It’s not my memory of it: three recollected documents

Referencing specific historical records as memories which reappear in moments of danger, the work addresses the logic of the bureaucracy of secrecy in the current climate of heightened security. Through unacknowledged film, reassembled documents and images, three lost narratives of CIA activity in Iran, Yemen and the USSR between 1974 and 2002 are retold. These records are punctuated by fragments of interviews with information management officials from various federal agencies, who explain some of the distinctions between, for example, classified and unclassified information. The conclusion reflects on the role of documents in the constitution of the dynamic of knowing and not knowing. This piece won “Best Documentary” at the International Short Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2004.