Transitioning

Back in 2023, as he was beginning to prepare for what has become his latest book TRANSITIONING: The Continuing Surprises of Independent Cinema (and old age!), Professor Scott MacDonald (encouraged by our mutual friend Video Essay Podcast host Will DiGravio) kindly asked me to compose a list of twenty or so of my personal favourites among the hundreds of video essays I had made since 2009, the year I began to make them. I share this list below, and also note that on September 28, 2025, a retrospective screening of my works entitled “An Arena of Intellectual Experience” (with some more recent favourites – see below for titles) was held at Hamilton College, where Scott works, and that 50 minute-long screening reel may be accessed here: [https://vimeo.com/1120592228].

My 21 personal favorite videos of those I have made (more or less)
Catherine Grant

  1. The Haunting of The Headless Woman, 2019. https://vimeo.com/301095918
  2. UN/CONTAINED: A Video Essay on Andrea Arnold’s 2009 Film Fish Tank, 2014.
    https://vimeo.com/93840128 [published as ‘Beyond tautology? Audiovisual Film
    Criticism’, Film Criticism, Vol. 40, No.1, 2016. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.13761232.0040.113]
  3. ‘Dissolves of Passion: Materially Thinking through Editing in Videographic
    Compilation’[2015] in The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy website: http://videographicessay.org/works/videographic-essay/dissolves-of-passion-1
  4. Semblance, 2021. https://vimeo.com/659050733
  5. Retourne-toi, 2020. https://vimeo.com/517861182
  6. Carnal Locomotive, 2015. [Published in “Film studies in the groove? Rhythmising
    perception in Carnal Locomotive,” NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Spring 2015. http://www.necsus-ejms.org/film-studies-in-the-groove-rhythmising-perception-in-carnal-locomotive/.]
  7. Irresistible Instrumentalism, 2022. [Published in Irresistible instrumentalism: Materially thinking through music-making in the story worlds of silent films,” NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Spring 2022_#Rumors. Online at: https://necsus-ejms.org/irresistible-instrumentalism-materially-thinking-through-music-making-in-the-story-worlds-of-silent-films/]
  8. Fated to be Mated: An Architectural Promenade, 2018. https://vimeo.com/300303270
  9. Rites of Passage, 2013. [Published in ‘The Remix That Knew Too Much? On Rebecca,
    Retrospectatorship and the Making of Rites of Passage’, The Cine-Files: A Scholarly Journal of Cinema Studies, Fall 2014. [Video and text]. http://www.thecine-files.com/grant/]
  10. ‘Screen Memories: A Video Essay on Smultronstället / Wild Strawberries’, CINERGIE: Il Cinema e le altre Arti, 13, 2018: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2280-9481/7914
  11. At the Limit. (Or Vice Versa), 2017. https://vimeo.com/227605219
  12. Magic Mirror Maze, 2018. https://vimeo.com/277397613
  13. Beast Fables [3 video essays: ‘Beast Fables: A Videographic Study of Cinematic Deer
    and Transhuman Children’, The Cine-Files: A Scholarly Journal of Film Studies, 14,
    Spring 2019: http://www.thecine-files.com/cgrant/]
  14. ‘Interplay: (Re)Finding and (Re)Framing Cinematic Experience, Film Space, and the
    Child’s World,” [Video and text] LOLA, 6, http://www.lolajournal.com/6/interplay.html
  15. ‘The Marriages of Laurel Dallas. Or, The Maternal Melodrama of the Unknown
    Feminist Film Spectator’, Mediascape: UCLA’s Journal of Cinema and Media Studies,
    Fall 2014. [Video and text]. ISSN 1558478X Online at: https://screenstudies.video/the-marriages-of-laurel-dallas/
  16. Satis House, 2020. https://screenstudies.video/2020_satis_house_vimeo_283305419/
  17. Persona Non Grata Sonata, with Amber Jacobs, 2018. [Published in Catherine Grant and Amber Jacobs, ‘Persona Non Grata Sonata’, MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, Issue, 1 (Spring 2018): https://maifeminism.com/persona-non-grata-sonata/]
  18. Lesson, 2018. https://vimeo.com/257277668
  19. Skirt, 2018. https://vimeo.com/270066985
  20. Falling x 3: Girls in Uniform, 2019. https://vimeo.com/372100471
  21. Water Turtles / Tortugas aquáticas, with Deborah Martin, 16:9, 2019. http://www.16-9.dk/2019/09/water-turtles/

Screening Reel for “An Arena of Intellectual Experience”

Magic Mirror Maze (2018, 5:02)
Semblance (Portrait of a Lady on Fire & Vertigo) (2021, 4:30)

Un/Contained: A Video Essay on Andrea Arnold’s 2009 Film Fish Tank (2014, 5:09)
Interplay (2015, 5:25)

Falling: 3 x Girls in Uniform (2019, 2:39)
Retourne Toi (Reading Ovid’s “Orpheus & Eurydice” in Portrait of a Lady on Fire) (2021, 3:00)

Carnal Locomotive (2015, 5:00)
Out of Place (Or, Lost in Nomadland) (2021, 3:53)

The Haunting of The Headless Woman (2019, 5:12)
Roberto Cobo: Screen Stars Dictionary (2023, 4:14)
In the Impasse (2025, 1:39)

Fated to be Mated: An Architectural Promenade (2018, 4:36)