Living Pictures, Reviving the Dead: Claiming Ritual and Identity through Posthumous Films

This text explores the construction and appreciation of posthumous films—filmed portraits of dead loved ones—in The Netherlands. The authors support the argument that, in this country, posthumous films function both as identity markers for the deceased and the bereaved, and as coping instruments. The study is based on interviews with the maker and commissioners of three posthumous films, and on an analysis of these films. We find posthumous films to be vehicles for bereaved people's emotions and thoughts that are closely intertwined with their everyday lives; as stimuli reviving people's memories of the dead; and as powerful media invoking individual agency in mourning.