema turns into forensic archival investigation, bringing together different media in search of context. A whodunit video essay in which the killer is our collective forgetfulness.

The latest video by Chloé Galibert-Laîné is a playful exercise on playfulness, as her previous works were a thrilling exercise on thrillers, and a self-reflective exercise on self-representation. The brilliant art of the meta video essay.

Nadine Nortier by Gillian Garcia

Not in any way a ‘video’-essay, but a short film that uses all the tropes of video-essayistic technique: repetition, modification, singling out gestures, recontextualisation, etc. A film that elevates the particularities of Robert Bresson cinema to its essence.

Glass Life by Sara Cwynar

Sara Cwynar’s work has been working around the notion of torrential thinking in the age of the torrential production of images. Her latest piece turns the ‘internet’ into an analogue web of layered still and moving images, navigating aimlessly in between them as a sign of their ephemerality.

Professor and director of the film studies programme at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, https://vimeo.com/barbarazecchi 

Men Shouting: A History in 7 Episodes by Alan O’L eary

This is, in my opinion, the most stunning example to date of a deformative approach to videographic criticism, a field in which Alan O’L eary is by all means the most prominent voice and practitioner.

Superbly structured, expertly paced, and uncanningly hypnotic, this piece is evidence that what ‘makes the original work strange’ (to borrow Jason Mittell’s well-known definition of deformative criticism) can indeed be a masterpiece.

Practices of Viewing: Dubbing  by Johannes Binotto

It is an impossible – and an unfair – task to choose just one work by Johannes Binotto. Since his first video essay, Facing Film, which already revealed his uncommon talent, each and every one that followed is equally unique, unrepeatable, powerful, surprising, and so tremendously beautiful. 

For this poll I chose Dubbing just because it is the closest to me and to my research. Dubbing achieves the perfect balance between scholarly discourse and creativity, between objectivity and the personal, between the critical and the artistic, between the academic and the intimate, and talks loudly to me about inclusion, defamiliarisation and love.

Once upon a Screen Vol. 2 by Evelyn Kreutzer and Ariel Avissar

Without a doubt, Once upon a Screen Vol. 2 has been the major video graphic project of the year.

Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer had already demonstrated their enormous talents and spirit of initiative with their TV Dictionary and Moving Poems respectively, projects that have strengthened a community of video essayists.

With Once upon a Screen Vol. 2, they brought the multi-authorship experiments even further in a project that had fostered human bonding, and intellectual exchange. A brilliant idea executed to perfection.

Skilfully produced (superb storytelling and rhythm), this video essay takes full advantage of the form’s possibilities by centring in a simple perceptive observation. Brilliant piece by a brilliant video essayist.

The Curse of the Gimmick: Star Wipe by Veronika Hanáková and Jiří Anger

Rarely does a video essay say so much about its authors: their skilful editing, their passion for the archive, their sense of humour, their sophisticated knowledge, and their great originality. A stylish, dynamic and cuttingly insightful video essay from two stars in the field.

Mi sueño es representar la belleza de la mujer de mi estado by Jeffrey Middents

A powerful statement about female to-be-looked-at-ness in cinema, this video essay is to date the best work on Latin American women’s reification and dispossession, intersected with issues of sexuality, class, race, and age. Through defamiliarising repetitions, and hypnotic rhythm, this superbly crafted video essay represents a great example of the perfect combination of artistic work with thorough and serious scholarly research.

Eye-Camera-Ninagawa by Colleen Laird

This is a stunning debut video essay that speaks loudly of Colleen Laird’s great visual sensibility and talent. Beautifully paced, and jaw-droppingly composed (a multi screen of 146 shots), this video essay establishes a scholarly evocative and convincing comparison between two films that seemingly have nothing in common. A real gem from a promising newcomer in the field.

Emerging voices

Delphine Jeanneret mentions Fox Maxy and Pauline Julier as ‘Emerging voices’:

“Fox Maxy is a filmmaker whose work has screened at MoMA, LACMA , Rotterdam, and BlackStar Film Festival among other places. In 2020, COUSIN Collective supported the director with her first grant. In 2022, Fox was named as Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellow. She’s also a Vera List Center Borderlands Fellow. Currently Fox is working on a film about mental health.

“Pauline Julier is an artist and filmmaker who explores the links that humans create with their environment through stories, rituals, knowledge and images. Her films and installations are composed of elements of diverse origins (documentary, theoretical, fictional) to restitute the complexity of our relationship to the world. Her installations and films have been screened in contemporary art centres, institutions and festivals around the world, including the Center Pompidou (Paris), Loop (Barcelona), Visions du Réel (Nyon), Tokyo Wonder Site (Tokyo), Museum of Modern Art in Tanzania, Geneva Art Center, Palazzo Grassi (Venice), New York, Madrid, Berlin, Zagreb, Cinémathèque de Toronto and the Pera Museum in Istanbul. Julier had a solo exhibition at the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris ( CCS ) in 2017. She completed a year-long residency in Rome in 2020 at the Istituto Svizzero, and her film Naturales Historiae has been shown online on Vdrome.org.”

Meg Shields nominated APL attanzi and Niche Nonsense :

“It is a fantastic and baffling crime that many of APL attanzi ’ s videos only have a hundred or so views. Their work is varied and well-produced, covering everything from how backlight animation works to musical continuities in the original Lost in Space TV show. I always learn something new when watching their stuff and I would love to see more eyes on their channel, which currently has just over 3500 subscribers as of writing this.

“With a YouTube channel only founded within the last calendar year, Niche Nonsense really does feel like a solid candidate for a noteworthy up-and-comer. Their film-focused video essays (including their examination of the sound design of ‘Swiss Army Man’ and their case for why Gen Z needs more slacker movies) are polished and edu-taining. While their interests seem interdisciplinary, I hope they continue to cover film-based content.”

Catherine Grant nominated Anne Rutherford :

“Anne Rutherford is a longstanding and world-leading film studies scholar whose work has been foundational in the fields of cinematic affect and embodiment, and materiality. Her first ever video essay – Ripple, Rustle, Shimmer and Shake: The Cinematic Rapture of Grass – was published in the Spring 2022 issue of [in]Transition  and in it she found the perfect medium and form for her kind of cinema studies. I loved this work and I really hope she goes on to make more brilliant and beautiful videographic work.”

Adrian Martin mentions Occitane Lacurie :

“Occitane Lacurie is part of the French group that produces the Débordements website, devoted to ‘criticism and research’. Their work finds a path between academia and popular journalism. Lacurie’s audiovisual essays look into the histories of criticism; in her 2021 Sur trois rencontres tardives (On Three Belated Encounters), she excavates, among other things, the life and work of the largely overlooked Michèle Firk.”

Will Webb mentions Dennis Gallagher and especially his Wallace and Gromit video essay.

“With infrequent uploads and a wide range of subject matter (come for British short animation, stay for a dissection of Japandroids albums), not much unites Dennis Gallagher’s body of work except the level of detail that goes into each individual video. There *is* a consistent difference of view, or maybe tone of voice, that makes his essays fascinating. My favourite this year is his analysis of Uncle Rico’s trauma in Napoleon Dynamite , which claims him as the central character of a tragedy, then argues that via an 80s manga and an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

Tomas Genevičius mentions Marlen Schmid and her video essay Crossing Borders, about Agnès Varda .

Max Tohline nominated  max teeth and  Emily Jaworski :

“Rather than praise max teeth’s channel as a whole, I want to focus on one video: Cadet Kelly Has a Gay Agenda . As someone who was entering adulthood when 9/11 happened, I’ll inevitably be relitigating its legacy the rest of my life. And this essay, which weaves a thoughtmap connecting American imperialism, Disney channel originals, the red scare, gay rights, romantic comedies, and more, showed me a side to 9/11 I never noticed before. It deserves to become a staple ‘reading’ in any course traversing these topics. By demonstrating just how insidiously a hundred different struggles hegemonically interlink, it not only provides a primer on intersectional thought, but also a cautionary tale on how ideology is everywhere, and there are more fronts to any struggle than you ever suspect.

“The Sex Robot Show is a serialised adaptation of the Emily Jaworski’s thesis project. As you might guess, its content got it almost immediately banned from YouTube, but it’s a vital project that intersects discourses on gender, bodies, ableism, cybersecurity, identity, and, in the most recent episode, the bottomless rabbit-hole of horrors that is AI -generated pornography. It doesn’t happen very often that a series reveals that something I had no earthly knowledge of is somehow at the nexus of a slew of vital contemporary conversations. But this is that show. It’s astonishing work and I can’t wait to see more of it. Or anything else Emily wants to do!”

Barbara Zecchi nominated Rodrigo Campos Castello Branco :

“Não veio dos céus nem das mãos de Isabel is a beautiful piece made for The Videography Mentorship Program, part of the Videography: Art and Academia – Epistemological, Political and Pedagogical Potentials of Audiovisual Practices symposium in Hanover, Germany. It shows incredible talent, sensibility and political awareness. I hope Rodrigo will continue in this field.”

Multiple nominees

Some ‘emerging voice’ nominees have their works acknowledged in the ‘best video essays’ poll:  Cormac Donnelly (named by Alan O’Leary), Jiří Anger and Veronika Hanáková (named by Adrian Martin), Sureshkumar P. Sekar (mentioned by Catherine Grant),  Eva Hagemam (distinguished by Barbara Zecchi), Afterthoughts (mentioned by Queline Meadows) and  The Nukes/Joshua Geist  (nominated by Will Webb). We leave the unedited descriptions below:

It’s notable (and a cause of envy) that some of the most exciting innovators in the videographic form are still working on their PhDs! Ariel Avissar is one, and Cormac Donnelly another. The quality of Donnelly’s video essays has been recognised in this poll before, but I want to point to his Deformative Sound Lab, which draws from investigations by makers like Allison de Fren, Jason Mittell and Kevin Ferguson to generate fascinating experiments in film analysis.

Jiří Anger and Veronika Hanáková are two researchers based in Prague who delve into video montage in order to elaborate their arguments and findings in new and different ways. Their work The Clown, the Tree, the Shadows is an exciting crossbreeding of popular horror and an avant-garde archive.

Sureshkumar Sekar is a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Music, London, where he is investigating audience, audiovisual culture, liveness, aLiveness, film music, and orchestral music. He is producing some very interesting and highly engaging and original academic work in videographic format, including an award-winning work of his we published this year at [in]Transition. I look forward very much to seeing where his work goes next.

Eva Hageman is already an accomplished scholar in television, media production, and popular culture. She produced an early version of Shiplap for the Middlebury College workshop in videographic criticism. This new version – recently published in [in]Transition – is evidence of Eva’s enormous ability, intelligence and talent, and I hope it is only the first video essay of many to come.

Afterthoughts makes video essays on a range of topics from storytelling techniques to game design. Her writing and editing is outstanding; she always finds the perfect balance between entertaining humour and sharp insights. Anyone who manages to make an 18-minute video about Breath of the Wild’s stamina meter  consistently engaging is someone to keep an eye on.

An English professor in his day job, Joshua Geist brings a ‘close reading’ analysis to (mostly) children’s media on his channel (which he shares with wife Megan and, implicitly, is informed by their family viewing habits).

There are plenty of channels on Breadtube which purport to do the same, but the wide-ranging analysis and formal playfulness of The Nukes marks it out as a channel to watch.

In Rabbit, Candide, and a World Gone to Hell , Disney’s animated adaptations of Winnie the Pooh provide a jumping-off point for an analysis of Voltaire, absurdism, and some wild structural choices (enjoy Josh rapping, if you can). Josh also led the Exquisite Relay essay collaboration carried out through the Essay Library discord, a fascinating experiment in essay structure where multiple creators made an ‘exquisite corpse’ essay, both forward and back. (Full disclosure: I participated in the Exquisite Relay and on other collabs with Josh – Will Webb) 

Collective nominations

Not uncharacteristically for the videographic community, some distinctions are collective. Jiří Anger named the Film a doba collaborators:

“A collective of students from Charles University in Prague has been creating video essays for the online platform of Film a doba, one of the oldest Czech (and East-Central European) journals. The ‘Audiovisual Essays’ section offers two videos a month listed under specific themes (Desktop, Tarkovsky, Nostalgia, Feminism, etc). The students’ focus on experiments with digital as well as analogue materiality brings something that most contemporary videographic criticism lacks, moving the video essays closer to experimental found footage filmmaking. Even though the accompanying texts are in Czech, most videos are available in English. So if you want to know what is happening with videographic criticism in East-Central Europe, give the essays a shot.”

Similarly, Will DiGravio draws our attention to the following collections:

“Rather than highlight individuals, I’d like to mention a few collected works of emerging video essayists: the Middlebury Videographic Cohort , the Cinema Rediscovered film critics workshop video essay commissions and The Contemporary World Cinema Project .”

The new issue of Sight and Sound

On the cover: Steve McQueen takes us inside his new film Blitz Inside: Sean Baker on Anora, and sex work at the movies – Pedro Almodóvar on The Room Next Door – No Other Land – The Apprentice – The Wild Robot – Jean-Pierre Melville

Countering the mainstream

Is the Video Essay a New Avant-Garde?

by Scott MacDonald | Nov 16, 2022 | Commentary , Featured

The recent emergence of what has come to be called the video essay or the videographic essay or the audiovisual essay represents a new cinematic avant-garde. It offers implicit and explicit critiques of both commercial media and the logocentric literature of academic cinema and media scholarship.

What are the historical roots of the video essay as critique?

In 1975, Peter Wollen published his canonical essay, “The Two Avant-Gardes,” which focused on two traditions of European cinema, each of which offered an ongoing critique of the forms of entertainment cinema epitomized by Hollywood.

On the one hand, there were filmmakers who abjured industrial film production and identified with the world of modern art. Instances include Hans Richter (“Rhythmus 21,” 1921) and Viking Eggeling (“Symphony Diagonale,” 1921-23), who explored visual abstraction; Dadaists Man Ray (“Retour à la raison,” 1923) and Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy (“Ballet mécanique,” 1924); and surrealists: Germaine Dulac in “La coquille et le clergyman” (1928) and Luis Buñuel/Salvador Dalí (“Un chien andalou,” 1929; “L’ag d’or,” 1930).

The range of eye-opening approaches established by this early avant-garde was enlarged decades later by filmmakers who in various ways were working in modes inspired by their predecessors, including Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Sidney Peterson, Bruce Conner, Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow, Bruce Baillie, Marie Menken, Jack Smith, et al.

Wollen’s other avant-garde tradition included European film directors who made feature narrative films that offered clear alternatives to Hollywood genre filmmaking, including Jean-Luc Godard, Straub-Huillet, Luis Buñuel, Miklos Jansco, and in a somewhat different sense, the Russians, Eisenstein and Vertov.

Of course, many filmmakers from various cultures exploited the broadening of approaches that these two avant-gardes developed. Wollen himself collaborated with Laura Mulvey to produce “Riddles of the Sphinx” (1977), a feature constructed to bring the two avant-gardes together into a single film where an experimental narrative, “Louise’s Story Told in Thirteen Shots,” is surrounded by triads of short films, each evoking an approach familiar from non-narrative forms of avant-garde cinema.

During the half-century since Wollen’s essay was published, our awareness of the geography and history of cinema has undergone an immense expansion. The evolution of new technologies for making and presenting motion pictures has contributed to this development as well as the increased access to the ever-expanding archive of film history.

There were many accomplished filmmakers working outside of commercial industries in the 1940s-1950s, but for an American avant-garde cinema movement to develop during the 1960s more was needed. It required the pioneering efforts of particular individuals, the development of a community of makers whose work was in conversation, and new opportunities for making work available to the public and for expanding that public. The pioneering efforts of Amos Vogel and Frank Stauffacher in generating an American film society movement and in Vogel’s case beginning to distribute prints of avant-garde films were followed by Jonas Mekas’s many contributions beginning with the journal Film Culture (1954-1996).

In 1960 Mekas rallied filmmakers working outside the Hollywood industry to form what he termed the New American Cinema. He subsequently established the New York Film-makers’ Cooperative to distribute their films. It was quickly followed by the Bay Area’s Canyon Cinema. Mekas wrote pro-avant-garde polemics in The Village Voice and the SoHo Weekly News and helped establish Anthology Film Archives as a permanent home for alternative cinemas.

Mekas’s efforts helped make the avant-garde of the 1960s a force in contemporary filmmaking and to some extent within academe which was just beginning to include cinema studies. SUNY-Binghamton (now Binghamton University), the San Francisco Art Institute, and SUNY Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo) became centers for avant-garde filmmaking.

To a considerable degree the video essay is the child of avant-garde film history, which includes a range of premonitions of the essay film, including Chris Marker’s “Letter from Siberia” (1957) and “Sans Soleil” (1983), Morgan Fisher’s “Standard Gauge” (1984), Su Friedrich’s “Damned If You Don’t” (1987), and Jonathan Caouette’s “Tarnation” (2003).

Emerging scholars of the video essay have tended to name other premonitions. In her “The Audiovisual Essay as Performative Research” (NECSUS, December 4, 2016), Catherine Grant focuses on Ian Garwood’s “The Place of Voiceover in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism” (2016); Domietta Torlasco’s “House Arrest” (2015); and Will Booker and Rebecca Hughes’ “Bowie Bowie” (2016), three very different video essays, suggesting the considerable diversity of approaches by 2010.

Like the 1960s-1970s American avant-garde, a video essay movement has required pioneering figures. Jason Mittell has mentored a generation of video-essayists at Middlebury College. His video essays and those of Catherine Grant have been formative for the field. With Christian Keathley (also at Middlebury), Mittell and Grant wrote the formative text, “ The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy .” They created the online journal “ [in]Transition ,” where noteworthy instances of the video essay are published.

In 2022, Lever Press , an online publishing adventure that Mittell helped found, announced that the press would be publishing “Videographic Books,” hoping to expand the idea of the scholarly video essay as an alternative or addition to the scholarly written essay. This project will include long-form scholarly undertakings that seem likely to help us understand dimensions of cinema that the scholarly prose of a book cannot fully comprehend.

And just as Mekas’s early Voice columns helped promote avant-garde accomplishment, Will DiGravio’s video-essay podcasts are bringing increased attention to many video-essayists and their work.

Over the decades, American avant-garde filmmakers have depended on screenings hosted by a network of film societies, museums, colleges and universities and on dedicated distributors such as the New York Coop, Canyon Cinema , New York MoMA, and the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre to manage the films and share the rental money. They also depend on grants from local and state arts councils. For example, the New York State Council on the Arts has provided funding for many filmmakers.

In contrast, video-essayists/scholars do not rent their work. Video essays tend to be labeled “for study purposes only” or “for research purposes only.” They are not for profit and so remain outside of rights issues for the quotations from earlier media they use. Most video essays, including all those referenced here, can be experienced on any viewing/listening platform as well as theatrically at no cost.

Among the most significant and distinctive contributors to this new avant-garde especially within the America/European movement is Chloé Galibert-Laîné. Early in 2022, the filmmaker J. P. Sniadecki suggested that I access Galibert-Laîné’s “Forensickness,” a 41-minute video essay focusing on Chris Kennedy’s “Watching the Detectives” (2017), a short 16mm feature about Reddit postings by redditors trying to solve the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013. At the time, I had not heard of Galibert-Laîné, or even of the video essay as a new form (or for that matter, Chris Kennedy!). I was fascinated.

Galibert-Laîné’s work combines a considerable range of formats, sources, and modes of text, image, and audio to demonstrate how media-making can function as a form of cinematic research that leads to new kinds of scholarship, accessible and engaging not just for experts but for a general media-interested audience.

Her researches have often explored films by filmmakers who have been understood as contributors to art-world avant-garde cinema such as James Benning, and Chris Kennedy as well as filmmakers like Peter Watkins and Georges Franju, whose films fit into Wollen’s narrative-feature avant-garde. Galibert-Laîné’s video essays also explore cinema-spectatorship itself.

Much of Galibert-Laîné’s work is online at her website. I particularly recommend “Reading//Binging//Benning” (2018), made with Kevin B. Lee, another important figure in the emergence of the video essay; “Watching The Pain of Others” (2019), instigated by Galibert-Laîné’s experience of walking out of “Penny Lane’s The Pain of Others” (2018) at the Rotterdam Film Festival; and “A Very Long Exposure Time” (2020), a poetic short that braids together a range of photographic, cinematic, and digital forms of duration. “Forensickness” and “Watching The Pain of Others” were two of three sections of Galibert-Laîné’s PhD thesis (the third, an extended essay written in French).

The American/European Video Essay movement has emerged from academia, largely at the hands and minds of teachers/scholars rebelling against the traditional assumption that serious scholarship must be written and printed in peer reviewed essays and books. However, other makers whose work has contributed to the evolution of the video essay have entered the field from other directions.

The Korean-born American filmmaker Kogonada has often followed in the footsteps of the American montage artist Chuck Workman’s “Precious Images” (1986) and “Pieces of Silver” (1989). He makes engaging, implicitly revealing, sometimes-sponsored video essays out of clips from well-known, usually popular films such as “Kubrick//One Point Perspective” (2012), “Malick//Fire and Water” (2013), “ Eyes of Hitchcock ” (2014), “Hands of Bresson” (2014), “Godard in Fragments” (2019). He has also produced more contemplative video essays.

In “What is Neorealism?” (2013), Kogonada compares two edits of the same 1953 film, one by Italian director Vittorio De Sica (“Terminal Station”) and the other (“Indiscretion of an American Wife”) by Hollywood producer David O. Selznick. The comparison reveals the differences in the filmmakers’ fundamental assumptions about how cinema works to tell stories and to represent reality.

In “The World According to Kore-eda Hirokazu” (2013), Kogonada’s exploration of the Japanese filmmaker’s work is powerfully moving, both a beautiful film in its own right and, like Galibert-Laîné’s “Reading//Binging//Benning” and “Watching the Pain of Others,” an insightful celebration of an admired colleague that alerts any viewer not familiar with Kore-eda to the nature and significance of his oeuvre. Like Galibert-Laîné’s video essays, Kogonada’s are available online at his website.

The remarkable avant-garde movement of the ’60s and ’70s transformed not only film history but the nature of how cinema is taught in many colleges and universities. It remains to be seen how much the new avant-garde of the video essay will transform the teaching of cinema. It’s already clear, however, that its easy availability online solves what was the earlier avant-garde’s biggest problem: you had to find your way to places willing to project it (and you still do).

As you read this, you’re already looking at a primary source for experiencing video essays. The necessary technology is at your fingertips!

Scott MacDonald is author of “A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers” (5 volumes, California), “The Garden in the Machine” (California, 2001), and 14 other books, most recently “Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema” (Oxford, 2015); “The Sublimity of Document: Cinema as Diorama” (Avant-Doc 2) (Oxford, 2019); “William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission” (Columbia, 2020) and “Comprehending Cinema” (Avant-Doc 3) (forthcoming). Named an Academy Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2011, he teaches film history and programs F.I.L.M. at Hamilton College.

More from The Edge

Manufacturing Outrage, One Pet at a Time

Oct 8, 2024

Disinformation, Hyper-Partisan Media, and the Perils of Big Tech   “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana [Bash],” Republican...

The Rise of Misogynoir Fascism

Sep 20, 2024

Pascism or Fatriarchy? We are fully in the throes of the 2024 Presidential Election. Kamala Harris says the present right-wing assault on our democracy must be stemmed. And Trump spits out authoritarian barbs and lies. A rising fascism is often named as our largest...

Rocking The Forest: Rockstadt Extreme Fest Pummels Romania

Aug 9, 2024

Nestled beneath lush pine forests of the Carpathian Mountains in the quaint Transylvanian town of Rasnov, Rockstadt Extreme Fest unleashed its tenth annual independent music festival, their website boasting, “The largest and most monumental heavy metal festival in...

Radicalize the Promise of Kamala

Aug 7, 2024

My purpose: to claim all possibilities for radicalizing Kamala Harris’s campaign to demand a ceasefire and not one more bomb, while making sure that Trump does not win. And to recognize how unique it is to see this band of warriors organizing around Harris as her...

No[n]Sense: Administrative Responses to Campus Protests

Aug 2, 2024

What happened on campus at University of Texas at Dallas on May 1, 2024 — and in its aftermath — makes no sense to me whatsoever. On that day, colleagues, students, community members and others were shackled and jailed. And while they were released within 24 hours,...

Op-Ed: Educators Are Not the Enemy

by Monica J. Casper, Meghan Eagen, Amy E. Farrell, Katherine Felter, Grace E. Howard, E. Goldblatt Hyatt, Erika Robb Larkins, Monica R. McLemore, Kyle J. Morgan, Kayti Protos, Stephanie Troutman Robbins, William Paul Simmons, Joseph Stramondo, Megan Thiele Strong,...

States of Emergency, Then and Now: Artists’ Reflections on Sustained Turbulence and FLEFF

Jul 8, 2024

Patricia R. Zimmermann opens her book “States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies” (2000) with a reality-check: “We are poised on a crumbling, frightening precipice as we edge into the enigmatic morphing media landscapes of the twenty-first century. Whether...

Anyone But Trump: Hoping, Fighting, and Voting Together

Jul 5, 2024

Before I start, let me say the world is messy right now. It is messy to think. It is messy to write. But I continue in defiance, with hope for our liberation. It is July 4. What better time to wonder about the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement that openly...

An Anticolonial Fight in the U.S. Heartland? No, But…

Jul 1, 2024

We focus on the fights. The left explodes in anger when someone from the right insults gender diversity or fails to criticize a racist statement. Understandably. The right stews in rage as the left scoffs at conservatives, speaking as if all are racist and homophobic....

Project Censored Teams Up with The Progressive for a Must-Read Special Issue This June

Jun 4, 2024

As one of the most consequential presidential elections in recent history barrels toward us, critical media literacy skills have never been more important. That’s why Project Censored has partnered with The Progressive to create a must-read issue that offers valuable...

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

How to Write an Essay in French

Have something to say?

When it comes to expressing your thoughts in French , there’s nothing better than the essay.

It is, after all, the favorite form of such famed French thinkers as Montaigne, Chateaubriand, Houellebecq and Simone de Beauvoir.

In this post, I’ve outlined the four most common types of essays in French, ranked from easiest to most difficult, to help you get to know this concept better. 

Why Are French Essays Different?

Must-have french phrases for writing essays, 4 types of french essays and how to write them, 1. text summary (synthèse de texte).

• 2. Text Commentary (Commentaire de texte)

3. Dialectic Dissertation (Thèse, Antithèse, Synthèse)

• 4. Progressive Dissertation (Plan progressif)

And one more thing...

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Writing an essay in French is not the same as those typical 5-paragraph essays you’ve probably written in English.

In fact, there’s a whole other logic that has to be used to ensure that your essay meets French format standards and structure. It’s not merely writing your ideas in another language .

And that’s because the French use Cartesian logic (also known as Cartesian doubt) , developed by René Descartes , which requires a writer to begin with what is known and then lead the reader through to the logical conclusion: a paragraph that contains the thesis. Through the essay, the writer will reject all that is not certain or all that is subjective in his or her quest to find the objective truth.

Sound intriguing? Read on for more!

Before we get to the four main types of essays, here are a few French phrases that will be especially helpful as you delve into essay-writing in French:

Introductory phrases , which help you present new ideas.

Connecting phrases , which help you connect ideas and sections.

Contrasting phrases , which help you juxtapose two ideas.

Concluding phrases , which help you to introduce your conclusion.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Try FluentU for FREE!

The text summary or synthèse de texte  is one of the easiest French writing exercises to get a handle on. It essentially involves reading a text and then summarizing it in an established number of words, while repeating no phrases that are in the original text. No analysis is called for.

A  synthèse de texte  should follow the same format as the text that is being synthesized. The arguments should be presented in the same way, and no major element of the original text should be left out of the  synthèse.

Here is an informative post about writing a synthèse de texte , written for French speakers. 

The text summary is a great exercise for exploring the following French language elements:

• Synonyms , as you will need to find other words to describe what is said in the original text.
• Nominalization , which involves turning verbs into nouns and generally cuts down on word count.
• Vocabulary , as the knowledge of more exact terms will allow you to avoid periphrases and cut down on word count.

While beginners may wish to work with only one text, advanced learners can synthesize as many as three texts in one text summary. 

Since a text summary is simple in its essence, it’s a great writing exercise that can accompany you through your entire learning process.

2. Text Commentary  (Commentaire de texte)

A text commentary or commentaire de texte   is the first writing exercise where the student is asked to present an analysis of the materials at hand, not just a summary.

That said, a  commentaire  de texte  is not a reaction piece. It involves a very delicate balance of summary and opinion, the latter of which must be presented as impersonally as possible. This can be done either by using the third person (on) or the general first person plural (nous) . The singular first person (je) should never be used in a  commentaire de texte.

A commentaire de texte  should be written in three parts:

• An introduction , where the text is presented.
• An argument , where the text is analyzed.
• A conclusion , where the analysis is summarized and elevated.

Here is a handy in-depth guide to writing a successful commentaire de texte,  written for French speakers.

Unlike with the synthesis, you will not be able to address all elements of a text in a commentary. You should not summarize the text in a commentary, at least not for the sake of summarizing. Every element of the text that you speak about in your commentary must be analyzed.

To successfully analyze a text, you will need to brush up on your figurative language. Here are some great resources to get you started:

• Here’s an introduction to figurative language in French.
• This guide to figurative language  presents the different elements in useful categories.
• This guide , intended for high school students preparing for the BAC—the exam all French high school students take, which they’re required to pass to go to university—is great for seeing examples of how to integrate figurative language into your commentaries.
• Speaking of which, here’s an example of a corrected commentary from the BAC, which will help you not only include figurative language but get a head start on writing your own commentaries.

The French answer to the 5-paragraph essay is known as the  dissertation .  Like the American 5-paragraph essay, it has an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. The stream of logic, however, is distinct.

There are actually two kinds of  dissertation,  each of which has its own rules.

The first form of  dissertation  is the dialectic dissertation , better known as  thèse, antithèse, synthèse . In this form, there are actually only two body paragraphs. After the introduction, a thesis is posited. Following the thesis, its opposite, the antithesis, is explored (and hopefully, debunked). The final paragraph, what we know as the conclusion, is the  synthesis , which addresses the strengths of the thesis, the strengths and weaknesses of the antithesis, and concludes with the reasons why the original thesis is correct.

For example, imagine that the question was, “Are computers useful to the development of the human brain?” You could begin with a section showing the ways in which computers are useful for the progression of our common intelligence—doing long calculations, creating in-depth models, etc.

Then you would delve into the problems that computers pose to human intelligence, citing examples of the ways in which spelling proficiency has decreased since the invention of spell check, for example. Finally, you would synthesize this information and conclude that the “pro” outweighs the “con.”

The key to success with this format is developing an outline before writing. The thesis must be established, with examples, and the antithesis must be supported as well. When all of the information has been organized in the outline, the writing can begin, supported by the tools you have learned from your mastery of the synthesis and commentary.

Here are a few tools to help you get writing:

• Here’s a great guide to writing a dialectic dissertation .
• Here’s an example of a plan for a dialectic dissertation , showing you the three parts of the essay as well as things to consider when writing a dialectic dissertation.

4. Progressive Dissertation ( Plan progressif)

The progressive dissertation is slightly less common, but no less useful, than the first form.

The progressive form basically consists of examining an idea via multiple points of view—a sort of deepening of the understanding of the notion, starting with a superficial perspective and ending with a deep and profound analysis.

If the dialectic dissertation is like a scale, weighing pros and cons of an idea, the progressive dissertation is like peeling an onion, uncovering more and more layers as you get to the deeper crux of the idea.

Concretely, this means that you will generally follow this layout:

• A first, elementary exploration of the idea.
• A second, more philosophical exploration of the idea.
• A third, more transcendent exploration of the idea.

This format for the dissertation is more commonly used for essays that are written in response to a philosophical question, for example, “What is a person?” or “What is justice?”

Let’s say the question was, “What is war?” In the first part, you would explore dictionary definitions—a basic idea of war, i.e. an armed conflict between two parties, usually nations. You could give examples that back up this definition, and you could narrow down the definition of the subject as much as needed. For example, you might want to make mention that not all conflicts are wars, or you might want to explore whether the “War on Terror” is a war.

In the second part, you would explore a more philosophical look at the topic, using a definition that you provide. You first explain how you plan to analyze the subject, and then you do so. In French, this is known as  poser une problématique  (establishing a thesis question), and it usually is done by first writing out a question and then exploring it using examples: “Is war a reflection of the base predilection of humans for violence?”

In the third part, you will take a step back and explore this question from a distance, taking the time to construct a natural conclusion and answer for the question.

This form may not be as useful in as many cases as the first type of essay, but it’s a good form to learn, particularly for those interested in philosophy. Here’s an in-depth guide  to writing a progressive dissertation.

As you progress in French and become more and more comfortable with writing, try your hand at each of these types of writing exercises, and even with other forms of the dissertation . You’ll soon be a pro at everything from a synthèse de texte to a dissertation!

FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.

For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."

All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Related posts:

Top 6 French Chatbots for Language Practice

20 French False Friends

Reply to this review cancel.

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy , and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

Recent Articles

The French Present Participle

The French Conditional Mood: Usage, Formation and Tips

The French “R”: 3 Ways to Nail Pronunciation

Enter your e-mail address to get your free pdf.

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe

Published on October 6th, 2023 | by Adrian Lomezzo

How to Write an Essay in French Without Giving Yourself Away as a Foreigner

Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-a-quote-on-a-paper-5425603/

Bienvenue! Do you dream of unleashing your inner French literary genius, but worry that your writing might inadvertently reveal your foreign roots? Fret not, mes amis, as we have the ultimate guide to help you master the art of essay writing en Français!

Within these pages, we’ll navigate the intricate waters of linguistic nuances, cultural subtleties, and grammatical finesse, allowing you to exude the aura of a native French speaker effortlessly. Many students like you have embarked on this journey, seeking academic assistance from platforms like  https://paperwritten.com/  to conquer their writing pursuits.

From crafting a compelling introduction to fashioning impeccable conclusions, we’ll unveil the secrets that will leave your professors applauding your newfound linguistic prowess. So, bid adieu to those awkward linguistic giveaways and embrace the sheer elegance of French expression – all while keeping your foreign identity beautifully concealed! Let’s embark on this adventure together and unlock the true essence of writing like a native French virtuoso.

1.   Mastering French Grammar and Vocabulary: Building a Strong Foundation

To create a compelling French essay, it’s essential to lay a solid groundwork. Ensure that your French grammar is accurate and that you possess a rich vocabulary. Avoid relying on online translators, as they may yield awkward or incorrect sentences. Instead, embrace reputable dictionaries and language resources to enhance your language skills effectively.

2.   Mimic Sentence Structures: The Art of Authentic Expression

To truly immerse yourself in the French language, observe and mimic the sentence structures used by native speakers. Analyzing essays written by experienced writers can prove invaluable in grasping the authentic style required to compose a captivating essay.

3.   Use Transition Words: Crafting a Smooth Flow of Ideas

In French essays, the use of transition words and phrases plays a pivotal role in connecting ideas seamlessly. Incorporate expressions like “de plus,” “en outre,” “en conclusion,” “tout d’abord,” and “par conséquent” to add coherence and elegance to your writing.

4.   Embrace French Idioms and Expressions: Unveiling Cultural Fluency

Demonstrate a deeper understanding of the French language and culture by incorporating idioms and expressions where appropriate. However, remember to use them sparingly to avoid overwhelming your essay.

5.   Pay Attention to Formality: Striking the Right Tone

Tailor the formality of your writing to suit the context of your essay. Whether you are crafting an academic piece or a more personal creation, be mindful of your choice of vocabulary and sentence structures to match the required tone.

6.   Research Cultural References: The Power of In-depth Knowledge

If your essay touches upon French culture, history, or literature, extensive research is key. Delve into your subjects to avoid mistakes and showcase your genuine interest in the matter at hand.

7.   Avoid Direct Translations: Let French Be French

To avoid awkward phrasing, strive to think in French rather than translating directly from your native language. This will lead to a more natural and eloquent essay.

8.   Practice Writing Regularly: The Path to Proficiency

Mastering the art of French writing requires regular practice. Embrace writing in French frequently to grow more comfortable with the language and refine your unique writing style.

9.   Read French Literature: A Gateway to Inspiration

Explore the world of French literature to expose yourself to diverse writing styles. This practice will deepen your understanding of the language and immerse you further in French culture and history.

10.   Connect with French Culture: Bridges of Cultural Resonance

Incorporate cultural references that resonate with French readers, such as art, cuisine, festivals, historical figures, or social customs. Authenticity is key, so avoid relying on stereotypes.

11.   Use a French Thesaurus: Expanding Your Linguistic Palette

Discovering new contextually appropriate words can elevate your writing. Embrace a French thesaurus to find synonyms that may not be apparent through direct translations.

12.   Master French Punctuation: The Finishing Touch

Take care to use correct French punctuation marks, such as guillemets (« ») for quotes and proper accent marks. These subtle details add a professional touch to your essay.

13.   Practice French Rhetorical Devices: Crafting Eloquent Prose

Experiment with rhetorical devices like parallelism, repetition, and antithesis to lend depth and sophistication to your writing.

14.   Pay Attention to Word Order: Unlocking French Sentence Structure

French boasts a unique sentence structure distinct from English. Dive into the intricacies of subject-verb-object order and grasp the art of organizing sentences to sidestep common foreign mistakes. Embracing this essential aspect will elevate your writing to a truly native level.

15.   Use French Idiomatic Expressions: Infuse Cultural Flair

Enrich your prose with the colorful tapestry of French idioms, reflecting the vibrant essence of the culture. Yet, a word of caution – wield them with finesse, for the strategic placement of an idiom can imbue your essay with unparalleled flair and authenticity.

16.   Master Pronouns and Agreement: The Dance of Language

The dance of pronouns, nouns, and adjectives requires your keen attention. Like a skilled performer, ensure their seamless alignment to avoid inadvertently revealing your non-native status. Mastering this harmony is key to writing like a true Francophone.

17.   Understand Subtle Connotations: Unveiling Linguistic Shades

Delve into the labyrinth of French words, where subtle connotations diverge from their English counterparts. Familiarize yourself with these delicate nuances, for it is in their mastery that your writing shall find refinement.

18.   Study Formal and Informal Registers: Tailoring Language to Purpose

Akin to selecting the perfect outfit for each occasion, comprehend the art of using formal and informal language. Consider your essay’s purpose and audience, and with this knowledge, enhance your authenticity, seamlessly aligning with the appropriate linguistic register.

19.   Practice Dialogue Writing: Conversing with Eloquence

Embark on the journey of dialogue writing to enrich your linguistic repertoire. As you hone your conversational skills, watch as authenticity gracefully weaves itself into your written work, enchanting readers with its charm.

20.   Seek Feedback: A Second Set of Eyes

To refine your essay further, seek the guidance of a native French speaker or language tutor from the  best cheap essay writing services . Their valuable feedback can uncover any language or cultural mistakes you may have made, allowing you to make necessary improvements.

Equip yourself with these priceless tips and set forth on your quest to master the art of French writing. Embrace the language’s allure, immerse in its rich culture, and watch your words flow with grace and poise. À la plume! Let the pen become your ally in crafting captivating prose that echoes with authenticity and charm. 

Header Photo Credit by George Milton: https://www.pexels.com/photo/smiling-woman-in-eyeglasses-with-books-7034478/

About the Author

Adrian Lomezzo is a content writer and likes to write about technology and education. He understands the concern of parents due to the evolving technology and researches deeply in that area. When he is not researching, he buries himself in books along with his favorite cup of hot chocolate.

Related Posts

Veronique Gallo On Tour With Her Latest Show “Femme De Vie” In California →

Beyond Shakespeare: Expanding Horizons with London’s Diverse Theatre Scene →

Three French authors from San Diego present their new books  →

Martine Couralet-Laing reveals behind the scenes of the city of angels in DreamLAnd →

Leave a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Welcome to French Quarter Magazine (FQM) – your passport to a journey through France, the United States and beyond!

French Quarter Magazine is a dynamic bilingual publication, based in Las Vegas, that celebrates the finest in art, culture, entertainment, lifestyle, fashion, food, travel, sports and history. Whether you're longing for a taste of Parisian elegance or the vibrancy of American culture, we've got you covered.

Our mission is to create a link and to bridge the gap between the United States and France by promoting exchanges and offering a unique reading experience through our bilingual publication. From the charming streets of Paris to the bustling avenues of New York City, our articles provide a captivating exploration of diverse cultural landscapes. Written by our dedicated team of contributors from around the world, they cover everything from the latest places to visit or stay, to new spectacles and exhibitions, to the opening of exciting restaurants or stores, fashion trends, and the nuanced history of French-American relations.

With a focus on women empowering women and excellence, we showcase individuals who make a positive impact in our communities. Through cultural events, conferences, and engaging content, we strive to enrich understanding of history, culture, and the arts, while preserving and transmitting valuable skills and knowledge.

At French Quarter Magazine, we cherish culture as a precious and diverse treasure that should be celebrated. That's why we provide a platform for individuals and businesses with interests in both countries to connect, network, and engage. Through our engaging content and cultural events, we strive to foster understanding and appreciation of the unique qualities of each culture, while also highlighting their shared values.

So why not join us on a journey of discovery? Whether you're seeking inspiration or information, French Quarter Magazine is the perfect publication for you.

Step into a world of lifestyle, entertainment, cultural exchanges with French Quarter Magazine! Subscribe today to receive our weekly newsletters and special offers, and step into a world of endless possibilities.

PROMOTE MY BUSINESS

Donate we need your help, become an ambassador, virtual and in-person events with fqm, your opinion matters , learning french, recent posts.

RECENT COMMENTS

SUCH A AMAZING POST! THANK YOU....

My husband and I love visiting France and are interested in learning more about it.

Merci pour votre commentaire intéressant, Annick ! Désolée pour la réponse tardive. Nous avons dû restructurer notre équipe. Nous sommes…

Thank you for your continued support and for being a regular visitor to our website, Cameron! Sorry for the late…

Bonjour! Nous sommes ravis que vous ayez apprécié l'article ! Désolée pour la réponse très tardive. Nous avons dû restructurer…

©2023 French Quarter Magazine

• Sponsorships, Partnerships and Advertising
• Privacy Policies

Discover our new and improved website at www.frenchquartermagazine.com ! We look forward to welcoming you there !

How to Make a Video Essay (with 5 Inspiring Examples)

• Serra Ardem

In the world of digital media, video essays are a canvas where creativity meets critical thinking. From pre-production planning to post-production editing, these videos require a careful balance of visual elements, narrative structure, and technical skills to effectively communicate your ideas.

In this blog, we will:

• Explore different types of video essays
• Guide you on how to make a video essay step-by-step
• List 10 best practices for creating compelling video essays
• Share 5 great video essay examples for further inspiration

Let’s get started.

What is a video essay?

A video essay is essentially a written essay brought to life through the use of video footage, narration, music, and other multimedia elements. As a form of creative nonfiction, it blends the depth of written essays with the power of visual storytelling.

Best video essays are:

• Personal and reflective; often explore the author’s personal experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
• Multifaceted and creative; combine various forms of media to keep viewers engaged.
• Argumentative or analytical; present a thesis and support it with evidence, or break down and analyze a particular subject.
• Thought-provoking; aim to stimulate viewers’ critical thinking and intellectual curiosity.

Before we delve into the steps on how to make a video essay, let’s take a look at its different types:

How to Make a Video Essay Step-by-Step

Whether you’re exploring a personal story or making a strong argument about a current issue, video essays offer a powerful format for self-expression and analysis. Here is how to make a video essay in 3 stages:

Pre-production

• Choose your topic and define your thesis statement. Select a topic that interests you and that you understand well. Then develop a clear and concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or claim of your essay. For example, if you’re creating a personal college application video, your thesis might focus on how a specific experience shaped your worldview or contributed to your personal growth.
• Gather research materials. Conduct thorough research to gather information that supports your thesis. Make sure to organize your sources so you can reference them accurately during the production and editing phases.
• Develop an outline and craft a script. Break down your outline into introduction, body, and conclusion. List the main points you will cover in each section. This will ensure that your essay flows logically and smoothly. Then write a script that expands on your outline.
• Create a storyboard. You don’t have to be a professional artist; just sketch out a basic visual plan of how your video will unfold. Map out the key scenes, shots, and visual elements that correspond to your outline. Include captions and notes to describe each shot.
• Prepare your equipment and software. Gather the video equipment for your video production, such as camera, microphone, tripod, and lighting. If you’re going to use AI tools, familiarize yourself with the software and test it with sample footage to ensure it works as expected.

• Set up your equipment. Position your camera, lighting, and microphone according to your script. Make sure that the camera is stable, the microphone is properly set up for clear audio, and the lighting is adjusted to enhance visibility and create the desired mood.
• Record or generate your video. Follow your script and storyboard to shoot the necessary footage. Pay specific attention to framing, focus, and audio quality during recording.

If you’re using an AI video generator, provide the tool with your script, and select the desired style or aesthetic for your video. The AI will then process your input and generate the video essay. You may need to provide additional details or make adjustments during the generation process.

10 AI Video Generators for Beginners (with Best Practices)

Post-production.

• Edit your footage. Import it into your chosen video editing software. (Popular options include Adobe Premiere Pro , Final Cut Pro , and DaVinci Resolve .) Arrange clips according to your script and storyboard, trim unnecessary parts, and correct any visual or audio errors for a polished final look. In case of AI video generators, review the generated content carefully and utilize the tool’s editing features as you need.
• Incorporate music, sound effects, and text overlays. Make sure that auditory elements complement the mood and do not overshadow narration. Integrate text overlays to introduce sections, highlight key points, or provide additional context. All these elements must be seamlessly integrated and add value to your video essay.
• Add subtitles and a transcript . Subtitles will make your video essay accessible to a broader audience and facilitate comprehension for those who prefer or require visual text. Always check if captions are synchronized with the audio and accurately represent the spoken content. Meanwhile, generate a transcript of the video to provide a textual version of the content, which can also aid in SEO and accessibility.
• Do a final review and make necessary adjustments. Watch your video essay in its entirety to ensure that all elements are cohesive and effective. Consider seeking feedback from others to confirm that your video conveys your message clearly.
• Export and upload your video essay. Choose the appropriate format and resolution for your intended platform. When uploading your video, write a compelling title and add an eye-catching thumbnail to attract viewers. Include relevant keywords and tags to increase discoverability.

10 Best Practices for Making Video Essays

In addition to the instructions mentioned above, these 10 best practices on how to make a video essay can make your content even more impactful:

• Rehearse your script. Practice makes perfect, so rehearse your timing, intonation, and pacing to reduce the likelihood of errors and improve overall presentation.
• Have a strong opening and closing. Start the video essay with an intriguing introduction to grab your audience’s attention, and end with a strong conclusion to reinforce your main points and leave a lasting impression.
• Avoid rambling or going off on targets. Stay focused on your main points and do not include unnecessary elaboration or unrelated anecdotes, as every segment must contribute to your thesis.
• Incorporate data or statistics. Present them in a clear and understandable way, utilizing visuals like charts or graphs to make it more relatable for viewers.
• Use B-roll footage, graphics, and animations to enrich your main content. These elements can help you illustrate complex ideas, reinforce your arguments, and make your video essay more memorable.
• Provide high-quality audio. Minimize background noise during recording, and adjust audio levels and eliminate any distracting sounds during post-production.
• Prioritize accessibility. Include subtitles and closed captions to aid deaf and hard of hearing viewers while maintaining high contrast between text and background for better readability.
• Encourage audience interaction. Add calls-to-action (CTAs) for viewers to comment, like, share, or subscribe, and ask them to share their opinions and experiences related to the topic.
• Track and optimize. Regularly check view counts, watch times, and engagement rates to understand how well your content is performing and analyze the data to refine your approach.
• Experiment and have fun. Try different approaches, such as using various editing styles or narrative techniques, and stay open-minded along your creative journey.

Add AI Subtitles to Your Video Essay

This will not only improve the accessibility of your video essay but also boost its SEO performance and multiply your viewership.

5 Powerful Video Essay Examples

Featuring an example from each category, these 5 videos can inspire you with various approaches on how to make a video essay.

Personal Video Essay

This college application video is a great example of a personal video essay. With a clear structure, it demonstrates why the person is a good candidate and utilizes editing features smoothly. The effective use of graphics, background music, subtitles, and transitions all contribute to the success of the video.

Argumentative Video Essay

This argumentative video essay named “How Discounts Keep You Poor” shows the importance of well-done research for this kind of content. The main argument is supported by solid reasons and examples, which are highlighted with eye-catching text overlays. The call to action at the end of the video invites viewers to share their own thoughts on the subject and subscribe to the channel.

Analysis Video Essay

Titled “Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now?” , this analysis video essay focuses on how movies have evolved since modernism. Based on movements like postmodernism and metamodernism, the content is organized into chapters to create a logical flow. A professional voiceover accompanies high-quality footage from movies, all creating a final harmonious piece.

How to Add Chapters to Youtube Videos

Experimental video essay.

Going beyond traditional video game reviews, this experimental video essay explores gaming as a perfectionist . It adopts unique audiovisual techniques to blend in-depth analysis with unconventional storytelling. The clever use of humor and game footage also adds an experimental flair to the typical video essay format.

Hybrid Video Essay

This hybrid video essay titled “drowning in entertainment: the age of distraction” combines personal, argumentative, analysis, and even experimental formats to delve deep into how we interact with information today. It uses attention-grabbing B-roll footage, still images, and text overlays to enhance the narrative. The talking head sections further personalize the content, allowing the creator to build a direct and engaging connection with the audience.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is a video essay.

This can vary depending on the complexity of the topic, the target audience, and the platform on which the video essay is shared. Typically, video essays last from a few minutes to over an hour. It’s important to keep the length aligned with the content’s depth and engage the viewers without overwhelming them.

How do you get ideas for a video essay?

For personal video essays, consider experiences that have shaped your perspective or lifestyle. For argumentative and analytical video essays, pressing social issues or cultural trends are excellent sources of inspiration. Meanwhile, hypothetical scenarios (e.g., future possibilities) or artistic interpretations can fuel ideas for hybrid and experimental video essays.

What to wear for a video essay?

Students shooting an application video essay can opt for business casual attire.  YouTubers and content creators might choose outfits that align with their personal brand and content style. Business professionals can wear a collared shirt or blouse to convey a polished and professional look. Each outfit choice should reflect the context of the video and enhance the overall presentation.

How to make a video essay for YouTube?

You can follow the steps above to make a video essay for YouTube. For this specific platform, it is especially important to use relevant keywords and design an eye-catching thumbnail to draw viewers in. Take advantage of YouTube’s end screens or cards to promote related video essays.

How to make a video essay for class?

When making a video essay for your class, make sure you understand the topic, length, and any other guidelines correctly. Organize your thoughts in a logical sequence, plan the footage you’ll use to support your points, and rehearse your script beforehand. Ensure audio and visual quality while recording and editing the video, and don’t forget to have fun!

Featuring actionable tips, this blog covered the steps on how to make a video essay and listed 10 best practices for making this kind of content even more polished and memorable. It also shared 5 inspiring video essay examples in different types.

Here are our 3 golden rules for creating an impactful video essay:

• Define and stick to your thesis statement. This will be the core of your video essay and help you stay focused during the production phase.
• Have a strong beginning and end. Both should be carefully crafted to hook your audience from the start and provide a satisfying conclusion that ties everything together.
• Utilize various multimedia elements. Incorporate video footage, images, text overlays, and music to express complex ideas and maintain viewer interest.

Follow the tips in this blog to refine your video essay creation process, and feel free to experiment with different formats along the way.

About Serra Ardem

Serra Ardem is a freelance writer and editor based in Istanbul. For the last 8 years, she has been collaborating with brands and businesses to tell their unique story and develop their verbal identity.

Related Posts

12 Top Faceless YouTube Niches for 2024

How to Search YouTube Transcripts in 3 Ways

How to See Live Chat on YouTube Mobile

5 Influencer Media Kit Examples and How to Create Your Own

How to Create a Video Portfolio (with 5 Great Examples)

How to Make Faceless YouTube Videos with and without AI

Production écrite DELF B2 : l'essai argumenté (DELF essay)

On the day of the delf b2 exam, the written production test can take a variety of forms: the formal letter , le "courrier des lecteurs"  or the argumentative essay. and that's exactly what we're going to focus on in this article. i've helped dozens of people from all over the world to successfully prepare for the delf and dalf exams, and i'd like to share my experience with you, what is a delf essay, the plan and different parts of the essay, an example of a subject.

An example of an argumentative essay

The evaluation grid

Advice and recommendations

The essay is an exercise in which you have to answer a question  by expressing your opinion and arguing. As with the other 3 papers in the exam, the essay is worth 25 points , with a minimum mark of 5/25 (a mark of less than 5 is eliminatory). You will have 60 minutes  to write a text of at least 250 words .

The argumentative DELF essay follows a precise plan and must be clear and organized. It must contain 3 parts:

an introduction, which sets out the problem to be addressed, i.e. the question to be answered in the essay;

a development in 2 or 3 parts, with arguments and examples;

a conclusion in which you respond to the problematic announced in the introduction.

Your essay should contrast the 2 parts (pros/cons, advantages/disadvantages, yes/no, causes/consequences) or detail several aspects of the same theme.

In the introduction , you present the theme and introduce the subject with a general approach. Then you announce the problem. This may be the question  given in the subject, or a question you develop yourself.

The development  consists of 2 or 3 balanced (more or less equal) parts. You can't make one part a page long and the other a few lines, so you need to have more or less the same number of arguments in each part. The aim is to set out your arguments and counter-arguments, illustrated by  concrete examples . You can, of course, use personal examples, but you can also cite scientific studies, current events, etc.

The conclusion  is a summary of your development  and should not introduce new arguments. It is used to respond to the problematic, in a "clear-cut" way (you are in favor OR against), or with nuances ("I agree, but...").

Le télétravail s’est énormément développé ces dernières années grâce à la technologie. Plus pratique, moins stressant et bon pour l’écologie, le travail à distance séduit mais certains télétravailleurs se sentent isolés et coupés des relations sociales. Et vous, que pensez-vous du télétravail ? (250 mots).

An example of an argumentative DELF essay

J'ai répondu à la question pour vous montrer un exemple d'essai du DELF B2. Le texte en gris ne doit pas apparaître sur votre feuille d'examen. Je les ai ajoutées pour que vous voyiez les différentes parties du texte.

J'ai choisi le plan avantages/inconvénients car je pense que c'est le plus adapté pour répondre à cette question, mais vous êtes bien sûr libre de choisir le plan de votre choix.

(Introduction) Depuis la pandémie de COVID qui a bouleversé le monde en 2020, le travail à distance (ou "télétravail") a pris une place immense dans la vie des salariés. Cette nouvelle manière de travailler a transformé nos vies, mais est-ce pour le meilleur ou pour le pire ?

(Developement - First part: advantages) Dès la mise en place du premier confinement, les salariés qui le pouvaient ont dû travailler chez eux et de nombreux avantages se sont présentés. Tout d'abord, le télétravail offre une certaine flexibilité, ce qui permet de mieux adapter ses horaires à sa vie personnelle. Les rendez-vous médicaux au milieu de l'après-midi, l'école des enfants ou la réception des colis ne posent désormais plus problème puisqu'on peut facilement faire une pause quand on le souhaite.

Par ailleurs, le fait de ne plus avoir à se déplacer au bureau présente aussi des avantages écologiques et économiques puisque ça permet de réduire le temps de transport, les coûts mais aussi la pollution liée aux transports.

(Developement - Second part: disadvantages) Toutefois, le télétravail a aussi des inconvénients. Premièrement, quand on travaille à la maison, la vie privée et la vie professionnelle se mélangent, et la limite n'est plus aussi claire qu'auparavant. Les horaires plus flexibles ont en effet tendance à augmenter le temps de travail total.

De plus, certains salariés qui avaient l'habitude de côtoyer leurs collègues au bureau se sentent aujourd'hui isolés. On ne déjeune plus avec son équipe mais seul, on ne parle plus à un être humain mais à un écran, et on ne passe plus de temps ensemble à la sortie du travail.

(Conclusion) Le télétravail offre donc de nombreux avantages mais n'est pas adapté à toutes les professions et à tous les salariés. Chacun devrait pouvoir choisir le mode de travail qui lui convient le mieux (présentiel, télétravail ou hybride). 293 mots

The DELF B2 written production assessment grid is the same for all candidates and all markers. You can consult it here .

The examiner will assess you on different criteria , each worth 5 points:

La réalisation de la tâche (task completion) : Did you follow the instructions? Did you do what you were asked to do?

La cohérence et la cohésion (coherence and cohesion) : Does your text make sense? Is it clear and well-organized?

L'adéquation sociolinguistique (sociolinguistic suitability) : Is your language adapted to the exercise? Do you use the right level of language?

Le lexique (lexicon) : Is the vocabulary you use appropriate? Is it varied?

La morphosyntaxe (morphosyntax) : here, the examiner evaluates grammar and sentence structure.

As you can see, vocabulary and grammar account for 10 points out of 25, i.e. less than half. Your main aim in the DELF B2 written production test is to adapt your essay to the instructions, not just to write a text in perfect French!

Advice et recommendations

Set aside 5 minutes at the end of the test  to reread and correct your essay!

Don't write your entire essay on your rough draft! You don't have time to make a rough draft and copy everything onto your exam paper. Use your rough draft to write your plan , your main ideas and a few examples.

Don't write too many words : you're asked to write "250 words minimum", which means you can write more. But I don't recommend that you write an extremely long essay, for several reasons: 1. You don't have the time. 2. Writing more words means you can potentially make more mistakes (and therefore lose points). 3. Writing more than 250 words won't necessarily earn you more words. The proofreader doesn't evaluate you on the length of the text as long as it respects the instructions (minimum 250 words).

Use linking words ( logical connectors ) to articulate your essay and make it clear and pleasant to read.

Leave some space  between the parts of your essay: without reading the text, the marker will already be able to see that it is well organized and contains the required parts.

Each argument should be supported by  an example  (from your own experience or from current events, for example).

Remember to  count and write down the number of words at the end of your essay.

Need help preparing for DELF or DALF? Sign up for our online preparation courses ! Over 100 people around the world have trusted me and passed their exams! 😍

Recent Posts

DELF B2: how does it work and how to be prepared?

Production écrite DELF B2 : le courrier des lecteurs

DELF B2 topics

French Your Way

Learn French Online | Learn French Melbourne | French Voices Podcast

How to Write The Perfect French Essay For Your Exam

November 16, 2014 by Jessica 3 Comments

Here are tips to help you write a great French essay with exam requirements in mind. Once you’re done, I strongly suggest you proofread your text using my checklis t.

Note: if you’re preparing for the French VCE, there is an updated version of these exam tips in my guide  “How to Prepare for the French VCE & Reach your Maximum Score” .

While supervising exams or tutoring for exam preparation, I’ve seen too many students writing straight away on their exam copies. Stop! Resist the urge to jump on your pen and take a step back to make sure that you will be addressing all the exam requirements or you may be shooting yourself in the foot and lose precious points.

I recommend that you train with exam sample questions so that you set up good working habits and respect the required length of the essay, as well as the timing (allow at least 10 minutes for proofreading).

Crafting your French Essay

1. identify the situation: preparation work.

•   Read the topic carefully, slowly and at least twice to absorb every information/detail.
• Underline/highlight/jot down any piece of information that you are expected to reuse:
• What type of text do you need to write? (a journal entry? A formal letter? A speech? Etc). Note to VCE French exam students : refer to page 13 of the VCE French Study Design for more information about the different types of texts.
• Who are you in the situation? (yourself? A journalist? etc)
• Who are you addressing? (a friend? A large audience? Etc) à adjust the degree of formality to the situation (for example by using the “tu”/”vous” form, a casual or formal tone/register, etc)
• What are the characteristic features of the type of text you need to write? (eg a journal entry will have the date, a formal letter will start and end with a formal greeting, etc)
• What is your goal ? What are you expected to talk about / present / defend / convey?
• What are the length requirements for your French essay ? Respect the word count (there’s usually a 5% or so tolerance. Check the requirements specific to your exam)

Tip : when you practice at home, count how many words in average you fit on a line. This will give you a good indication of how many lines your text should be.

Ex: You write an average of 15 words per line. If you are required to write a 300-word French essay, you should aim for:

300 words / 15 words per line = 20 lines total.

2. Draft the outline of your essay

•  An essay typically has an introduction, a body with 2 or 3 distinct parts and a conclusion . (See if that outline is relevant to the type of text you are expected to write and adjust accordingly.)
• Use bullet points to organize your ideas.
• Don’t remain too general. A good rule is to use one main idea for each part and to back it up/reinforce in/illustrate it with one concrete example (eg. data).
• Brainstorming about things to say will also help you use a wider range of vocabulary , which will get noticed by the examiner. Are there some interesting/specific words or expressions that you can think of using in your text (example: if you are writing about global warming, brainstorm the vocab related to this topic. Brainstorm expressions to convince or disagree with something, etc)?
• Make sure you have reused every point identified in part 1 .

 3. Write your essay

•  It’s better if you have time to write or at least draft a few sentences on your draft paper rather than writing directly because:
• You want to meet the word count requirements
• You don’t want multiple words to be barred cross crossed-out and your page looking messy and great anything but neat!
• you don’t want to have to rush so much that your handwriting is really unpleasant to read (or worse, impossible to read…)
• So… monitor your time carefully!

  Structuring your text

• Visually, the eye should instantly be able to see the structure of your French essay: make paragraph and skip lines so that it doesn’t look like an unappealing large block of text.
• Use connectors/link words to structure your text and make good transitions.

4. Proofread, proofread, proofread!

•   It’s important that you allow at least 10 minutes for proofreading because there most likely are a few mistakes that you can fix very easily. It would therefore be a shame not to give yourself your best chances of success! Check out my Proofreading Checklist.

Bonne chance!

If you need any help with your essay, you can submit it to me there.

• Articles & Tutorials
• French Voices Podcast
• French Your Way Podcast
• News & Updates

info (at) frenchyourway.com.au

PO Box 166, Balaclava, Vic 3183, Australia

Like puzzles? Check out this daily anagram game: Raganam !

• Your Favourite Cheat Sheets
• Your Messages
• Your Badges
• Your Friends
• Your Comments
• View Profile
• Edit Profile
• Change Password
• New Cheat Sheet
• Live Cheat Sheets
• Draft Cheat Sheets
• Collaborations
• Cheat Sheet Downloads
• Download This Cheat Sheet (PDF)
• Rating: ( )
• Education >
• French Cheat Sheets

Writing essays in French Cheat Sheet by JAM

Useful expressions to help structure your A level French essay.

Introd­ucing the first argument

Adding and listing arguments, listing arguments - start, listing arguments - middle, listing arguments - end, indicating the reason for something, expressing contrast / concession, introd­ucing one's own point of view, in conclusion, how's your readability.

Cheatography is sponsored by Readable.com . Check out Readable to make your content and copy more engaging and support Cheatography!

Measure Your Readability Now!

Help Us Go Positive!

We offset our carbon usage with Ecologi. Click the link below to help us!

• Languages: English français (French)
• Published: 21st September, 2013
• Last Updated: 26th February, 2020
• Rated: 5 out of 5 stars based on 9 ratings

Favourited By

these are very helpful thank you

Simple et utile, j'aime.

Add a Comment

Please enter your name.

Please enter your email address

Please enter your Comment.

Related Cheat Sheets

Latest Cheat Sheet

Random Cheat Sheet

About Cheatography

Behind the scenes.

Recent Cheat Sheet Activity

You are using an outdated browser. Upgrade your browser today or install Google Chrome Frame to better experience this site.

• French »
• French Language Learning Library »

French Writing Practice

French writing exercises by level.

Practise your French writing skills with our ever-growing collection of interactive French writing exercises for every  CEFR level from A0 to C1! If you're unsure about your current proficiency, try our test to get your French level  before diving into the exercises.

All writing exercises are made by our qualified native French teachers to help you improve your writing skills and confidence.

Kwizbot  will give you a series of prompts to translate to French. He’ll show you where you make mistakes as you go along and will suggest related lessons for you.

Boost your French writing skills by adding the lessons you find most interesting to your  Notebook and practising them later.

Click on any exercise to get started.

A1: Beginner French writing exercises

• A Christmas feast Celebrations & Important Dates Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Sébastien is in charge of Christmas Eve Dinner this year.
• A French lunch menu Food & Drink Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Here's the typical lunch menu of a French coffee shop.
• A French woman Employment Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Élodie tells us about her everyday life as a lawyer specialising in women's rights.
• A day in my cat Max's life Family & Relationships Adjectif possessif Article Article contracté Juliette tells about her cat's daily routine.
• A day in the city of Le Mans Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Audrey had a nice time visiting Le Mans, in northwestern France.
• A dream Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Geoffrey tells us about one of his dreams.
• A love story Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Cécile and Andrew meet in a bar.
• A rainy afternoon Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Soizic and Armelle meet up on a rainy day in Brest.
• A romantic Valentine Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Henri tells us about his special plans for Valentine's Day.
• A winter meal Food & Drink Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Bernard has his perfect comfort meal for cold nights.
• Actress Anne Dorval Famous People Film & TV Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Claire tells us about her favourite actress, French-Canadian Anne Dorval.
• Anne's Easter loot Celebrations & Important Dates Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Anne lists all the treats she found during her Easter egg hunt.
• Annoying Things Family & Relationships Adjectif Adverbe Article Philippe and Julien share some of the things that really annoy them.
• Arnaud and Ophélie describe themselves Family & Relationships Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Arnaud and Ophélie describe themselves physically.
• At midnight Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Food & Drink Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Sébastien's family celebrates Christmas on the evening of the 24th.
• At the beach Free Food & Drink Sports & Leisure Adjectif Article Article défini Conversation at the beach between an ice cream vendor and a customer.
• At the beach Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Tom is telling us about his day at the beach.
• At the bookshop Employment Literature, Poetry, Theatre Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe François needs help choosing a book.
• At the gift shop Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Mike and Linda pick some souvenirs in a Montmartre gift shop.
• At the newsagent's Employment Family & Relationships Adjectif Adverbe Article Sophie is buying a few items at a French newsagent's.
• At the sporting goods store Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Alain is buying tennis equipment for his son.
• Baby at the beach Family & Relationships Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Baby enjoys being at the beach with his family.
• Back to School Family & Relationships Language & Education Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Mathieu tells us about going back to school tomorrow.
• Ball Sports Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Vincent and Leila discuss their favourite ball sports.
• Beyoncé Family & Relationships Famous People Music Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe The famous singer introduces herself.
• Board games Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Jonathan is playing board games with his family.
• Booking a hotel room Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Pierre wants to book a room in a hotel.
• Can I come? Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Marie chats with her roommate's friend Damien.
• Cleaning with my family Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Jonathan and his family are cleaning the house today!
• Corsica is beautiful! Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Julien explains why he thinks Corsica is so beautiful.
• Do you like the French language? Language & Education Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Noémie and Léo have opposite opinions on the French language!
• Do you like theme parks? Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adverbe Louis and Zoé give their opposite opinions on theme parks.
• Driving in the city Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adverbe Forme négative Sophie and Christophe talk about driving in city centres [US: downtown].
• Easter decorations Free Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Alice and her sister Zoé are decorating their house for Easter.
• Easter preparations Celebrations & Important Dates Language & Education Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Today, Daniel and his pupils are getting ready for Easter.
• Exchanging a scarf Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Article Christine is returning a scarf to the shop
• Father of two Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Léon talks about his two beloved children.
• Filling in a form Employment Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Olivier answers questions from a form.
• Food shopping for a picnic Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Daniel and Aline are buying food for a picnic.
• Gardening with Jacqueline Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Julia always loves to take care of her aunt's garden with her.
• Going on a diet Family & Relationships Food & Drink Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Marie has a plan to lose weight this year.
• Going shopping Family & Relationships Food & Drink Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Annie and Nicolas discuss her upcoming trip to the shop.
• Hanukkah with my family Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Rachelle celebrates Hanukkah with her family every year.
• Hello! I'm Mario! Famous People Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif The famous plumber introduces himself.
• Hello, my name is France! Politics, History & Economics Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif The country France introduces itself.
• Helping my neighbourhood Family & Relationships Adjectif possessif Adverbe Article Noémie likes helping her neighbours after school.
• Helping the planet Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe François does his best to help the planet in his everyday life.
• How to stay healthy Food & Drink Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Matthieu tells us about his healthy habits.
• How to vote at a polling station in France? Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Learn how to vote in a French election.
• I hate the rain! Sports & Leisure Adverbe Article défini Article indéfini Annie stays in on rainy days
• Load more …

A2: Lower Intermediate French writing exercises

• A Creole picnic Food & Drink Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif During a visit to La Réunion, Julie and Léo went for a typical Creole meal.
• A family of dog lovers Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Anthony had many dogs growing up, but Pip was special.
• A few days in Dordogne Free Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Monique tells Patrick about her coming holiday [US: vacation].
• A football accident Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Anthony had his friend Bruno over to play...
• A great party for Mum [US:Mom]! Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Manon and her sister Aline treated their mother for Mother's Day.
• A nice train journey Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Lucie and her boyfriend Marc went to the countryside by train this weekend.
• A noisy hotel room Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Bertrand complains to the hotel reception about noises during the night.
• A romantic trip to Paris Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Anna took her boyfriend on a romantic trip to Paris.
• A romantic weekend away Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Aline and her boyfriend went away for a relaxing weekend.
• Afternoon ice cream Free Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Lucie and Greg feel like an ice cream this afternoon.
• An Easter egg hunt Celebrations & Important Dates Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Discover where Julien and his siblings found their Easter eggs!
• Arriving at the hotel Employment Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Aline checks into her Parisian hotel.
• At my best friend's wedding Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Patrick gives a toast at Stéphane's wedding.
• At rapper Soprano's concert Music Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Romain was thrilled to finally see his idol Soprano live!
• At the Chinese restaurant Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article James is ordering food in a Chinese restaurant.
• At the New Year's Eve House Party Celebrations & Important Dates Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Mathieu welcomes his guest at his New Year's Eve house party.
• At the allergist's Employment Technology & Science Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Pierre went to the allergist to get a diagnosis.
• At the bar Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adverbe Au bar Patricia and Samuel discuss what drinks they want to order.
• At the bureau de change Employment Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Patrick needs to change some dollars upon arriving in Paris.
• At the dermatologist's Employment Technology & Science Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Manon needs help with her eczema.
• At the farmers' market Food & Drink Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Stéphane enjoys a visit to his local farmers' market.
• At the grocery store Employment Family & Relationships Food & Drink Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Julie and Frank need some things from the grocery store.
• At the medieval market in Orléans Art & Design Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adverbe Flora and Sami enjoy Orléans's medieval market.
• At the mountain restaurant Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Gérard and Sylvie stop for lunch after their mountain hike.
• At the post office Family & Relationships Adjectif possessif Adverbe Article Christophe has a few errands to run at the post office.
• At the shoe store Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Christine is looking for a pair of shoes with the help of a nice sales assistant.
• Bastille Day in the South of France Celebrations & Important Dates Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adverbe Bernard tells us about celebrating Bastille Day last summer.
• Bedtime stories Family & Relationships Literature, Poetry, Theatre Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Florian remembers the bedtime ritual he had with his daughter.
• Breakfast in the sun Family & Relationships Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Sabrina surprised Thomas with a nice breakfast on the balcony.
• Calling the hotel's room service Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Valérie calls room service from her hotel room.
• Chocolate mousse cooking tips! Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe André gives us some tips to make the perfect chocolate mousse.
• Conversation on the plane Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Pascal and Julie get acquainted on a flight to Montpellier.
• Cooking as a family Family & Relationships Food & Drink Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Yesterday, Antoine and his family made tartiflette together.
• Dividing the restaurant bill Food & Drink Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Sports & Leisure Adjectif possessif Adverbe Article Isabelle and her friends are splitting the bill at the restaurant.
• Do you have a favourite male singer? Famous People Music Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Simone and Amélie are talking about their favourite French-speaking male singers.
• Do you have any dirty clothes? Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Bastien and his mother debate the need for a dirty laundry basket.
• Driving in France Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Here are a few things to be aware of when driving in France!
• Fireworks Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Juliette went to watch New Year's fireworks yesterday.
• Fishing with Dad Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Benjamin went fishing with his father last Sunday.
• Getting to know each other Employment Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe New colleagues Julien and Olivier get to know each other over a coffee.
• Giving up tobacco Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Amélie has stopped smoking and she's so happy about it!
• Holiday [US: Vacation] by the sea Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Édouard remembers his childhood seaside holidays [US: vacations] in the south of France.
• I love autumn! Family & Relationships Food & Drink Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Jacqueline tells us what she loves to do in the fall.
• I love my grandmother! Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Lucas tells us about his lovely grandmother.
• I prefer going skiing Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Pierre tells us why he prefers going skiing rather than beach holidays.
• In a taxi Family & Relationships Article Article contracté Article partitif Magalie needs her taxi to take her for a few errands.
• In the changing rooms Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Mélanie is trying on a dress... and testing Pierre's patience!
• Instagram love Family & Relationships Technology & Science Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Julien and Sandra became famous thanks to their Instagram account.
• Instructions for a test Language & Education Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Teacher Marc read out the instructions for today's French test.
• Jojo is such a joker! Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Thomas talks about his school friend Jojo, who loves a joke.

B1: Intermediate French writing exercises

• A French April Fool's Celebrations & Important Dates Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Cécile and her sons are making the traditional French fish for April Fool's day.
• A Horror Story Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe On a dark October night, Emma received a disturbing call...
• A childhood passion Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Vincent and his brother loved video games growing up.
• A clichéd break-up Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif François uses all the clichéd breakup lines to leave his girlfriend Sophie.
• A family day at the park Family & Relationships Food & Drink Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Benoît will spend this Saturday at the park with his daughter Mia.
• A game of hide and seek Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Article Linda and Christian are watching from afar a game of hide and seek between the children.
• A good work routine Employment Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Marc plans to improve his work routine.
• A greener future Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Julien is seeing a future where people are more eco-conscious.
• A special Monday Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Anna is looking forward to a lazy Easter Monday!
• A strange encounter Family & Relationships Literature, Poetry, Theatre Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Yoann had the strangest encounter in the Broceliande forest!
• A trip to the cinema Film & TV Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Antoine and his daughter Emma are planning a trip to the movies.
• A weather forecast Technology & Science Adjectif Adverbe Article Find out what tomorrow's weather will be like.
• A weekend in Montpellier Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Élise and Lucas plan their weekend in the southern French city.
• An afternoon in the fall Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Zoë is planning to meet her friend Quentin for a nice October afternoon.
• An amazing New Year's Eve meal Celebrations & Important Dates Food & Drink Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Henriette is planning a dazzling meal for New Year!
• An annoying cat allergy Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Éloïse suffers from an annoying cat allergy.
• An incredibly caring boy Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Lydia's son, Olivier, is such a caring person.
• An old scary tradition Celebrations & Important Dates Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Yoann recalls celebrating the old Celtic tradition of Samhain with his Gran.
• Animal emergency Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Julien's cat is stuck in the tree!
• Around the world by motorcycle Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Joël would love to travel the world on his motorcycle.
• Artist Chéri Chérin Art & Design Famous People Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Learn about the amazing Congolese artist Chéri Chérin.
• Asking about a hotel room Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Catherine has a few questions about the hotel room she's booked.
• At the amusement park Sports & Leisure Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Thomas will go to the amusement park with his friend Samia for their birthday this year.
• At the doctor's Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Robert goes to the doctor for a consultation.
• At the till Employment Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Peter is at the till [US: cash register] of a French supermarket.
• Becoming a model Art & Design Employment Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Enjoy some useful tips on becoming a model.
• Birthday makeover Family & Relationships Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini "New year, new me" Julia thought on her 20th birthday.
• Busy Schedule Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Isabelle recaps what everyone will have to do on Saturday!
• Camping at home Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Gabriel and Rose are making plans for the weekend.
• Cathy's future holiday [US: vacation] in Montpellier Free Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Learn about Cathy's plan to spend her holiday [US: vacation] in Montpellier.
• Christmas in the mountains Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Antoine will spend Christmas at his dad's house in the Alps, if he can get there!
• Christmas specialities Celebrations & Important Dates Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Paul tells us about some traditional French Christmas dishes.
• Conversation between the election's two rounds Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Marc explains the French presidential election process to his friend Alice.
• Corsican polyphonic singing Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Music Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Do you know about this bewitchingly melodic tradition from Corsica?
• Cycling in Nantes Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Isabelle agrees with Nantes's status as France's "cycling capital".
• Dalida Famous People Music Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Learn about Dalida, an iconic French-speaking singer.
• Dealing with your emotions Sports & Leisure Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Here's a guide to keeping calm.
• Discussing a ski weekend Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Laurent and his friend Matt are planning their ski weekend.
• Dreaming of Paris Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Grégory imagines his ideal Valentine's Day's proposal.
• Easter baking class Celebrations & Important Dates Food & Drink Accord Adjectif Adjectif possessif Flora and Yvan enjoy decorating their Easter chocolate bunnies.
• Family holiday car trip Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif possessif Adverbe Concordance des Temps Let the squabbles begin!
• Flying anxiety Family & Relationships Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Jean-Luc has a plan to deal with his fear of flying.
• Following the GPS Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Technology & Science Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Follow this GPS's instructions to reach your destination.
• Getting ready for autumn Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Article Rosalie won't get caught out by the arrival of autumn this year.
• Giving up smoking Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe François tells us how he managed to stop smoking.
• Going back in time Family & Relationships Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adverbe Marine asks Amanda, Bruno and Sébastien what they would do if they could go back in time.
• Going to the bank Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Flora and her father need to go to the bank.
• How to share household chores equally Family & Relationships Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Follow Céline's tips to share household chores more equally.
• I love swimming! Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Thomas tells us about his love for swimming and his hope to one day dive from up high!
• I miss French food! Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adverbe Hélène tells Betty how she's coping with missing French food abroad.

B2: Upper Intermediate French writing exercises

• "Amélie": my favourite film! Film & TV Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Lisa explains why "Amélie" is her favourite film.
• A History of French TV Film & TV Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Learn some interesting facts about the beginnings of French TV.
• A busy weekend ahead Family & Relationships Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Olivier sums up his busy schedule for the weekend.
• A day in the countryside Free Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Marie spent last weekend in the countryside with her daughters.
• A great Advent calendar Celebrations & Important Dates Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Find out how to make a unique Advent calendar.
• A great passion for reading Literature, Poetry, Theatre Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Florence talks about her grandmother's passion for books.
• A nice morning surprise Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Lucie will serve a delicious breakfast in bed to her fiancée on their anniversary.
• A nice table "à la française" Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Jacqueline explains the intricacies of setting the table the French way.
• A nightmare journey Free Family & Relationships Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Josiane and Robert explain why they're an hour late to their friends' place.
• A perfect interview Employment Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Léo's just had the best job interview of his life!
• A slippery drive Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Richard struggled to get to work this morning: everything was frozen!
• At the football [US: soccer] game Celebrations & Important Dates Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Henri took his dad to a football [US:soccer] game for Father's Day.
• At the neighbours' house Family & Relationships Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Véronique and Bruno are at their neighbours' house for an aperitif.
• Bad Movie Review Film & TV Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Bernadette delivers a scathing movie review.
• Barbara Famous People Music Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Laëtitia talks about her passion for fascinating French singer Barbara.
• Bayonne, France's chocolate capital Food & Drink Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Learn why Bayonne is considered the French capital of chocolate.
• Brasserie La Coupole Food & Drink Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Vincent always eats here when he's in Paris.
• British National Museums Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini National museums are free in the UK, as Paul happily found out.
• Building a snowman Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Martine and Bastien enjoyed building a snowman.
• Camping with your dog Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Patrick gives us some advice on taking your dog camping with you.
• Catherine Ségurane: a local heroine Famous People Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Toni, a tourist guide from Nice talks about local legend Catherine Ségurane.
• City vs dog poop Family & Relationships Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Alain and Pauline discuss the city's measures to fight against dog waste.
• Composting is awesome! Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Elsa explains composting to her friend Pierre.
• Congratulations on your degree! Family & Relationships Language & Education Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Thomas's aunt and uncle send him an email to congratulate him on getting his Master degree.
• Conversation between friends Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Friends Simon and Isabelle are catching up.
• Couples' annoying habits Family & Relationships Adjectif indéfini Adverbe Article Olivier gets so annoyed by the way couples behave sometimes!
• Easter, a family celebration Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini François and his family celebrate the religious holiday of Easter.
• Family Reunion Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini At a family reunion, Lea sees her aunt Patricia for the first time in years.
• Finding the perfect anniversary gift Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Jean-Paul is listing his gift ideas for his wife on their anniversary.
• First day back to school Family & Relationships Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Sabrina tells us what she'll do on her children's first day back to school.
• Food shopping in farm shops Food & Drink Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Find out the advantages and disadvantages of food shopping in a farm shop.
• French Easter specialties Celebrations & Important Dates Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Discover some of France's regional Easter specialties.
• French-style lemon tart recipe Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Follow the recipe to make a delicious lemon tart.
• Garip Ay's amazing paintings Art & Design Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Jean-Pierre tells us about the work of this fascinating Turkish artist.
• Getting ready for the holiday [US: vacation] Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Article Article contracté Bastien and Alicia are getting ready for tomorrow's departure.
• Giving back Celebrations & Important Dates Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Especially during the holiday season, it's good to give back to those less fortunate than us...
• Going lily-of-the-valley picking Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Jean-Pierre's family goes to pick lily-of-the-valley every year.
• Heatwave Politics, History & Economics Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini A weather forecast on one of the hottest days of the year.
• High cost of cigarette packaging change Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Learn about the cost of the new policy on cigarette packaging in France.
• I can't find my shirt! Family & Relationships Adjectif possessif Adverbe Article Claire and Julien are almost ready to go out...except for Julien's missing shirt!
• In a clothes store Sports & Leisure Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Patrick complains to the sales assistant about a defective item.
• In the return taxi Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Aline talks about her trip with the taxi driver on her way back to the airport.
• Long time no see! Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Marina and her cousin Tom catch up after quite a while.
• Louise Bourgeois Art & Design Famous People Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Marie-Claire tells us about her favourite French artist.
• Mice invasion Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Lisa and Paul are discussing options to get rid of Lisa's mice.
• Moving house chores Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Sophie had so many chores to do before moving into her new apartment.
• My car is a real beater! Sports & Leisure Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Yann's car has so many problems!
• My chosen family Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Magalie found her own loving family.
• My dream invention Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Sonia asks Sylvie what invention she'd dream to see becoming a reality.
• My exotic Christmas Celebrations & Important Dates Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Aline is remembering spending last Christmas in Marrakech, Morocco.

C1: Advanced French writing exercises

• 3 Culinary delights from French-speaking countries Food & Drink Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Find out about three dishes from French-speaking countries.
• A bad matchmaker Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Sophie tells us about her failed attempt at matchmaking.
• A couple's ups and downs Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Hélène explains how she and her partner managed to navigate out of a rough patch.
• A difficult sibling relationship Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Yvan has always had a fraught relationship with his sister.
• A dreadful teenager Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Philippe recalls his bad behaviour as a teenage boy.
• A ghost story Celebrations & Important Dates Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Hugo is visiting his mother on All Saints' Day.
• A hard time at work Employment Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Érica went through a rough time at work.
• A horrible storm! Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Julien remembers spending a horrible night due to a violent storm.
• A last minute request Employment Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Isabelle's colleague keeps making her miserable...
• A long-standing friendship Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Carole tells us about her long-standing relationship with her friend Aline.
• A lovely car Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Find out about Michel's beloved 2CV car.
• A lovely encounter Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif On her daily walk, Audrey met a furry little friend in need of help...
• A special Christmas in Switzerland Celebrations & Important Dates Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Damien recalls a wonderful family Christmas holiday in Switzerland.
• A sudden reappearance Family & Relationships Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif After years of disappearance, Olivia's friend is back.
• Advice for new pet owners Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Laurent asks people for their advice on welcoming a new pet at home.
• Alice and the Caterpillar (Alice in Wonderland) Literature, Poetry, Theatre Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Alice meets the mysterious Caterpillar in this adapted excerpt from "Alice in Wonderland"
• An animal tale Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini By a lovely winter morning, Henri the hare meets poorly Lili the rabbit.
• An incredible trip on the Canal du Midi Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Patrice recalls his trip along the Canal du Midi.
• An upcycling tutorial Art & Design Sports & Leisure Technology & Science Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Find out a few ideas for your upcycling projets.
• Anna's birthday party Family & Relationships Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Clément discusses the organisation of his daughter's birthday party with his friend Charlotte.
• At Uncle Robert's 70th birthday Family & Relationships Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Laura catches up with her cousin Charlotte at a family event.
• At the psychiatrist's Employment Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Mme Dupont is talking to her psychiatrist.
• At the ski resort Sports & Leisure Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Paul needs to get ski gear for himself and his family.
• Back to School shopping Family & Relationships Language & Education Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Viviane and Christian try and get everything on their children's school supply list.
• Bathroom chat Family & Relationships Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Bruno and Sonia are having a chat in the bathroom.
• Brest during World War II Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Alex is talking about WWII in Brest with his granddad.
• Californian dream Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adverbe Olivia finally followed her dream to move to California.
• Camping in the woods Free Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Nathalie enjoys camping in the middle of the woods.
• Coco Chanel Famous People Politics, History & Economics Adjectif Adjectif possessif Article Learn about this extraordinary woman who became a fashion icon.
• Complaining about a hotel room Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Gérard complains to the receptionist about the state of his hotel room.
• Coping with the heatwave Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif possessif Adverbe Emma asks how Simon and his pregnant girlfriend Christelle coped with the extreme heat.
• Drôme provençale, a little piece of heaven Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Politics, History & Economics Accord Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Vincent tells us about this beautiful region in the South of France.
• Engagement dinner's speech Family & Relationships Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe The bride's father thanks the guests for attending and announces the evening programme.
• Engagement surprise Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Louise enjoys an unexpected visit at her engagement party.
• Finding love at a yoga retreat Family & Relationships Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Seniors Germaine and Pierrot didn't expect to fall in love at a yoga retreat.
• Fireside memories Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Manuelle has warm memories of family times by the fireside.
• French Mobile Phone Habits Politics, History & Economics Technology & Science Accord Adjectif Adjectif indéfini We're taking a look at the importance of mobile phones in French people's lives.
• Gardening weekend Sports & Leisure Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Jean-Pierre had a busy weekend taking care of his garden.
• Gastronomical review Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Discover a mouthwatering review of a French restaurant.
• Gluten-free living Food & Drink Adjectif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Alexandre tells us how he dealt with his newly discovered gluten allergy.
• Gustave Moreau Museum Art & Design Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Claire tells us about her fascination for 19th-century symbolist painter Gustave Moreau.
• Holidaying in July Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini July is a hard time to organise holiday [US: vacation] for, as Martine and Sam found out!
• How to show your love? Family & Relationships Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Marianne and her partner Adèle are making some changes to show their appreciation for each other more.
• In the lives of the writers of French romance novels Employment Literature, Poetry, Theatre Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif possessif Discover what the life of a French writer of romance novels looks like.
• Jean-Marc Vallée Famous People Film & TV Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Nathan and Florence discuss the late Quebecois director Jean-Marc Vallée.
• Johnny Hallyday, a French icon Famous People Music Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Paul and his mum talk about her favourite French singer, Johnny Hallyday.
• La Petite France in Strasbourg Art & Design Monuments, Tourism & Vacations Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Discover this unique area of Strasbourg, a UNESCO site and tourists' favourite.
• Last-minute hesitations Family & Relationships Literature, Poetry, Theatre Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif François is torn between his love for Marianne and his duty to the Duchess who he's about to marry.
• Letter to Santa Celebrations & Important Dates Adjectif Adjectif démonstratif Adjectif indéfini Timothée writes to Santa, hoping he's been good enough this year...
• Letter to my daughter Family & Relationships Adjectif indéfini Adjectif possessif Adverbe Marc writes a love letter to his newborn baby girl.

In this section

• Hanukkah 2023 Menorah
• Christmas 2023 Advent Calendar
• Tips and ideas to improve your French writing skills
• French Glossary and Jargon Buster

How to Write an Excellent French Essay (Resources Included)

Tips to write an excellent french essay.

Writing essays is challenging enough, but when you are asked to write a French essay, you are not only being asked to write in a foreign language, but to follow the conventions of another linguistic and literary tradition. Like essay-writing in any language, the essential part of writing a French essay is to convey your thoughts and observations on a certain topic in a clear and concise manner. French essays do come out of a certain tradition that is part of the training of all students who attend school in France – or at least secondary school – and when you are a French essay, it is important to be aware of this tradition.

The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne is credited with popularizing the essay form as a literary genre. His work, Essais, first published in 1580, and undergoing several subsequent publications before his death in 1592, covers a wide breadth of topics, ranging from “amitié” to “philosopher c’est apprendre à mourir”, and includes many literary references, as well as personal anecdotes. The name for this genre, essai, is the nominal form of the verb essayer, “to attempt”. We have an archaic English verb essay, meaning the same thing. The limerick that includes the phrase, “... when she essayed to drink lemonade ...” indicates an attempt to drink a beverage and has nothing to do with writing about it. But the writing form does illustrate an attempt to describe a topic in depth with the purpose of developing new insights on a particular text or corpus.

French instructors are very specific about what they would like when they ask for an essay, meaning that they will probably specify whether they would like an explication de texte, commentaire composé, or dissertation. That last essay form should not be confused with the document completed for a doctorate in anglophone countries – this is called a thèse in French, by the way. There are different formats for each of these types of essay, and different objectives for each written form.

Types of Essay

1. l’explication de texte.

An explication de texte is a type of essay for which you complete a close reading. It is usually written about a poem or a short passage within a larger work. This close reading will elucidate different themes and stylistic devices within the text. When you are completing an explication de texte, make sure to follow the structure of the text as you complete a close examination of its form and content. The format for an explication de texte consists of:

i. An introduction, in which you situate the text within its genre and historical context. This is where you can point out to your readers the general themes of the text, its form, the trajectory of your reading, and your approach to the text.

ii. The body, in which you develop your ideas, following the structure of the text. Make sure you know all of the meanings of the words used, especially the key terms that point to the themes addressed by the author. It is a good idea to look words up in the dictionary to find out any second, third, and fourth meanings that could add to the themes and forms you describe. Like a student taking an oral examination based on this type of essay writing, you will be expected to have solid knowledge of the vocabulary and grammatical structures that appear in the text. Often the significance of the language used unfolds as you explain the different components of theme, style, and composition.

iii. A conclusion, in which you sum up the general meaning of the text and the significance of the figures and forms being used. You should also give the implications of what is being addressed, and the relevance of these within a larger literary, historical, or philosophical context.

NB: If you are writing about a poem, include observations on the verse, rhyme schemes, and meter. It is a good idea to refer to a reference work on versification. If you are writing about a philosophical work, be familiar with philosophical references and definitions of concepts.

Caveat: Refrain from paraphrasing. Instead show through careful analysis of theme, style, and composition the way in which the main ideas of the text are conveyed.

2. Le commentaire composé

A commentaire composé is a methodologically codified commentary that focuses on themes in a particular text. This type of essay develops different areas of reflection through analytical argument. Such argumentation should clarify the reading that you are approaching by presenting components of the text from different perspectives. In contrast to the explication de texte, it is organized thematically rather than following the structure of the text to which it refers. The format for a commentaire composé consists of:

i. An introduction, in which you present the question you have come up with, often in relation to a prompt commenting on a thematic or stylistic aspect of the text, such as “Montrez en quoi ce texte évoque l’amour courtois” or “Qu’apporte l’absence de la ponctuation dans ce texte ?” In this section, you will be expected to delineate your approach to the text and illustrate the trajectory of your ideas so that your readers will have a clear idea of the direction these ideas will take.

ii. A tripartite body, in which you explore the question you have come up with, citing specific examples in the text that are especially pertinent to the areas of reflection you wish to explore. These citations should be explained and connected to the broad themes of your commentary, all the while providing details that draw the readers’ attention to your areas of inquiry. These different areas of inquiry may initially seem disparate or even contradictory, but eventually come together to form a harmonious reading that addresses different aspects of the text. The more obvious characteristics of the text should illuminate its subtler aspects, which allows for acute insight into the question that you are in the process of exploring.

iii. A conclusion, in which you evaluate your reading and synthesize its different areas of inquiry. This is where you may include your own opinions, but make sure that the preceding sections of your commentaire remain analytical and supported by evidence that you find in the text.

NB: Looking at verb tenses, figures of speech, and other aspects that contribute to the form of the text will help situate your reader, as will commenting on the register of language, whether this language is ornate, plain, reflects a style soutenu, or less formal patterns of speech.

Caveat: Quotations do not replace observations or comments on the text. Explain your quotations and situate them well within your own text.

3. La dissertation

The dissertation is a personal, organized, and methodical reflection on a precise question that refers to a corpus of writing. Referring to this corpus, you may be asked questions along the lines of “Que pensez-vous de l’équivalence entre l’amour et la chanson exprimée dans ces textes ?” or “Est-ce que la sagesse et la folie ont les mêmes sources?” This type of essay allows for an exploration of a question through knowledge of a corpus as well as through an individual’s cultural knowledge. The format for a dissertation consists of:

i. An introduction, in which you present the topic addressed, the significance of your argument, and the trajectory of your ideas.

ii. The body which, like a commentaire composé, consists of a tripartite development of your argument. This can follow any one of the following structures: a dialectical schema, organized into thèse, antithèse, and synthèse – an argument, its counter-argument, and its rebuttal; an analytical schema, consisting of the description of a situation, an analysis of its causes, and commentary on its consequences; a thematic schema, which consists of a reflection on a topic which you proceed to examine from different angles in an orderly fashion.

iii. A conclusion, in which you address the different ways in which you have approached the question at hand and how this deepens your insights, while placing the question within a broader context that shows room for expansion. The conclusion can open up the topic addressed to show its placement within a literary movement, or in opposition to another literary movement that follows it, for example.

NB: Approach the question at hand with as few preconceptions as possible. If you are writing on a quotation, gather all of your knowledge about its author, the work in which it appears, and the body of literature with which it is associated.

Caveat: Even for a personal reflection, such as a dissertation, avoid using the first person pronoun je. Nous or on are preferable. It is advisable not to switch from one to the other, though.

For each of these essay forms, it is a good idea to make an outline to which you can refer as you write. As your writing progresses, things may shift a bit, but having a structure on which you can rely as you gather your various ideas and information into a coherent argument provides solid foundation for a clear and well-developed essay. This also facilitates smooth transitions from one section of your essay to the next.

During your reading, you may encounter a problem, a contradiction, or a surprising turn of phrase that is difficult to figure out. Such moments in a text give you the opportunity to delve into the unique characteristics of the text or corpus to which you are referring, to propose different solutions to the problems you encounter, and to describe their significance within a larger literary, philosophical, and historical context. Essay writing allows you to become more familiar with French works, with their cultural significance, and with the French language. You can refer to the following resources to guide you in this endeavor:

Auffret, Serge et Hélène. Le commentaire composé. Paris: Hachette, 1991. Dufau, Micheline et Ellen D'Alelio. Découverte du poème: Introduction à l'explication de textes. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. Grammont, Maurice. Petit traité de versification française. Paris: A. Colin, 2015. Huisman, Denis et L. R. Plazolles. L’art de la dissertation littéraire : du baccalauréat au C.A.P.E.S. Paris : Société d’édition d’enseignement supérieur, 1965.

The French newspaper Le Monde also has good articles on these essay forms that prepare French students for the baccalauréat exam: CLICK HERE

This is also a website with thorough information on essay writing techniques that prepare students for the baccalauréat exam: CLICK HERE

In addition, the University of Adelaide has tips for general essay writing in French: CLICK HERE

🇫🇷 Looking for More French Resources?

Train with Glossika and get comfortable talking in French. The more you listen and speak, the better and more fluent you will be.

Glossika uses syntax to help you internalize grammatical structures and you can build up your French vocabulary along with way. You'll also learn to communicate in real-life situations, and achieve fluency by training your speaking and listening!

Sign up on Glossika and try Glossika for free:

You May Also Like:

• 10 Great Tips to Prepare to Study in France
• How to Maintain French and Continue Learning by Yourself
• Differences Between Spoken French and Written French

Subscribe to The Glossika Blog

Get the latest posts delivered right to your inbox

Stay up to date! Get all the latest & greatest posts delivered straight to your inbox

French Writing Examples

The following shows writing examples at various proficiency levels. These were produced by real language learners and may contain errors. See Writing Section Tips at the bottom of this page.

French Proficiency Tests and Resources

Writing Examples

At this level, I am able to create individual words that have no extended meaning.

I can share some simple vocabulary, which deals with the prompt/task/situation, but I tend to struggle to connect those words to create meaning.

La me're ,la souer ,le frere

At this level, I am beginning to develop the ability to create meaning by grammatically connecting words.

Specifically, I can connect some basic subjects and verbs or verbs and objects, but I may be inconsistent at doing this.

I am often limited in my vocabulary to Novice level topics that I experience in my every-day life or that I have recently learned.

Jai une grande famille.

At this level, I can create simple sentences with very basic grammatical control and accuracy.

There are often errors in my responses, while at the same time I might have good control with some very simple structures and functions of the language that I have just learned or studied.

At the Novice levels, errors are expected as I try to create simple sentences. Generally, the sentences that I am able to create are very basic and simple with few, if any, added details.

Je voyage a japan. Pour la vacacion j'ai chemises et shorts. Japan est chaud.

At this level, I can create simple sentences with some added detail; such sentences help create VARIETY.

At the Intermediate Low level, simple sentences are enhanced by use of prepositional phrases, helping verb usage, as well as some adverbs and a variety of adjectives.

I generally create independent sentences (ideas) that can be moved around without affecting the overall meaning of the response. There are still a number of errors in my response, but I have fairly good control of more basic sentences. I am feeling more confident in using different structures and expanding vocabulary and taking more risks with my responses.

Je préfère l'été. Il fait chaud et je peux nager. Ma famille aime nager en été. Parfois, nous allons au lac pour nager. Je déteste l'hiver. Mais, j’aime faire le ski.

At this level, I can now create enough language to show groupings of ideas.

My thoughts are loosely connected and cannot be moved around without affecting meaning.

I can also create a few sentences with complexity and am able to use some transition words.  I am also able to use more than just simple present tense, but often make mistakes when I try to use other tenses.

My vocabulary use is expanding and I am able to use more than the usual, high frequency or most common vocabulary. I feel that I am able to create new language on my own and communicate my everyday needs without too much difficulty.

J’aime l’hiver parce que quand il fait froid je peux jouer dans la neige. J’adore la neige. Je peux faire les bonhomme de neige avec mes cousins à notre cabine. Aussi, pres de notre cabine il y a une station de ski où nous pouvons faire de ski. C’est très amusant parce que nous pouvons faire du ski ensemble. Dans l’été c’est aussi amusant a notre cabine. C’est très jolie dans les montagnes.

At this level, I have good control of the language and feel quite confident about an increasing range of topics.

There are still some occasional errors in my language production, but that does not hinder my ability to communicate what I need to share.

I can use circumlocution to explain or describe things for which I do not know specific vocabulary or structures. I can understand and use different time frames and am just beginning to develop the ability to switch most time frames with accuracy. I can use transition words and concepts with some ease. My language has a more natural flow, but I still may have some unnatural pauses or hesitations.

Je crois que des jeunes élèves ne devraient pas avoir des portables avec l'Internet. Ces enfants sont trop jeunes d'utiliser un portable. D'abord, on n'est pas responsable et ne comprendre pas l'Internet et ce qu'on peut trouver sur l'Internet à cette âge. L'Internet peut être dangereuse et ce n’est pas bon pour les enfants d'utiliser sans des parents les regardent. Si des enfants ont un portable, on a l'acces à l'Internet sans des parents. Ensuite, des enfants n'ont pas besoin d'un portable. Il vaut mieux que des jeunes élèves jouent au dehors ou s'amuser avec leurs amis. Beacoup de gens ont un portable et ne faire rien sauf utiliser leur portable. Ce n'est pas une bonne habitude.

At this level my response contains a number of complexities with higher degree of accuracy.

Such language allows me to address each aspect of the prompt more completely and with more depth of meaning.

I am able to use Advanced vocabulary or Advanced terms, conjugations etc. with confidence. I feel that I can create natural flow using as much detail and descriptive language as possible to create a clear picture. Errors with more complex structures may still occur. My ability to switch time frames begins to increase in accuracy.

Actuellement la présence des téléphones mobiles est en train d'augmenter. Tout les adultes, et presque tout les adolescents utilisent des «smart phones» aujourd'hui. Mais est-ce que les élèves de primaire devraient avoir des téléphones? Pour mieux répondre à cette question, il faut d’abord éxaminer les avantages que les téléphones pourraient avoir. Puis, on doit considérer la grand coût des développements technologiques. Alors, sans doute, les téléphones mobiles peuvent être utiliseé de faciliter la communication. Pour les enfants et les jeunes gens, les téléphones peuvent les aider à connecter avec leurs familles : les enfants qui ont des téléphones pourraient toujours appeler leurs parents s'ils devaient l'assistance. Tandis que pour les parents, c'est un moyen acceptable de donner l'indépendance, parce que tant que leurs enfants ont des portables, ils peuvent les contacter et ils peuvent toujours vérifier que leurs enfants sont sûrs. Mais par contre, ces commodités sont assez chères et pourraient ne pas être abordables pour toutes les familles. Chaque famille doit décider pour eux-mêmes.

At this level my response demonstrates my ease with the language.

I am able to create a response which not only addresses each aspect of the prompt, but delves into each point with clarity and concise language.

I am able to incorporate a number of more complex structures as well as Advanced vocabulary and Advanced phrases with a higher degree of accuracy throughout the majority of the response.

The language I create has a natural flow due to the way I incorporate a variety of patterns and complexities into my response. My response shows my ability to create language that has sophistication of language skills and syntactical density. My ability to switch time frames accurately is evident, if called for in the prompt.

L'utilisation des portables devient de plus en plus présente dans notre société. On trouve même les enfants d'un âge très jeune ayant les ordinateurs ou bien leurs propres portables. Avec cette croissance, il est nécessaire qu'on se demande: est-il juste que les enfants de l'école primaire aient les portables, soit avec l'Internet soit sans? Lorsqu'on se met dans plusieurs perspectives du monde, il est plus clair d'en résoudre et d'en répondre. En pensant des possibilités de l'éducation, de la mondalisation, et de l'interaction, il faut garder une équilibre entre l'utilisation de la téchnologie et des stratèges d'engager tête-à-tête. Je suis professeur au lycée, où j'enseigne le français et l'anglais comme langue étrangère. Il est vrai que je déteste quand mes élèves utilisent leurs portables en classe, malgré les règles qui existent. Mais, je crois aussi en l'utilisation de la téchonologie comme une source d'apprendre. Il existe plein de site-webs utiles, d'applications engageant, et de façons d'incorporer une variéte d'activités en classe. Avec cette perspective, il est indispensible que les enfants de cette société sachent utiliser la téchnologie, et surtout les portables, d'une manière appropriée et juste. Il commence à un âge tôt la téchnologie, et si les enseignants au primaire peuvent inclure des activités qui sont basées sur la téchnologie, les enfants commenceront à bénéficier du savoir qu'apportent les portables pour mieux apprendre le monde d'aujourd'hui.

Writing Section Tips

Additional resources can be found in the Power-Up Guide and on our Video Tutorials page.

• Be a ‘show-off’ – this is the time to show what you can do!
• Be organized in your writing.
• Challenge yourself to go above and beyond what you normally write.
• Be creative and don’t stress out over possible errors. Perfection is not the goal!

Simply do your best and enjoy creating and communicating in the language that you are learning.

How do I type in French?

Read our Writing Input Guide to learn how to type in French.

Frenchlanguagebasics 🇫🇷

Learn French the fast and easy way!

Common connectors and transitions phrases in French

In French, connectors and transition phrases are important tools for linking ideas and creating a coherent narrative in both written and spoken communication.

In this lesson, we’ll go over some common connectors and transition phrases in French that you can use to improve your communication skills.

Premièrement, deuxièmement, enfin. (First, secondly, finally.) These connectors are used to order and sequence ideas in a narrative.

De plus, en outre, par ailleurs. (Moreover, furthermore, besides.) These connectors are used to add more information to an idea or argument.

Néanmoins, cependant, pourtant. (Nevertheless, however, yet.) These connectors are used to introduce a contrasting idea or argument.

En effet, effectivement, en réalité. (Indeed, in fact, actually.) These connectors are used to introduce a statement or fact that supports a previous idea or argument.

Ainsi, par conséquent, donc. (Thus, consequently, therefore.) These connectors are used to indicate a conclusion or result based on previous ideas or arguments.

D’un côté, de l’autre côté. (On one hand, on the other hand.) These connectors are used to present two contrasting sides of an argument.

En somme, finalement, pour conclure. (In summary, finally, to conclude.) These connectors are used to signal the end of a narrative or argument and provide a summary or conclusion.

À mon avis, selon moi, je pense que. (In my opinion, in my view, I think that.) These connectors are used to introduce a personal opinion or belief.

Bien que, malgré, quoique. (Although, despite, even though.) These connectors are used to introduce a contrasting idea or situation.

En revanche, par contre, au contraire. (On the other hand, however, conversely.) These connectors are used to introduce a contrasting idea or situation.

Learning and using these common connectors and transition phrases in French will help you to create a more structured, coherent and persuasive communication style.

It is important to also learn other advanced expressions and connectives to express more complex thoughts and ideas.

With practice and persistence, you’ll soon be able to speak and write more fluently in French.

Related posts:

• The 10 most romantic phrases in French
• French phrases to learn: Expressing worry
• Beginner French sentences: Talk about the future
• 10 French sentences for Beginners: Contrast, opposition and concession

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Privacy Overview