Virginia Pitts

‘Lying Truly’ in Autofiction Screenwriting: Conversations with Memory

University of Westminster, UK

To address a gap in knowledge about the effects of absent mothers on girls and their later adult lives, and to trigger new ways of thinking about this under-researched phenomenon, I have written a screenplay, Bloom, which draws directly from my experiences as a girl forcibly estranged from her mother. Having reshaped personal memories within a semi-fictionalised narrative frame, the screenplay can be described as autofiction, a neologism coined by Serge Doubrovsky to describe a hybrid of autobiography and fiction. A distinctive element of the methodology employed in this practice-research project is the inclusion of psychodynamic therapy and associated memory work to address the trauma unearthed during the screenwriting process.

This paper reflects on the effectiveness of therapy-supported autofiction screenwriting, analysing the specific creative process it generates, and the resulting artefact. The rationale for fictionalising aspects of personal experience and constructing two central characters that exteriorise my own conflicting personality traits is discussed with reference to scholarship on life writing and memory work (Goyal 2014; Hutto et al. 2017; DeSalvo 1999; Almond 2020; de Muijnk 2022), Philippe Lejeune’s notion of “lying truly” in autofiction, and the role of auto-fictional avatars in self-reinvention (Robin 1997; Schmitt 2020).

Refuting accusations of narcissism levelled at autobiographical writing by women, I assert the epistemic significance of subjective autoethnographic methodologies and personal experience in the production of knowledge (Derrida 1985; Piotrowska 2020) and, with specific reference to Bloom, argue that women’s writing about personal experience is a political act that produces distinct creative results (Harrod 2019; Levy 2022). I offer an expanded definition of autofiction writing for screen and conclude that such writing constitutes a transformative act of self-emancipation and autonomous subject-formation which, by re-authoring one’s life experiences, stabilises identity, improves health, and provides the opportunity for gender expression with the potential to enlighten audiences.

Dr Virginia Pitts is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, where she teaches screenwriting and directing actors, and supervises both traditional and practice-based research projects (BA, MA, MRes, PhD). An award-winning educator, filmmaker, and researcher, Virginia has been commissioned to write short and feature length screenplays. Her short films have screened at dozens of A-list festivals, and she has also directed award-winning television drama. Collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intercultural creativity is at the core of Virginia’s recent practice-based research. Publication topics include kinaesthetics, improvisation and entrainment in collaborative screenwriting; intercultural filmmaking; early independent digi-features; adaptation; and political documentary. Virginia is currently developing a participatory practice-based research project involving therapy-supported autofiction screenwriting for women estranged from their birth mothers in childhood; drawing on therapeutic life-writing practices, each participant will be empowered to re-author their own narrative by developing a short film screenplay to be included in a themed anthology film.