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Screening as part of a wider program of Robertson’s work, Program 2 comprises three "Reels" of Anne Charlotte Robertson’s Five Year Diary.
Intended first as a means to carefully monitor and measure her changing self-image, and her fluctuating weight in particular, Anne Charlotte Robertson’s Five Year Diary became an ambitious first-person epic comprising 82 parts (or "reels", as Robertson preferred), most often centered around single major and minor events – a visit to a relative, a nervous break-down, the traumatic death of a family member.
By turning the camera upon her daily life, Robertson discovered a mode of vital self-therapy most directly expressed through the multiple layers of spoken dialogue she frequently layered over her imagery, frank commentary (some of it performed live during screenings and added later) that revealed the deep, unstable emotions that defined Robertson’s world, while also giving rich voice to her warm and self-deprecatory sense of humour.
- Five Year Diary, Reel 23: A Breakdown (and) After the Mental Hospital, September 1–December 13, 1982 (1983, Super-8 to digital, colour, sound, 27 min)
- Five Year Diary, Reel 26: First Semester Grad School, February 28–May 20, 1983 (1983, Super-8 to digital, colour, sound, 27 min)
- Five Year Diary, Reel 47: I Thought the Film Would End, October 21–November 2, 1986 (1986, Super-8 to digital, colour, sound, 27 min)
