The animated life: (re)constructions of the historical world through animated documentary

This work presents an understanding about the potentialities of using animation in nonfiction narratives and the animated documentary¿ contributions for the discussions in documentary cinema by performing a critical and reflexive analysis of the contemporary animated documentary¿s production in Brazil and worldwide. The starting point of our analysis is the observation that the hybridization between animation and documentary promotes a tension arising from the contrariety between these two cinematographic formats since they are two narrative forms traditionally understood as opposites. While this tension makes animated documentary a foreign object especially in the field of documentary, it gives this kind of production a narrative power related to how it challenges the more orthodox concepts of documentary film. In addition, the animated documentary features unconventional ways of documenting aspects of the world, expanding the documentary filmmaking¿s narrative tools. We also seek to investigate the animated documentary from the Semio-pragmatic approach of the film, proposed by theorist Roger Odin, analyzing what kind of documentarizing reading is put into action by an animated film. In conclusion, our work presents how the animated documentary can document in a different way by using animated images and typical narrative strategies from animation, which are not common in documentary films (AU)