A case study submitted to the Research Excellence Framework 2014 demonstrating the impact of the University's research.
In Clio Barnard’s film The Arbor, actors lip-synched some of the dialogue to the voices of real people – an unusual technique used to raise questions about the aims of documentary film. Can it ever close the gap between ‘reality’ and ‘representation’?
The film explores the life of playwright Andrea Dunbar, and Clio Barnard’s research lasted for several years. She spent time with Dunbar’s family, and in the community where she was raised (the Buttershaw estate in Bradford). Richard Dunbar, Andrea’s nephew, describes how the film-making process enabled the community to have a voice ‘by communicating their words through the film’.
The Arbor won 10 national and international awards. The charity Kids Company used it in a presentation to MPs and members of the House of Lords, so the film could reveal, on a visceral level, the effects of abuse, neglect and poverty within communities in the UK. Barnard’s most recent work is the highly-acclaimed film The Selfish Giant.
Clio Barnard is Reader in Film in the School of Arts.
The Research Excellence Framework 2014 showed that Kent ranks 17th in the UK for research intensity, has world-leading research in all subjects and that 97% of our research is deemed to be of international quality.
Contributing to the University’s REF success were the number of our world class publications, the number of research active staff and the demonstrable impact our research has made to the sciences and to economic, social and cultural understanding.