Framing Traces is the general title the graduates of 2017 have chosen for the public presentation of their research projects. Their artistic research journey over the past two years has had them look for the traces of the past, on the one hand, and for traces we as filmmakers create or leave behind on the other hand. Emphasising experimentation – in and through cinema - rather than mere execution, their research has led many to develop projects and forms that extend traditional filmmaking. That inter- or transdisciplinary aspect of the researchers’ work is extremely exciting and befits the time in which we live but demands that rigid divisions in the world of art funding and production are questioned and overcome.

Framing Traces could have been given a subtitle too: ‘On Memory and Ethics’, summarized perhaps by two questions posed: What does it mean to remember? and Who owns the stories we tell? What is memory? What is it, where is it, how is it, whose is it, do we want it, can we get rid of it? Ethics of storytelling is another topic: makers carry a direct responsibility for the stories, performances and emotions that they get entrusted with. The question is: how to deal with that responsibility and how to share it with the audience?