Love in the post: from Plato to Derrida

This film takes as starting point the ‘Envois’ section of Jacques Derrida’s book The Post Card, from Socrates to Freud and Beyond. (1980) The film features interviews with some of Derrida’s most esteemed readers, an unseen interview with Derrida and a fictional narrative that weaves together the story of an academic whose life begins to reflect aspects of the narrative within the ‘Envois’ and of a filmmaker attempting a documentary about the book The Post Card. The film works towards a performance of textuality through the incorporation of multiple, parallel narratives that mirror, distort and elaborate the narrative(s) contained within the ‘Envois’. In this way the research aims to perform the production of knowledge within film, moving beyond illustration or representation and engaging with problems of representation and communication at the level of the film’s own ontology. Made in collaboration with Martin McQuillan.