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Wednesday
29 March-
Cinema 1
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The day the sun fell
1:30 PM - 3:10 PM
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The Day the Sun FellDirected by Aya Domenig
Swiss-Japanese filmmaker Aya Domenig, the granddaughter of a doctor on duty for the Red Cross during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, approaches the experience of her deceased grandfather by tracing the lives of a doctor and of former nurses who once shared the same experience. While gathering the memories and present views of these very last survivors, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima strikes and history seems to repeat itself.
Duration 78 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Switzerland Finland
Location(s) depicted Hiroshima Tokyo Takagi
Language(s) of film subjects Japanese and German with English Subtitles
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Uzu / Living with Boko Haram
3:40 PM - 5:00 PM
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UzuDirected by Gaspard Kuentz
Held every October in the city of Matsuyama, the Dogo Autumn Festival is one of the most violent religious festivals celebrated in Japan. Eight teams of men carrying massive portable wood shrines that can weigh up to a ton collide them together in a holy battle, leaving many injured and exhausted. "Uzu" is an immersive documentary film that focuses on the physical and spiritual experience of the festival from within. A thrilling ride into the violence as well as a penetrating insight into its meaning, "Uzu" propounds a unique cinematic experience, between sensory ethnography and "war" reporting.
Duration 27 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Japan
Location(s) depicted Matsuyama (Japan)
Language(s) of film subjects Japanese
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Living with Boko HaramDirected by Trond Waage
January 2015. Boko Haram's violent insurgency is approaching Mogdé, on the Nigerian/Cameroonian border, where Antoniette lives. Just outside Oslo, Norway, lives her son Vakote, worried and afraid for his family and friends back home. This film follows Antoniette and Vakote over a period of 6 months, whilst extremely violent events take place and Antoniette's youngest son disappears. Through a close portrait of a mother and her son, we gain a new insight into how Boko Haram is seen from ‘below’. The making of this film was possible only due to long-lasting collaboration between visual anthropologists in northern Norway and northern Cameroon.
Read an interview with the director: https://raifilm.org.uk/love-loss-across-borders/
Duration 37 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Norway Cameroon
Location(s) depicted Kolbotn Oslo (Norway) Mogode Ngaoundere (Cameroon)
Language(s) of film subjects KapsikiFrenchFulani/Fulfulde and Norwegian with English Subtitles
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The Eagle Huntress
5:30 PM - 7:45 PM
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The Eagle HuntressDirected by Otto Bell
Aishol-pan, a 13-year-old girl, trains to become the first female in 12 generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down from father to son for centuries. While there are many old Kazakh eagle hunters who vehemently reject the idea of any female taking part in their ancient tradition, Aisholpan's father, Nurgaiv, believes that a girl can do anything a boy can, as long as she's determined.
WINNER OF THE 2017 RAI FILM FESTIVAL PRESIDENT'S AWARD
THE SCREENING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A Q&A WITH THE DIRECTOR OTTO BELL
Duration 87 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United Kingdom United States Mongolia
Location(s) depicted Mongolia
Language(s) of film subjects Kazakh
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Cinema 2
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Archives
1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
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Workshop
Archival resources and Ethnographic FilmWorkshop
Convened by Caterina Sartori (Royal Anthropological Institute, Goldsmiths, University of London)
This session brings together archivists and professionals who are involved in the preservation, cataloguing and digitisation of archival film and photographic material; and artists and ethnographers who have produced moving image work based on these archival resources.
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Negotiating Amnesia: Photographic Archives and Colonial Legacies in Italy
Alessandra Ferrini (Mnemoscape)This presentation focuses on a body of work stemming from research conducted at the Alinari's Photographic Archive in Florence, Italy. It consists of an essay film titled Negotiating Amnesia, an exhibition and pedagogic project that, focusing on the Ethiopian War of 1935-36, aim to expose the legacy of the Italian, fascist imperial drive. Mostly built out of archival images, Negotiating Amnesia employs a self-reflexive voiceover to deconstruct the colonial gaze and explore the way the colonial past has been marginalised in post-fascist Italy, revealing different strategies that have contributed to the creation of a collective amnesic culture.
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Home Movies from the British Empire
Jayne Pucknell (Archivist at Bristol Archives)Jayne Pucknell, archivist at Bristol Archives, will introduce a selection of film clips from the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection. Shot mostly by British families living and working in Empire and Commonwealth countries, the archive contains over 2000 amateur films made between the 1920s and 1970s. This selection highlights a few of these rare, personal perspectives of life in the British colonies.
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Lord Moyne's anthropological adventures in Papua, 1936
Nick Stanley (Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum)Lord Moyne was a wealthy and well-connected Anglo-Irish aristocrat who sought contact with the most inaccessible places and people. He explored the south coast of Papua and visited the Asmat people there. This recovered silent film provides a unique view of this encounter, showing both visitors and local people involved in exchange and mutual recognition. The material now offers opportunities for contemporary Asmat people and Moyne's heirs to reassess aspects of their past.
RAIFilm web page /films/archival-resources-and-ethnographic-film
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Workshop
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Artists' film
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
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Workshop
Artists’ Films and EthnographyWorkshop
Convened by Marko Ray Wilkinson (BEEF + Bioskop) Al Cameron (BEEF + Bioskop) Barbara Knorpp
Practitioners of ethnography and art have crossed paths multiple times in the 20th and 21st centuries - sometimes viewing each other with enthusiasm, sometimes suspicion. This programme consists of four films by contemporary artists - Charlotte Prodger, Juan Downey, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Andrew Norman Wilson – that engage with ethnographic practice.
Subjects range from corporate hierarchy within Google to a sub-culture of online trainer fetishists, from cinematic representations of cult rituals to a trip to visit the Yanomami of Venezuela. The films share a self-reflexivity and a questioning of documentary realism.
Workers Leaving the Googleplex - Andrew Norman Wilson, USA 2011, 12 mins
The Laughing Alligator - Juan Downey, USA 1979, 27 mins
Call of the Wild - Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, UK 2007, 13 mins
:-* - Charlotte Prodger, UK 2011, 12 mins
The same programme will be screening as a pre-festival event on Thursday 16 March 8pm "Possession Rituals" BEEF Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film Brunswick Square 15-16 York Street Bristol BS2 6NX
£4/£3 www.beefbristol.org
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Workshop
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Cinema 3
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Interactive
1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
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Workshop
Interactive Documentary and Ethnographic FilmWorkshop
Convened by Judith Aston (University of the West of England) Paolo Favero (University of Antwerp)
This workshop will aim to generate a constructive dialogue between innovative or emerging non-linear (or interactive) documentary practices and the terrain of ethnographic film. It will be structured around a set of short, illustrated provocations glued together by a mediator who will progressively involve the audience.
It will draw on the expertise of David MacDougall and experienced filmmakers as well as digital pioneers in interrogating the relationship between interactive documentary, observational film and participatory processes.
The general objective will be to focus more on continuities than on disruptions, and to consider technological developments within a much deeper canon of ethnographic and anthropological film practices.
Judith Aston is a Founding Director of i-Docs (i-docs.org) and a Senior Lecturer in the Filmmaking Department of the University of the West of England (UWE). She has a longstanding track record of engagement with ethnographic film, from her own PhD fieldwork through to work on anthropological archives and generating interdisciplinary art projects. She is an active practitioner, and her latest publication is a co-edited book, "The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary", which will be available from March 2017.
Paolo Favero is Associate Professor in Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Antwerp. With a PhD in Social Anthropology from Stockholm University, he has devoted the core of his career to the study of visual culture in India and Italy. He is an active filmmaker and a specialist in the integration of emerging technologies with ethnographic methods. His most recent publications focus on interactive documentary filmmaking and on the meaning of images in a digital landscape.
RAIFilm web page /films/interactive-documentary-and-ethnographic-film
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Workshop
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Market place
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
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Forum
Ethnographic Film in the MarketplaceForum
Convened by André Singer (RAI President; CEO of Spring Films)
This Forum will consider the distribution of films of an anthropological nature to broad general and international audiences as well as within the academic sphere. Chaired by André Singer, President of the RAI and CEO of the documentary production company, Spring Films, a varied panel of distributors and producers will consider the possibilities for the distribution of anthropological films by various means: on television, on-line and theatrically.
This event is sponsored by Keo Films
Contributors:
- Vespa Cudic (Head of International Sales and Acquisitions, DogWoof, UK)
- Adam Gardner (General Manager, Europe, Alexander Street Press)
- Elizabeth Wood (Director and Founder, Bertha DocHouse, UK)
- Brian Leith (Executive Producer (BBC) of Human Planet, Currently Creative Director of Brian Leith)
- Steven Seidenberg (Head of International Co-productions, LIC-BCBC, China)
RAIFilm web page /films/ethnographic-film-in-the-marketplace
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Forum
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Waterside 3
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opening reception
8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
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Gala event
Welcome ReceptionGala event
Convened by RAI FILM FESTIVAL
Join us for a reception to welcome our guests and to celebrate the start of the festival. All welcome. Sponsored by Wiley.
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Gala event
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Thursday
30 March-
Cinema 1
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Socotra
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
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Socotra, the Island of DjinnsDirected by Jordi Esteva
The film is the story of a journey across the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Yemen. Socotra is isolated during the monsoon season, when it is impossible to land on it. This isolation has preserved a unique environment. Frankincense and myrrh trees grow freely. Ahmed Afrar, his companions and three cameleers with their animals trek to the mountains before the rainy season. During the trip, the Socotrians tell stories by the fire. During the night, the conversation turns to legends of djinns and monstrous snakes that dwell in the cavernous interior of the island.
Read an interview with the director here: https://raifilm.org.uk/socotra-the-island-of-djinns/
Duration 64 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Spain
Location(s) depicted Socotra Island (Yemen)
Language(s) of film subjects Socotrí
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The Bride of the NileDirected by Edouard Mills-Affif
A secluded village in the Nile Delta, a traditional Egyptian family. A drama of tragic proportions is being played out. Like millions of young girls throughout the world, Heba must marry a man that she has not chosen… This sentimental drama will slowly turn into a tragic family crisis, with secrets, intrigues, denunciations and lies.
Duration 63 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production France
Location(s) depicted Egypt
Language(s) of film subjects Arabic
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Changa Revisited
11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
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Changa RevisitedDirected by Peter Biella Leonard Kamerling
This is the story of Tanzania Maasai elder Toreto ole Koisenge and his passage through three decades of cultural and economic change. Seen from two points across a thirty year divide, the film uses images taken in 1980 and contemporary video to create a view across time, one that brings viewers into the changing emotional landscape of a Maasai family. “Changa Revisited” is about the deeply personal unfolding of a family’s journey through thirty years of tumultuous change.
Read an interview with Leonard Kamerling: https://raifilm.org.uk/from-snow-to-sand/
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTORS PETER BIELLA AND LEONARD KAMERLING
Duration 60 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United States
Location(s) depicted Tanzania
Language(s) of film subjects English, Maa (Maasai). Swahili
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Damiana Kryygi
1:30 PM - 3:20 PM
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Damiana KryygiDirected by Alejandro Fernández Mouján
The year is 1896. In the Paraguayan forest, a three-year-old Aché girl survives the massacre of her family by white settlers. She is baptised 'Damiana' by her captors. At the age of 14, she is committed to a mental institution, where she is photographed naked shortly before dying of tuberculosis. After her death, her body becomes an object of scientific interest, with studies taking place in La Plata and Berlin. Using extant photographs and anthropological records, this film reconstructs Damiana’s story and accompanies the Aché community in their effort to recover the girl’s remains and lay her to rest in the land of her ancestors.
Read an interview with the director: https://raifilm.org.uk/coming-back-from-the-dead/
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH ANTHROPOLOGIST (CONSULTANT FOR THE FILM) SUSANA MARGULIES
Duration 94 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Argentina
Location(s) depicted Argentina Germany Paraguay
Language(s) of film subjects AchéGermanSpanish
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land beneath
3:45 PM - 5:00 PM
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The Land Beneath Our FeetDirected by Sarita Siegel Gregg Mitman
The Land Beneath Our Feet weaves together rare archival footage from a 1926 Harvard expedition to Liberia with the journey of a young Liberian man, uprooted by war, seeking to understand how the past has shaped land conflicts in his country today. This film is an explosive reminder of how large-scale land grabs are transforming livelihoods across the planet.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR SARITA SIEGEL
Duration 60 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United States United Kingdom
Location(s) depicted Liberia United States
Language(s) of film subjects BassaEnglishKpelleKru
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Cinema 2
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trends
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
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Workshop
Trends in Ethnographic Film-making in Latin America (I)Workshop
Convened by Carlos Flores (Department of Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, México) Angela Torresan (University of Manchester) Antonio Zirion (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City)
This workshop will offer a space for Latin American researchers to discuss methodological and theoretical issues around their own ethnographic film-making or works of other relevant film-makers. The idea is to assess the ways new technological developments in the digital world and sociocultural transformations are shaping the region’s ethnographic filmmaking in the 21st century. Of particular importance are: migration, transnational and virtual communities; resistance and social movements; and the emergence of new subjects of anthropological enquiry.
We aim to discuss different forms of political and methodological engagement and collaboration with subjects, both in the field and in the editing process; persistent and new narratives of audiovisual textualisation; regional aesthetics and filming techniques; and contemporary experimental ethnographic filmmaking.
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Collaboration and otherness: experiences of shared anthropology among Mayas in Guatemala
Carlos Y. Flores (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, México)9:20-9:40 AM
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Counter Narratives: visual anthropology and 'memory activism’ in Peru
Matti Dietrich (University of Bern)9:40-10:00 AM
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Unofficial ethnographies
Christopher Murray (University of Manchester)10:00-10:20 AM
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Visual methodologies: social situations in a gentrifying favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Angela Torresan (University of Manchester)11:30-11:50 AM
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Mapping the anthropology of image and sound in Brazil
Joceny Pinheiro (Unilab, Brazil)11:50AM - 12:10PM
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Digital Aesthetics: activating indigenous languages online
Genner Llanes (University of Leiden)12:10 - 12:30 PM
RAIFilm web page /films/trends-in-ethnographic-film-making-in-latin-america-i
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Workshop
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Trends in Ethnographic Film-making in China
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM
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Workshop
Trends in Ethnographic Film-making in ChinaWorkshop
Convened by Gary Seaman (University of Southern California Dornsife) Paul Henley (University of Manchester)
This workshop will assess contemporary ethnographic filmmaking in academic contexts in China and will include presentations by the following scholars. (Further presentations may be added later). All presentations will be supported by extracts from recent ethnographic films.
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Ethnographic filmmaking in China: four films from four ethnic groups in Xinjiang, Northwest China
Liu Xiangchen (Xinjiang Normal University) -
The visual study and narration of craftsmanship in China
Liang Junjian (School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, Beijing)Supporting film (collective work): A Piece of Xuan Paper - Modern Artisans in The Forbidden City
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“Being used”: making an ethnographic film in Southwest China
Xiong Xun (Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou) -
Thick description of images and words in ethnographic film-making: a case study of Dai water-splashing festival
Xu Han (Yunnan University, Kunming)Supporting film: Water-splashing Festival of the Dai (Jingmai village, Yunnan)
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The gravity of time in ethnographic time in ethnographic film-making: the trilogy of Floral-belt Dai people
Wu Qiao (Director, Social Anthropology, Beijing University)Supporting film: Still-birth of the Commune Head
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DISCUSSANT
Zhang Hai (Director, Visual Anthropology, Yunnan University)
RAIFilm web page /films/trends-in-ethnographic-film-making-in-china
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Workshop
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Cinema 3
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King
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
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The King of the CockroachesDirected by Timothy Cooper
The degraded surfaces of mass-copied films - the glitches, scanlines, errors, and coding artifacts - rather than the filmmaker’s imprint, reveal the material culture and social life of film consumption. "The King of the Cockroaches" studies the informal infrastructures, practices, technologies and institutions that, in the absence of a national film archive, have kept Pakistani film heritage alive. Looking to both the material infrastructure for cinema distribution and the conditions of its circulation, the film is a found-footage journey through orphaned VHS master copies, grey-market VCDs, and lossy YouTube transfers, celebrating the indestructible archive of Pakistani cinema.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR TIMOTHY COOPER AND PRODUCER ABEERA ARIF-BASHIR
Duration 70 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United Kingdom Pakistan
Location(s) depicted Lahore Islamabad Peshawar (Pakistan) London (UK)
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishPashtoPunjabiUrdu
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Treasured MomentsDirected by Ravi Hart Lloyd
This is the personal story of a boy who grew up mixed in every aspect of his life, his parents, where he was from, his race. The black kid who thought that he was white. The white kid who thought that he was black. The director, Ravi Hart, narrates the film along with interviews with his family. The film begins with Ravi's love of boats. Born on the island of Anguilla, British West Indies, he grew up sailing and fishing. A catastrophic hurricane hits the island in 1995 and the family leaves for the United States. The film goes on to articulate the mixed race experience in the US through themes of identity, displacement, educational inequalities and police harassment.
Duration 33 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United Kingdom
Location(s) depicted Anguilla USA
Language(s) of film subjects English with English subtitles
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on-seaDirected by Hatty Bell
on-sea is a portrait film about the small community that lives on the Bush Estate at Eccles-on-sea, Norfolk. It is a film about landscape, and how people interact with it through day-to-day minutiae as well as being a celebration of Englishness. The film’s pace adjusts to the tempo of the community.
Having visited a caravan at Eccles-on-Sea for most of her life, the filmmaker set out to satisfy a curiosity about what inspires the lives of those that live on the Bush Estate and the changes in their lives that took them there in the first place.
Screening followed by Q&A with director Hatty Bell
Duration 20 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United Kingdom
Location(s) depicted Eccles-on-sea in Norfolk (UK)
Language(s) of film subjects English
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Undercover in Underwear / Extended Family
11:50 AM - 1:00 PM
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Undercover in UnderwearDirected by Diane Agatha
The Internet provides an infinite place of freedom where self, mind and body are dislocated. We are able to reinvent and present ourselves the way we want. It is in this world that Circle, my alter ego, was born. This film is the result of my journey, exploring and embracing my own desire, while reflecting on representations of female sexuality in the era of the Web 2.0.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR DIANE AGATHA
Duration 19 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United Kingdom
Location(s) depicted The Internet
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishFrench
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Extended FamilyDirected by Ramona Sonderegger
This films offers an intimate insight into the lives of two same-sex families who found a way to create themselves within a legal grey area in Switzerland. Swiss law bans adoption and access to assisted reproductive medicine by same-sex couples. The families portrayed in this film therefore do not officially exist. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that there are between 6,000 and 30,000 children living in such 'non-existent' rainbow families across the country.
Duration 31 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United Kingdom Switzerland
Location(s) depicted Switzerland
Language(s) of film subjects Swiss German with English Subtitles
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Youth Group / Land of Udehe / Pulse
1:45 PM - 3:20 PM
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Youth GroupDirected by Wanwan Lu
Set in the predominantly Asian “ethnoburbs” of Los Angeles County, this film follows a vibrant Buddhist youth group in a Chinese-American temple. Youth group members, most raised by immigrant Buddhist parents, attempt to define Buddhism on their own terms as they struggle to understand the rituals and beliefs of their parents’ Buddhism. Interweaving the stories of teenagers in the midst of their identity formation, and young adults faced with the challenge of cultivating the next generation of Buddhist youth leaders, "Youth Group" paints a lighthearted and intimate portrait of a generational gap, hyphenated identities and flexible beliefs in Asian America.
Duration 28 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production United States
Location(s) depicted Los Angeles County (USA)
Language(s) of film subjects ChineseEnglish
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Land of UdeheDirected by Ivan Golovnev
This film takes us into the world of Udehe – indigenous people of the Far East of Russia. According to the census of 2010, their population dropped to 1,490 souls…
Duration 26 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Russia
Location(s) depicted Russian Far East
Language(s) of film subjects Udehe and Russian with English Subtitles
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PulseDirected by Robin Petré
This poetic, highly sensorial film takes place on one of Europe’s largest deer farms, which is home to 1,500 red deer and their caretakers. The animals are essentially still wild. They were first caught in the forest and brought to the farm only 25 years ago – and the handling of them becomes a physical conflict between man and animal. This is both an immersive experience and a close look at human-animal relations as well as the way we co-exist with nature.
Duration 26 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Hungary Portugal Belgium
Location(s) depicted Kaposvar (Southern Hungary)
Language(s) of film subjects Hungarian
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Fighting for Nothing to Happen / The Way We Live Now
3:35 PM - 5:00 PM
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Fighting for Nothing to HappenDirected by Nora Wildenauer
After the volcanic eruption of Mount Rokatenda, the people of the island of Pulau Palue in east Indonesia are to be relocated. But are the planned relocation and the "new" life at the neighbouring Pulau Besar really promising? This film accompanies Father Cyrillus, priest and employee of a Christian NGO, in his efforts to promote and drive forward the relocation project. A worried host community, unclear land rights at the relocation site, a corrupt and disorganized government in the district capital as well as impatient refugees in temporary shelters are challenging the protagonists in their attempts to make the best of the situation.
Duration 48 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Netherlands Indonesia
Location(s) depicted Pulau Besar Pulau Palu'e Sikka District
Language(s) of film subjects Bahasa, Indonesian, Sikka and Sara Lu'a with English Subtitles
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The Way We Live NowDirected by Sophia Hersi Smith
'The Way We Live Now' is an intimate portrait of the daily routines and rituals of the Hadza; modern-day hunter-gatherers living in the acacia-baobab woodlands surrounding Lake Eyasi in North-Central Tanzania. The film traces the daily rhythms of this small community while allowing them to reflect on how their way of life has changed. We are with them from dusk until dawn, where we get a glimpse of their world from their point of view: hunting for wild animals and honey, making food and poison, sitting around the fire with family and dancing under the stars.
Duration 32 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Tanzania
Location(s) depicted Kidero (Tanzania)
Language(s) of film subjects HadzaSwahili
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Waterside 2
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Visual Anthropology Interventions and Climate Change
11:50 AM - 1:20 PM
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Workshop
Visual Anthropology Interventions and Climate ChangeWorkshop
Convened by Mike Poltorak (University of Kent)
Interested participants are invited to submit proposals for presentations to M.S.Poltorak@kent.ac.uk
There is a recognised disconnect between publicly available scientific information on climate change and publics’ capacity and interest to take them seriously in relation to their own knowledge. For people to act on climate change knowledge, there needs to be more conversation across politically sensitive knowledge realms.
This workshop will be concerned with the use of visual anthropological methodologies and theory in interventions to increase public and governmental action in addressing climate change.
One of visual anthropology’s key activities relates to how media are received, understood and acted upon in diverse cultural and societal contexts. Another is media creation based on participation, imagination and reference to the cultural and historical value of the different senses.
This panel will focus on how these activities may be use to support multiple scale climate change actions in one or more of the following forms:
- Teaching visual anthropology in relation to climate change
- Drawing on the established canon of ethnographic films to demonstrate climate change and its impacts
- Creating new films and other resources that increase consciousness of climate change impacts and actions, drawing on the anthropology and environmental anthropology of climate change
- Developing case studies that link the global causes of climate change to local impacts
- Documentation and distribution of climate changes interventions unacknowledged by mainstream media.
- Identification of the consumerist assumptions underlying passive acceptance of future climate change scenarios.
- Affirming actions that address climate change awareness unencumbered by academic validation.
- Contributing to collectively imagined futures in which engaging with climate change engages with historical social inequalities.
- Supporting organisations that contribute to climate change awareness
- Supporting the development of ecovillages and other communities with strong ecological orientations.
The final form of the workshop will depend on the nature of the submissions. But one aim will be to brainstorm an agenda for further action and research, and to create a network of interested parties.
RAIFilm web page /films/visual-anthropology-interventions-and-climate-change
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Workshop
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Film, Identity and Nation-Building
1:30 PM - 2:50 PM
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Workshop
Film, Identity and Nation-BuildingWorkshop
Convened by Jeremy MacClancy (Oxford Brookes University)
This workshop will consist of two presentations that query the relations between film, identity, and nation-building. They will interrogate the connections between an ever-developing technology, a notoriously multi-faceted concept, and a generic politico-cultural process of modern times.
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Beyond Nomads and Warriors: every day struggles, political dissent and nation-building in contemporary Kazakh cinema
Rico Isaacs (Oxford Brookes University)A new narrative has emerged in contemporary Kazakh cinema. Related to national identity and citizenship, it focuses on the day-to-day experience of ordinary citizens faced with economic struggle, an obstinate bureaucracy, and corrupt state officials. This presentation engages with this newly emergent narrative, which challenges conventional state-led imaginations of the Kazakh nation and national identity, propagated via big-budget historical epics, produced by state-led film studios and supported by the Ministry of Culture. This work highlights the ways in which cinema can create a site of dissent in an authoritarian regime, focusing particularly on the films of Adilkhan Yerzhanov, Serik Abishev and Zhanna Isabayeva.
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Introducing Project Seventy
Alison Kahn (Oxford Brookes University)Project Seventy is a work-in-progress interactive documentary that on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Indian independence will be constructed around seventy stories gathered from both Indian and British citizens, now mostly in their 80s and 90s, who lived through the Independence process. It will involve both sound and film recordings, and will build upon previous collaborative research with Catriona Child, daughter of Ursula Graham Bower, anthropologist, filmmaker and resistance fighter in the period of Japanese occupation of the Naga Hills in the 1940s. I have chosen the i-doc format for this project as it allows one to offer pathways through a series of non-linear connections between texts, stills and moving image. A central question will concern the nature of Anglo Indian identity, which is clearly far from uniform, as the population is now scattered across the globe.
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Workshop
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VWD
3:00 PM - 4:50 PM
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Workshop
Visual Worlds of DifferenceWorkshop
Convened by Raminder Kaur (University of Sussex) Paul Boyce (University of Sussex)
This workshop will highlight the role of (audio-) visual and participatory arts works in the development of representations that move away from the fixity and/or Othering of identities. Our aim is to explore worlds of difference through the intersectional lens of race-ethnicity-sexuality-ability-class complexes. In the process, we revisit the classic anthropological task “to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange" and query representational boundaries - between subjects, spaces and relations. Moving beyond depiction, we pose wider questions about the representation of life-worlds and the politics and ethics of visual ethnography.
In a series of case-studies, we will move from the intimate and ambivalent life-worlds of people who negotiate difference on an everyday basis, to the memories and actualities of forced displacement, to campaigns for equity and social justice. Traction between scales of focus in these terms opens questions about the effects, affects and potentials of visual ethnographic knowledge. The case studies will be drawn from:
• social changes and continuities in the lives of people of transgender and same-sex desiring experience in Nepal (Paul Boyce and Daniel Coyle)
• the family within the space of gender transitions in Cuba (Olga Lidia Saavedra Montes de Oca)
• re-appraising the visual with respect to an ethnography of people with impaired vision (Karis Petty)
• India-Pakistan partition memories among the diaspora (Raminder Kaur)
• graphic narratives in the anthropological representation of human rights issues (Matthew Clark)
• the video camera as a participatory action learning tool to explore questions of water and health in Nepal (Sian Aggett)
• the impact of globalisation through a focus on Black Friday and consumer habits in Brighton (Genna Print, Ayla Reeve, Esme Soiza, Jack French, Alison Valley)
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Workshop
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Powell Lecture Theatre
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Hugh Brody
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Book Free Tickets-
Gala event
The George Brandt Lecture - An Open Conversation with Hugh BrodyGala event
Convened by Jacqueline Maingard (University of Bristol) Angela Piccini (University of Bristol)
The RAI Life Achievement Award, which has been given at a number of RAI Film Festivals since 1990, has been awarded in 2017 to anthropologist, filmmaker and writer Hugh Brody. In collaboration with the Department of Film and Television at the University of Bristol, Hugh will give the 2017 George Brandt Lecture, which was first established to commemorate the founder of Film and Television Studies at the University of Bristol. This will take the form of an Open Conversation between Hugh and Jacqueline Maingard and Angela Piccini of the Department of Film and Television. It will be supported by clips from Hugh’s films and followed by a Q&A.
Hugh Brody has worked with Inuit and First Nations of Canada since the 1970s, supporting their land claims and indigenous rights through cultural mapping. In the 1990s, he was invited to apply similar methods to support the land claims of displaced ‡Khomani San (Bushmen) in South Africa. He has also played key roles in commissions of inquiry on the impact of industrial development on aboriginal peoples in the USA and India.
Hugh has documented this work in both award-winning documentaries and best-selling books ("The People’s Land", "Maps and Dreams", "The Other Side of Eden"). Hugh has directed films on many other topics, including the documentaries "England’s Henry Moore" and "Inside Australia", about Antony Gormley’s installation of his sculptures in the Western Desert. He also directed the fictional feature "Nineteen Nineteen", about the reunion in Vienna of Freud’s last two surving patients, starring Paul Scofield, Maria Schell and a young Colin Firth.
PLEASE NOTE THAT A COACH WILL LEAVE THE WATERSHED CINEMA AT 5:30 pm TO TAKE GUESTS TO POWELL LECTURE THEATRE
RAIFilm web page /films/the-george-brandt-lecture-an-open-conversation-with-hugh-brody
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Gala event
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Friday
31 March-
Cinema 1
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Lampedusa
9:15 AM - 11:10 AM
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Lampedusa in WinterDirected by Jakob Brossmann
The Italian "refugee island" of Lampedusa is in the firm grip of winter's tristesse. The tourists have left, the remaining refugees fight to be taken to the mainland. As a fire destroys the worn out ferry that connects the island to the mainland of Italy, the mayor, Giusi Nicolini, and local fishermen campaign for a new ship. When the refugees are finally transferred by plane, the fishermen occupy the port in protest. The island is isolated and as food supplies run out, the protesters start to argue.
The coastguard tries to prevent the tragedies of the upcoming season out on the sea, while many islanders try to describe the role of Lampedusa to the never-ending stream of reporters that stop by on the island. This tiny community at the edge of Europe is engaged in a desperate fight for dignity, and for solidarity with those who many consider the cause of the ongoing crisis: the African boat people.
Read an interview with the director: https://raifilm.org.uk/memory-and-migration-lampedusa-in-winter/
Duration 93 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Austria Switzerland Italy
Location(s) depicted Lampedusa (Italy) Mediterranean Sea
Language(s) of film subjects ArabicEnglishItalianTigrinya
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Employment Office
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
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Employment OfficeDirected by Anne Schiltz Charlotte Grégoire
An office interior, a row of desks, people facing each other. This is where unemployed people come to meet with their advisers. What is at stake are their benefit payments. Here everyone has to abide by the same rigid bureaucratic procedures, but each person has their own life and their own story. This film shows what it means to not have a job today, as work becomes more and more precarious, employed and unemployed alike are less and less secure, and the welfare state is under attack and shrinking.
Duration 74 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Belgium
Location(s) depicted Belgium
Language(s) of film subjects French
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Kivalina / The Archipelago
1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
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KivalinaDirected by Gina Abatemarco
More than a hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, an Inupiaq Eskimo community is living on an island that is fast disappearing into the ocean. With no resources to move and only a precarious sea wall to protect them, the community struggles to maintain its way of life within a landscape and a system that is failing them. Weaving together observational storytelling and cinematic imagery, “Kivalina” offers an evocative and rare portrait of one of the last surviving Arctic communities.
Duration 64 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production United States
Location(s) depicted Kivalina Alaska (USA)
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishInupiaq
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The ArchipelagoDirected by Benjamin Huguet
The Faroe Islands: a remote group of islands, battered by the ever-changing weather patterns of the North Atlantic. For centuries, the Faroese have lived proudly off the natural resources that surround them – a pact between humankind and the wilderness based on balance and self-sustainability.
True to their traditional customs, the modern Faroese continue to hunt pilot whales. This controversial practice has long been under the scrutiny of Western society, and now the international NGO Sea Shepherd announces its biggest anti-whaling campaign to date. The clash between these two opposing ecological visions could well change the face of the archipelago forever.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR BENJAMIN HUGUET
Read an interview with the director here https://raifilm.org.uk/851-2/
Duration 41 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production United Kingdom
Location(s) depicted Faroe Islands
Language(s) of film subjects Faroese
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Journey Maggot
3:45 PM - 5:00 PM
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Journey to the Maggot FeederDirected by Liivo Niglas Priit Tender
This film tries to solve the mystery of a bizarre Arctic fairy tale. Priit Tender, an Estonian animator, makes a film about an old Chukchi legend – The Maggot Feeder. The unconventional narrative is misunderstood by western audiences and Priit takes off on a journey to Chukotka in the north-eastern corner of Siberia, where he unearths deeper layers of the tale and local culture. This anthropological road movie deals with the importance of storytelling and it invites the viewers to undertake a journey into the depths of the Chukchi inner world.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR LIIVO NIGLAS
Read an interview with the director: https://raifilm.org.uk/chukchi-or-not-chukchi-that-is-the-question/
Duration 68 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Estonia
Location(s) depicted Estonia Russia UK
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishEstonianRussian
web site http://www.efis.ee/en/film-categotries/movies/id/16427
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Cinema 2
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Carnival
9:00 AM - 10:45 AM
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Workshop
Carnival King of EuropeWorkshop
Convened by Giovanni Kezich (Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina, San Michele all'Adige, Italy)
European winter festival masquerades possess a number of common elements - relating to character and content as well as structure - that are astonishingly similar across great geographical distances, from the Balkans to the British Isles, and from Eastern Europe to the Iberian peninsula. This fact, already well-known to Sir James Frazer a century ago, has recently been revisited by a new project of ethnographic research and visual anthropology, entitled The Carnival King of Europe. This workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of the project and the visual outcomes that it has produced to date.
Initiated in 2007 and led by a local ethnographic museum in the Italian Alps (Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina), The Carnival King of Europe has involved eight European countries as well as Italy and as many national museums (in France, Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia), with further field trips to England, Switzerland, Austria and Greece.
In addition to fieldwork, the project has also organised itinerant exhibitions and seminars, the publication of several books and articles, the www.carnivalkingofeurope.it website and a number of documentary films, mostly directed by award-winning filmmaker Michele Trentini.
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Workshop
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John Baily Masterclass
11:15 AM - 1:05 PM
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Masterclass
John Baily Masterclass - Afghan MusicMasterclass
Convened by Barley Norton (Goldsmiths, University of London)
In this revelatory masterclass John Baily will trace his ‘career’ as an ethnomusicological film maker, starting with the films he made as a result of research in Herat, Afghanistan, in the 1970s: "The Annual Cycle of Music in Herat", "The City of Herat" and "The Shrines of Herat". From 1984–86 he was an RAI Anthropological Film Training Fellow at the National Film and Television School, where he eagerly embraced the principles of observational cinema, and directed "Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician’s Life in Peshawar, Pakistan" and "Lessons from Gulam: Asian Music in Bradford". He became a strong advocate of the camcorder as a research tool in ethnomusicology and has made several films in the ‘fieldwork movie’ format: "Across the Border: Afghan musicians exiled in Peshawar"; "Tablas and Drum Machines: Afghan Music in California"; "A Kabul Music Diary and Scenes of Afghan Music: London, Kabul, Hamburg, Dublin". In the more observational cinema style he has also made "Ustad Rahim: Herat’s Rubab Maestro" and "Return of the Nightingales".
John Baily is Emeritus Professor of Ethnomusicology and Head of the Afghanistan Music Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has held teaching positions at The Queen’s University of Belfast, Columbia University and Goldsmiths. His research is focused on the music of Afghanistan, starting with two years’ fieldwork in the 1970s and continuing with research in the Afghan diaspora in Pakistan, Iran, USA, Europe and Australia, as well as in Afghanistan itself. He has published numerous articles, CDs, films and three monographs about the music of Afghanistan, the most recent being "War, Exile, and the Music of Afghanistan: The Ethnographer’s Tale" (Routledge 2016).
Bibliography: ‘Film making as musical ethnography’, World of Music, XXXI/3 (1989): 3–20. ‘The Art of the “Fieldwork Movie”: 35 Years of Making Ethnomusicological Films’, Ethnomusicology Forum, 18/1 (2009): 55–64.
Barley Norton is Reader in Ethnomusicology at Goldsmiths, University of London and is currently serving as Chair of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology.
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Masterclass
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MacDougall Masterclass - Turkana Conversations Revisited
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM
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Masterclass
MacDougall Masterclass - Turkana Conversations RevisitedMasterclass
Convened by Michael Stewart (University College, London)
Marking 40 years since its original release as well as its more recent digital remastering, David MacDougall will present the classic trilogy he made with his wife Judith on the Turkana pastoralists of East Africa, widely regarded as one of the early masterpieces of the approach to ethnographic filmmaking known as “Observational Cinema”.
Following the screening of "A Wife among Wives", David will then participate in a debate about how Observational Cinema has evolved over the last forty years, as represented both in his and Judith's more recent work, and in the works of other filmmakers drawing on the same tradition.
Also participating will be Colin Young, the original producer of the trilogy, influential theorist of Observational Cinema and former director of the National Film and Television School, and James Woodburn, a leading advocate of ethnographic film in the UK and an eminent East Africanist anthropologist.
The session will be chaired by Michael Stewart of University College London, whose sponsorship has contributed to making this Masterclass possible.
RAIFilm web page /films/macdougall-masterclass-turkana-conversations-revisited
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Masterclass
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Cinema 3
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Tracing roots / Unity / Dust
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
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Tracing Roots: A Weaver's JourneyDirected by Ellen Frankenstein
This film follows master Haida weaver Delores Churchill on a journey to replicate the spruce root hat found with Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, also known as the Long Ago Person Found. The remains of the traveller were discovered in Northern Canada and DNA testing discovered living descendants in Canada and Alaska. Delores Churchill's search crosses cultures and borders, and involves artists, scholars and scientists. The documentary raises questions about understanding and interpreting ownership, knowledge and connection.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR ELLEN FRANKENSTEIN
Duration 26 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production United States
Location(s) depicted Alaska (USA) Canada
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishHaida
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Unity: Dress-scapes of AccraDirected by Mara Lin Visser
This is a film about African fashion in the capital of Ghana. African printed fabrics seem to making a comeback in the fashion system of Accra. While following Allan, a fashion designer and his wife Cynthia, this mosaic film shows the great diversity and hybridity of tailor-made fashion in the city, the variety of ways in which African clothing may be used and the cultural expression that is implicit in the wearing of African printed fabrics. The process of sewing a dress involves the marriage not only of fabric and design, and of tradition and creativity, but also of husband and wife.
Duration 37 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Netherlands
Location(s) depicted Ghana
Language(s) of film subjects English
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DustDirected by Deepak Tolange
Every winter, thousands of Nepalis and Indians migrate to various parts of Nepal to work in brick factories. Many of these labourers are children who drop out of school, engage in hard labour and never return back to school. "Dust" is an ethnographic film about the children working in these brick kiln areas in Nepal.
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH DIRECTOR DEEPAK TOLANGE
Duration 44 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Nepal
Location(s) depicted Bhaktapur (Nepal)
Language(s) of film subjects HindiNepaliTamang
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Log Rafters of Lake Aegeri / Shepherds in the Cave
11:15 AM - 1:00 PM
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The Log Rafters of Lake AegeriDirected by Thomas Horat
Aegeri, in a remote part of Switzerland, is one of the few lakes in Central Europe where professional log rafters can still be found. This film is based on the gentle observation of the work of a group of these rafters who follow a unique tradition that has not been impacted by modern technology. Adopting a respectful approach to woodland management, the film offers a deep insight into the work that takes place in the forest, including wood cutting as well as log rafting.
Duration 29 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Switzerland
Location(s) depicted Aegerisee (Central Switzerland)
Language(s) of film subjects Swiss German with English Subtitles
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Shepherds in the CaveDirected by Anthony Grieco
An international team of art restorers, archaeologists and volunteers begin work on the restoration of religious frescoes inside a network of ancient caves. Faced with local bureaucratic challenges and the systemic neglect of archaeological sites, the team encounters a community of shepherds and migrants who have used the caves for centuries and discover a living culture that is worth preserving most of all.
Art Restorer: Tonio Creanza
Duration 87 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Canada Italy
Location(s) depicted Puglia Basilicata
Language(s) of film subjects ItalianEnglish
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Waterside 2
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Trends LAVA II
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
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Workshop
Trends in Ethnographic Film-making in Latin America (II)Workshop
Convened by Carlos Flores (Department of Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, México) Angela Torresan (University of Manchester) Antonio Zirion (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City)
This workshop will be a continuation of the workshop offered at 9:00 am on Thursday 30 March (Cinema 2, Watershed).
It will offer a space for Latin American researchers to discuss methodological and theoretical issues around their own ethnographic film-making or works of other relevant film-makers. The idea is to assess the ways new technological developments in the digital world and sociocultural transformations are shaping the region’s ethnographic filmmaking in the 21st century.
Of particular importance are: migration, transnational and virtual communities; resistance and social movements; and the emergence of new subjects of anthropological enquiry. We aim to discuss different forms of political and methodological engagement and collaboration with subjects, both in the field and in the editing process; persistent and new narratives of audiovisual textualisation; regional aesthetics and filming techniques; and contemporary experimental ethnographic filmmaking.
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Video Letters: dialogic imagination among children from different countries in Latin America
Antonio Zirion (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico)9:00 - 9:30 AM
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Online Visual Anthropology: challenges and opportunities of the digital platform
Ricardo Green (Proyecto Bifurcaciones)9:20-9:40AM
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Nhande Ywy/Our Territory: doing video with Guarani people in the frontier Brazil/Paraguay
Ana Lucía Ferraz (Flacso, Ecuador)9:40 - 10:00
RAIFilm web page /films/trends-in-ethnographic-film-making-in-latin-america-ii
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Workshop
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Reclaiming Fiction
11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
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Workshop
Reclaiming FictionWorkshop
Convened by Isaac Marrero-Guillamón (Goldsmiths, University of London)
This roundtable discussion will consider the politics and aesthetics of ethnofiction in relation to current debates in ethnographic film around collaboration and self-representation. Participating filmmakers and academics (names to be confirmed) will share their experiences and thoughts on the renewed currency of this approach.
- Catherine Donaldson (University of Sussex)
- Barbara Knorpp (Brunel University)
- Nick Mai (Kingston University)
- Johannes Sjoberg (University of Manchester)
- Catarina Alves Costa (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
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Workshop
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Igniacio
1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
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Ignacio's LegacyDirected by Titus Fossgard-Moser
Between 1960 and 1992, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Brian Moser made four films concerning indigenous peoples of northwest Amazonia: "Piraparana" (1960), "War of the Gods" (1971), "A Small Family Business" (1983), and "Before Columbus" (1992). The film “Ignacio’s Legacy” documents a journey in early 2016 by Brian, his son Titus and anthropologists Stephen and Christine Hugh-Jones to show and return these films and other audio-visual material to the Barasana and Makuna peoples. Alongside capturing the journey and the peoples’ reactions to the films, it draws upon the earlier films to explore various forms of cultural change over nearly sixty years.
Duration 52 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Norway
Location(s) depicted North West Amazon Piraparaná river Vaupés region (Colombia)
Language(s) of film subjects English, Barasana and Spanish with English Subtitles
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Waterside 3
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Authors at the Festival
5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
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Gala event
Authors at the Festival & ReceptionGala event
Convened by Paul Henley
A number of authors attending the Festival will present their books in the course of a Drinks Reception to which all Festival pass holders are cordially invited. Copies of the books will also be available for sale.
Authors presenting their works will include:
- Judith Aston, Mandy Rose (I-Docs: The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary. Edited with Sandra Gaudenzi. Wallflower Press, just released, February 2017.)
- John Baily (War, Exile and the Music of Afghanistan: the Ethnographer’s Tale. Routledge 2015.)
- Hugh Brody (The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-gatherers, Farmers and the Shaping of the World. Faber & Faber. 2002)
- Toni de Bromhead (A Film-maker’s Odyssey: Adventures in Film and Anthropology. Intervention Press 2014.)
- Paul Henley (The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the Craft of Ethnographic Cinema. Chicago University Press)
- Beate Engelbrecht (contributor) (Film Festivals and Anthropology, edited by Aida Vallejo and María Paz Peirano, just released by Cambridge Scholars, January 2017.)
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Gala event
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Arnolfini
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Rouch
7:30 PM - 9:45 PM
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Gala event
Centenary of Jean RouchGala event
Convened by Paul Henley (University of Manchester)
After a brief introduction to the work of Jean Rouch, there will be a screening of one of his major works, "Moi, un Noir". This will be followed by a Round Table discussion and Q&A, involving a number of leading specialists on Rouch’s work.
Jean Rouch (1917-2004) created the metier of ethnographic filmmaker. Whereas a few earlier anthropologists had made films as a sideline to their work, and certain documentarists had made films of ethnographic interest, Rouch was the first to place filmmaking at the centre of his practice as a professional anthropologist. In the course of a filmmaking career that stretched from 1946 to 2002, he completed over 100 films, around half of which could be classed as ‘ethnographic’, though in the most diverse formats. As well as conventional documentaries and unexpurgated films of record, Rouch also made fictions anchored in ethnographic research, giving rise to the genre now known as ‘ethnofiction’.
Rouch shot the great majority of his ethnographic films in West Africa, mostly in Niger, Ghana and Mali. Although he was interested in traditional religious practices, particularly in possession ceremonies, he was also interested in how these practices were adapting to the modern world. In the 1950s, he made a number of celebrated films on migrants moving from the edge of the Sahara Desert to the dynamic cities of the coast. Here the migrants continued with their traditional religious practices, while at the same time being in daily contact both with modern technology and with globalised Afroamerican culture in the form of jazz and boxing. "Moi, un Noir" is one of his most acclaimed of his films from this period, winning the Prix Louis-Delluc, the French ‘Oscar’ in 1959.
Rouch was at the peak of his fame in France in the early 1960s, when he regularly featured in the pages of Cahiers du cinéma and was a fellow traveller of the Nouvelle Vague. It was only in the late 1970s that his work became widely known among English-language audiences when his commitment to collaboration with the subjects of his films, his scepticism about the objectivity of the cinematic image and his interest in fiction struck a chord with the post-modernist approaches that were then emerging in anthropology.
This event is made possible by sponsorship of the University of Westminster.
Contributors:
- Jean-Paul Colleyn (Filmmaker, anthropologist, director of the Institut des mondes africaines, Paris)
- Paul Stoller (Anthropologist and author of The Cinematic Griot: the Ethnography of Jean Rouch (1992), among many other books on West Africa.)
- Joram ten Brink (Filmmaker, Professor at the University of Westminster, editor of Building Bridges: the Cinema of Jean Rouch (2008))
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Gala event
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Saturday
1 April-
Cinema 1
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22
9:00 AM - 10:50 AM
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Twenty TwoDirected by Guo Ke
The film focuses on Chinese ‘comfort women’ during World War II. At the time of filming, only 22 of the 200,000 Chinese victims forced into sexual slavery remained alive. Quietly humanistic, this challenging film follows these elderly women as they go about their lives, listening to them talk about their experiences and their own perspectives, including both suffering and happiness. Avoiding intrusiveness, the film assembles and preserves fragments of histories both factual and highly personal, ensuring their voices are heard. This is a new 2016 Director's Cut of the documentary, edited from the 2015 original.
Duration 95 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production China
Location(s) depicted Guangxi (Taiwan) Heilongjiang Henan Hubei Shanxi (Mainland China)
Language(s) of film subjects Chinese (Mandarin & dialects)
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Ama-san
11:05 AM - 1:00 PM
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Ama-sanDirected by Cláudia Varejão
A dive, the noon sunlight cuts through the water. The air in both lungs will have to be enough to rip the abalone from the rocks at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. With no aid from air tanks or any other tools to enable underwater breathing, the body as a whole is pushed to its limit. In Wagu, a fishing village in the Ise Peninsula, three women, Matsumi, Mayumi and Masumi dive everyday not knowing what they will find. Underwater, their delicate bodies turn into those of sea hunters. The Ama-San have been diving like this in Japan for over 2000 years.
Duration 113 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Portugal Switzerland Japan
Location(s) depicted Ijika Oosatsu Toushijima Wagu (Japan)
Language(s) of film subjects Japanese
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The Cinema Travellers
1:30 PM - 3:10 PM
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The Cinema TravellersDirected by Shirley Abraham Amit Madheshiya
An affectionate but melancholy ode to a vanishing phenomenon in rural India: the travelling cinema. The huge projector has been repaired countless times by its ingenious operator. The tent and screen have seen better days, and the rusty truck that carries it all from place to place will not hold out much longer. And even in the most remote villages, there is competition from TV. But this doesn’t deter the crew from doggedly carrying on.
Beautifully filmed observations of the ups and downs of life on the road with the travelling cinema are punctuated by the musings of an elderly projectionist in his workshop. He dreamily tells of his love for cinema as he shows us his dusty film canisters and homemade projector. Time seems to stand still, yet transience is palpable as modern technology makes its mark. But will the hard drive turn out to be the travelling cinema’s saviour?
Duration 96 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production India
Location(s) depicted India
Language(s) of film subjects HindiMarathi
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Cinema 2
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Intangible
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
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EohaDirected by Vladimir Perovic
In a timeless rocky mountain landscape evoking the time of Creation, a shepherd communicates with his goats and sheep. Twenty or so different cries, screams, chirps, babbles, mumbles, whispers, whistles and other sounds are uttered. To an untrained ear, they might seem to be merely an incomprehensible cacophony. But for the herd they represent a sign of agreement, a system, a language, a rhythmic sermon and a melody that they look forward to, understand and obey…
Duration 22 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Montenegro
Location(s) depicted Ceklici region (Montenegro)
Language(s) of film subjects Animal language
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My Name is EeooowDirected by Oinam Doren
Imagine a village where you sing every time you call someone's name. In the village of Kongthong, everybody has a song tune as a name - the 'Jingrwai Iawbei'. The name comes from a mother as an expression of her love for her new-born. But what happens to that perpetual symbol of mother’s love when the children come to the town for higher studies or to seek jobs, and are exposed to contemporary music?
Duration 52 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production India
Location(s) depicted Khatarshnong area Meghalaya (India)
Language(s) of film subjects Khasi
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The Face Behind the MaskDirected by Nirmal Chander Dandriyal
Weaving between past and present, performances and daily routine, this film focuses on the life and struggle of Shashadhar Acharya, a member of the fifth generation of a family of traditional Chhau dancers of Seraikella. Chhau derives its name from "Chavani" meaning cantonment and originated from the King's barracks. Masks are an integral part of Chhau, leading the performer through a series of meditative experiences, and allowing the dancer to become one with the character. How does Shashadhar relate to the tradition that he was born into? What meaning does it have for him at this stage in his life?
Duration 54 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production India
Location(s) depicted Delhi Mumbai Seraikella (India)
Language(s) of film subjects HindiOriya
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J.C. Abbey
11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
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J. C. Abbey, Ghana's PuppeteerDirected by Steven Feld
This film presents an exceptional fifty-year artistic career, from Accra’s streets to Ghana’s villages to international TV. In fifteen delightful puppet shows, Mr. Abbey chronicles Ghana's music since independence in 1957. The marionettes perform ethnic songs, dances and stories, but equally the sounds of highlife, Afro-jazz, Afro-rock, reggae, and contemporary hiplife. This fifth feature in Steven Feld's “Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra” series mixes the styles of historical documentary and contemporary music video.
Duration 55 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Ghana United States
Location(s) depicted Ghana
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishEweGaTwi
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Nodas / Last Lineage Opera
1:40 PM - 3:15 PM
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Nodas. Launeddas at the time of crisis.Directed by Umberto Cao Andrea Mura
Dating back 3000 years to the Nuragic civilisation on Sardinia, 'launeddas' are wind instruments that testify to contacts from across the Mediterranean. Although they nearly vanished in the 1960s, in today’s 'time of crisis', launeddas have been associated with levels of virtuoso performance that only a few decades ago seemed no longer attainable. This documentary portrays five talented young launeddas players, exploring through their eyes the interstitial spaces between folklore and ethnicity, tradition and experimentation, identity and globalization. In doing so, it offers a harsh overview of an entire generation of Sardinian life.
Duration 29 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Italy
Location(s) depicted Sardinia
Language(s) of film subjects ItalianSardinian
RAIFilm web page /films/nodas-launeddas-at-the-time-of-crisis
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Bath People
3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
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Bath PeopleDirected by Stefania Bona Francesca Scalisi
A small red-brick building carrying a big neon sign: "bagni". This is the last public baths in a city where everybody can take a shower in their own home. It is a microcosm of people's stories, told during one of the most intimate moments of their day. It is a meeting place for people from very different social environments but who share the same needs. It is a place of conflict, where poverty, shame and racism often are expressed in violence and anger. But it is also a place of integration where sharing and altruism are values that make the hope for a new start possible.
Read an interview with the directors: https://raifilm.org.uk/exploring-poverty-through-personal-hygiene/
Duration 60 minutes
Year of production 2015
Countries of production Italy
Location(s) depicted Turin (Italy)
Language(s) of film subjects ArabicItalian
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Cinema 3
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Those who jump
9:00 AM - 10:50 AM
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Those Who JumpDirected by Estephan Wagner Moritz Siebert Abou Bakar Sidibé
In northern Morocco, lies the Spanish enclave of Melilla: Europe on African Land. On the mountain above, live over a thousand hopeful African migrants, watching the border fence. Abou from Mali is one of them – a protagonist in front of the camera, as well as the person behind it. For over a year, he has ceaselessly persisted in attempting to jump the fence. As Abou portrays the struggle for human dignity and freedom on one of the world's most militarized frontiers, this film ultimately becomes a film about the empowerment of a filmmaker armed with his camera and his aspirations.
Duration 80 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Denmark
Location(s) depicted Mount Gurugú (Morocco) Melilla (Spain)
Language(s) of film subjects BambaraFrench
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Ghetto PSA / Travel
11:20 AM - 1:00 PM
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Ghetto PSADirected by Rossella Schillaci
Jacob arrived in Italy alone from French Guinea when he was 11 years old. Today he is 27, and hip hop music is his whole world: it is his way to express dreams, hopes and frustrations, and to not feel part of the "ghetto" any longer. He lives on the outskirts of Turin, where, by day, together with other young migrants who are part of his band "Ghetto PSA", he writes songs and makes music. At night, he works as an educator in a centre for asylum seekers. This "double life" leads him to reflect on his own identity, as a young Italian who speaks three languages, but who does not forget who he is and where he has come from.
Duration 15 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production Italy
Location(s) depicted Turin (Italy)
Language(s) of film subjects English, French, Italian and Guinean with English Subtitles
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TravelDirected by Nick Mai
(This version of the film is edited using a single screen. For the split screen version see 'Travel - double screen version').
Joy left Nigeria to help her family after her father’s death. She knew that she was going to sell sex in France, but she was unaware of the degree of exploitation that she would face. With the help of an association she obtains asylum, but to help her family and live her life, she continues selling sex. This documentary ethnofiction was co-written by Nicola Mai and 8 Nigerian women with experiences of migration, sex work and trafficking. Joy is one of several fictional characters embodying their individual and collective experiences. In order to protect their identities these roles are played by non-professional actresses including some of the film's co-authors.
Read an interview with the director here: https://raifilm.org.uk/how-to-make-a-film-about-sex-workers-who-do-not-want-to-be-seen/
Duration 63 minutes
Year of production 2016
Countries of production France
Location(s) depicted Paris (France)
Language(s) of film subjects EnglishFrenchNigerian Standard English
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Making of
1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
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Workshop
‘Making of’ Anthropology on TVWorkshop
Convened by Evie Wright (Producer - Director, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol)
Filmmakers working with the BBC Natural History Unit will describe the practicalities of all the various stages of production – from the development of an idea with which to approach commissioners, to casting and securing access to contributors in the field, to the constraints of the actual production itself, and finally, to editing and considerations of audience. Speakers will draw on personal experiences and screen extracts of recent and current anthropological content being produced within the Natural History Unit, including the presenter-led Tribes, Predators and Me and the “mini-landmarks” strand, which has a specific remit to deliver people and animal stories about geographic regions.
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On Patagonia and Mexico series
Evie Wright (Producer - Director, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol) -
On Rituals series
Simon Bell (Producer - Director, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol) -
On Tribes strand
Jolyon Sutcliffe (Researcher, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol) -
On Tribes strand
Estelle Cheuk (Researcher, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol) -
On Tribes strand
Briony Jones (Assistant Producer, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol)
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Workshop
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Life After MAVIS
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
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Workshop
Careers in Ethnographic FilmWorkshop
Convened by Ed Owles (Independent filmmaker)
What do people do with a degree in visual anthropology? A panel from a variety of roles across academia, TV and independent filmmaking discuss their career paths and how their training in ethnographic filmmaking has influenced the way they work.
The panel will consist entirely of MA in Vis Anth graduates, including the chair, Ed Owles, who will be in conversation with BAFTA/RTS award-winning director Gavin Searle, BAFTA-nominated feature doc producer Elhum Shakerifar, ethnographic researcher Alma Berliner, PhD student Lana Askari and Bristol-based freelance TV director Will Lorimer.
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Workshop
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Waterside 3
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Awards ceremony
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
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Gala event
Closing Reception & Awards CeremonyGala event
Convened by Paul Henley
Steven Hughes, chair of the panel of judges will invite his fellow judges to announce the 2017 film prizes and to give a brief explanation of the reasons for their decision. After each prize announcement, the prize-winning filmmaker or their representatives will be invited to come up to the platform and receive their award in person.
At the end of the Awards Ceremony, the Festival Director, Paul Henley, and the President of the RAI, André Singer will bring the Festival to a formal conclusion.
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Gala event
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