37 USES FOR A DEAD SHEEP
Colour, 85 minutes, 2006
Filmmaker: Ben Hopkins
The Pamir Kirghiz are a tribe of some 2,000 people from the Pamir region of Central Asia. For the last 27 years they have lived in exile in Eastern Turkey. In 2005 an Anglo-Turkish film crew arrives in their village to work with the tribe to tell their story. (Winner Basil Wright Film Prize 2007)
THE DEVIL’S MILLS / Ördögmalom (Roundabouts don’t build houses any more…’)
Hungary 2006, 56 minutes, (Hungarian with English subtitles)
Filmmaker/anthropologist: János Tari
The everyday life of migrant fun fair operators is the filter through which we view the social and economic factors of the 20th and early 21st century that define the life and work of this social group. Hungary's accession to the EU has presented new challenges and difficulties to them continuing their traditional trade and lifestyle. Interest in their services has decreased considerably, so this once thriving form of business is now on the decline. (Commendation Material Culture & Archaeology Film Prize 2007)
EVERY GOOD MARRIAGE BEGINS WITH TEARS
Colour, 63 minutes, 2007
Filmmaker and Anthropologist: Simon Chambers
East London Muslim girl Shahanara is changing form pink hot pants into a sari to meet her husband at the airport. She has only met him once before, when she was married in a union arranged by her Bangladeshi family. Shahanara only agreed to the marriage to try and heal old wounds with her father, who had banished her from her family for her Western ways. Meanwhile her devout Muslim sister Hashnara is being groomed for her own arranged marriage, something that at 19 she does not feel at all ready for. Filmed by a close friend of the family this film explores universal theme of love and the conflicts between first and second generations of a British Bangladeshi family. (Winner RAI Film Prize 2007)
GANDHI’S CHILDREN
Colour, 185 minutes, 2008
Filmmaker and Anthropologist: David MacDougall, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University
A monolithic building on the outskirts of Delhi provides food and shelter for 350 boys. Some are orphans, some have been abandoned, others have run away from home. About half are held under a court order, having been picked up for petty crimes. Living at the institution for several months, MacDougall explores its routines and the varied experiences of several boys. Despite the harshness of their lives, many show remarkable strength of character, knowledge, and resilience. One day 181 child labourers arrive, placing additional strain on the building’s deteriorating facilities. The institution does what it can, but is it enough?
GODS AND SATANS (Dieux et Satans)
Colour, 87 minutes, 2005
Filmmaker and anthropologists: Martine Jounet, Gerard Nougarol
Among the Wana people, semi nomads from the Indonesian (Sulawesi) forest, Indo Pino is a shaman recognized by everybody. Her Nephew, who is also a shaman’s son, converted to Christianity some months ago and is now preaching the visions. And for him, if the visions come from God, the visions of the shamans inevitably must come from Satan. Through the Christian concepts of sin and original fault, good and evil notions are revised, The traditional healing practices of the shamans are heavily under attack. Under our eyes a fight between two worlds of religious conceptions is taking place.
HOLY MAN AND FOOLS
Colour, 61 minutes, 2005
Filmmaker and Anthropologist: Michael Yorke, UK
The film narrates the story of Uma Giri, a Swedish woman who has become a Hindu nun, called Uma Giri. She is one of the few western women to be accepted into the most radical order of wandering Hindu ascetics. The film follows her and 29-year-old yogi, Vasisht Giri, on an 18 day pilgrimage of self-discovery into the high Himalayas. They search out and stay with the saints and mystics of Hinduism in their remote huts and caves. They meet one sadhu who has not spoken for 14 years living beside the source of the River Ganges, Hinduism most sacred river. Finally Uma discovers what she has been searching for.
HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO
Colour, 99 minutes, 2007
Filmmaker: Kim Longinotto
Mulberry Bush School is an Oxford education facility for emotionally disturbed children, who have been excluded from mainstream schools.
Longinotto captures the inner life of Mulberry Bush, focusing especially on the stories of three boys, Michael, Ben and Alex, all struggling at a different stages of development, but all of them linked by the experience, of having to endure great sadness.
Avoiding sensationalism, the violence a boy is capable of is never construed as his true nature, but as something to be overcome - with the help of their extremely patient tutors.
"The main reason I wanted to shoot is that when the kids misbehave, the teachers don’t punish them but try to find out why they are acting in such a way. The driving idea behind the school is to “mend the hurt of the outside world.”
A HOSPICE IN AMSTERDAM
Colour, 62 minutes, 2005
Filmmaker: Steef Meyknecht
At the end of Van Goghstraat in Amsterdam is the Veerhuis. A normal residential house in a normal urban area, where children play outside in front of the door. But people come to the Veerhuis to die. For his research, Steef Meyknecht worked for three years as a volunteer in The Veerhuis.
INDO PINO
Colour, 84 minutes, 2002
Filmmaker: Martine Journet, Gérard Nougarol, Gabriel Chabamier
The small ethnic group of the Wana Wewaju live in Indonesia in the eastern part of Sulawesi (Celebes Island) among the dense equatorial rain forest of the Tokkala Mountains. The film documents the traditional healing practices of the Wana shamans.
This film is the result of fifteen years of research and constitution of ethnocinématographic archives about the shamanism of Wana People from Sulawesi (Indonesia) See as well the companion film GODS AND SATANS, 87 minutes, 2005.
JE NE SUIS PAS MOI-MÊME
Colour, 50 minutes, 2009
Filmmakers: Alba Mora, Anna Santamaria
Shot in Cameroon and Brussels, Je ne suis pas moi-même examines the complex network surrounding the international market of African antiquities, and the contradictions in a European art market hungry for new tribal objects. Where do the African masks come from? What journey do these masks make before their unveiling in the windows of the biggest galleries or art collections in Europe?
Who determines the economic and aesthetic value of these objects now that colonialism is supposedly dead? And then there’s a continent called Africa, in need of economic resources and therefore willing to sell its cultural heritage or, if need be, to fake it. The authenticity of the objects becomes blurred when the people that once adored them start to sell them. (Winner Material Culture Film Prize, RAI Film Festival 2009)
KUSUM
Colour, 69 minutes, 2000
Filmmakers: Jouko Aaltonen, Antti Pakaslahti
Kusum is a 14-year-old Indian girl. She lives and attends school in Delhi. Kaushal, her father, drives a motorised rickshaw and works his fingers to the bone to support his family. Sumitra, Kusum’s mother, is about to have a baby. Kusum’s family is poor, but their life isn’t too bad, until Kusum falls ill. She isolates herself, she has raving fits and she refuses to eat properly. Her family takes her to see a doctor, but no physical illness can be found. It’s evil spirits, say the neighbours. Kusum, Kaushal and Aunt Suman journey to the neighbouring town of Hapur, where Bhagat the healer lives.
Bhagat is well-known throughout the region, and people travel hundreds of miles to see him. Bhagat’s methods include conversation, rituals and herbal treatments. Joint trance sessions in which spirits talk constitute the core of his methodology. Should a patient fail to enter a trance, Bhagat’s assistant Meena takes the spirits into herself and is entranced on behalf of the patient. Bhagat examines the family and orders treatment.
A LIFE WITH SLATE
Colour, 59 minutes, 2006, Thami (English Subtitles)
Filmmaker/anthropologist: Dipesh Kharel, Nepal
Student Film, Visual Culture Studies, Tromsø, Norway
Alampu is a beautiful and exceedingly remote village in Nepal. The majority of the settlers there are Thami People, one of the indigenous groups of Nepal. More than 90 percent of them have been involved in the slate production at Alampu. This film includes technical details about slate production in the mountainside mine, and how the slate is worked prior to distribution. In the film we see the social relationships, co-operation between the miners, and the intimacy of the mining families. Strong women perform the tough and arduous work alongside the men. They have to carry heavy slate loads far to sell them. The film also describes the socio-cultural life of the village and its interaction with the environment. The activities of the men and women in the mine, as well as in the village, have an almost poetic dimension. Material Culture and Archaeology Film Prize 2007
LIVING THE INVISIBLES/ Vivre les Invisibles
Colour, 52 minutes, 2003
Filmmaker: Dirk Dumont Anthropologist: Philip Hermans
When they emigrated to Europe in the 60’s and 70’s, Moroccans brought with them their culture and their “diseases” ( caused by the the jinn that inhabit some of them). In Europe, most North African families will include someone who is undergoing this kind of disorder, with diverse manifestations (asthma, paralysis, epilepsy, “crises”, sterility etc.) which, if left untreated, may be extremely serious and destructive, causing suffering and delinquent behaviour.
In the film we follow two Moroccan women: Hind and Fatima who are looking to solve their problems caused by invisibles. They are visiting healers in Europe and Morocco. The healers “negotiate” with invisible forces and are using therapeutic rituals.
THE PROFESSIONAL FOREIGNER - Asen Balikci and Visual Ethnography
Colour, 60 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker and Anthropologist: Rolf Husmann
Asen Balikci has been a leading figure in making ethnographic films for many decades. In a series of talks between Balikci and filmmaker Rolf Husmann in different locations, the life and work of Asen Balikci are shown and discussed: the film takes us from Asen’s youth in Istanbul to his career in Canada where he became famous for making the Netsilik Eskimos Series, to filming in Afghanistan and then turning to two other activities of his: as a networker for the Commission on Visual Anthropology (CVA) and as a teacher of Summer Schools in Siberia and Bulgaria. His film work among the Bulgarian Pomak and his still ongoing work in Sikkim (India) conclude the film which is not only the portrait of a famous expert in Visual Ethnography, but also more generally touches upon vital issues of ethnographic filmmaking.
Q2P
Colour, 55 minutes, 2006 | India, Hindi (Engl. Sub)
Filmmaker: Paromita Vohra
Q2P is a film about toilets and the city. It sifts through the dream of Mumbai as a future Shanghai and searches for public toilets, watching who has to queue to pee. As the film observes who has access to toilets and who doesn’t, we begin to also see the imagination of gender that underlies the city’s shape, the constantly shifting boundaries between public and private space; we learn of small acts of survival that people in the city’s bottom half cobble together and quixotic ideas of social change that thrive with mixed results; we hear the silence that surrounds toilets and sense how similar it is to the silence that surrounds inequality. The toilet becomes a riddle with many answers and some of those answers are questions – about gender, about class, about caste and most of all about space, urban development and the twisted myth of the global metropolis.
ROOM 11, ETHIOPIA HOTEL (Short film special price £20)
Colour, 23 minutes, 2006
Filmmaker: Itsushi Kawase
This Film aims to capture a sense of the life of children living on the street in Gondar by witnessing the interaction between two children and the filmmaker. Although it is about the children’s life on the streets, the entire film was shot in the film-maker’s room in Ethiopia Hotel. This limited space allows the film to focus on communication between subjects and film-maker and to reveal some of the ideas that enable them to endure and survive on the streets. It is more a sensitive testimony than a scientific documentary.
ROUGH AUNTIES
Colour, 103 minutes, 2008
Filmmaker: Kim Longinotto
Jackie, Mildred, Eureka and Thuli are the women behind Bobbi Bear, a non-profit organization based in Durban, South Africa, that counsels sexually abused children and works to bring their abusers to justice. Born out of recognition of cultural stigmas that discourage reporting abuse and inadequate methods of communicating with young victims, Bobbi Bear developed a method of letting children use teddy bears to explain their abuse. Since 1992, the multiracial staff has become the fearless and powerful voice for those victims who would otherwise continue to live in fear, powerless against their oppressors and ignored by the legal system.
SchoolScapes
Colour, 77 minutes, 2007 (not for Sale in USA)
Filmmaker and Anthropologist: David MacDougall (see as well ‘Some Alien Creatures’)
Inspired by the cinema of Lumière and the ideas of the 20th century Indian thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti, David MacDougall follows up the Doon School Quintet, his series of films about a traditional school in North India, with this film made at the Rishi Valley School, a famous progressive co-educational school in Andhra Pradesh, South India.
Throughout his life, Krishnamurti taught that one should strive to observe the things around one more calmly and clearly. This was also how cinema began, and what excited its first audiences. SchoolScapes attempts to recapture that freshness of observing the world. It is dedicated to the simple act of looking, in which each scene is a single shot. (Winner Basil Wright Film Prize 2007)
SCENES OF AGHAN MUSIC
Colour, 97 minutes, 2007
Filmmaker: John Baily
Scenes of Afghan Music is Part IV of A Quartet of Afghan Music Films, made in the author’s personal “fieldwork movie” style. It reveals the diversity of music and dance practices in the Afghan transnational community: old and new, male and female, public and private, amateur and professional, controlled and uncontrolled.
SINCE THE COMPANY CAME
Colour, 52 minutes, 2001 (not for distribution in USA, Canada, Australia)
Filmmaker: Russell Hawkins
Set in the South Pacific, in a remote Solomon Islands village, SINCE THE COMPANY CAME is the story of a community coming to terms with social, cultural and ecological disintegration. When village leaders invite a Malaysian company to log their tribal land, the Haporai people of Rendova Island in the Solomon Islands find themselves at a difficult crossroads. Most of the men embrace the chance to earn money and participate in the modern economy; many of the women are more concerned with preserving the forests and traditions that sustain their families. At a village meeting, Chief Mark Lamberi calls into question the tribe's finances, only to find himself the target of furious accusations from the new 'big man' of the community and Chairman of the logging project, Timothy Zama. The community is embroiled in conflicts over land ownership and logging royalties, conflicts that threaten the very core of their traditional social values. Mary Bea and Katy Soapi are two village women who are desperate to stop the logging before it destroys their land. Although women are custodians of land according to matrilineal tradition, their power is severely diminished. Forests have become a source of money, and money is the domain of men. Mary tells us: "Men don't want to hear anything from women, but we women are actually the centre of life in our village." As Rendova's forest rapidly disappears, the loggers turn to Tetepare, a nearby, pristine island held sacred by the villagers. Evocative archival footage from the 1920's provides an insight into Solomon Islands' colonial experience, and raises questions about the ongoing legacy of colonialism. We witness the ongoing disruption of their land and society, and see those same forces at work internally within the people themselves, even to this day.
"The film has significant pedagogical value in anthropological, ecological, and economic instruction... The cinematography lends a sense of realism and sensitivity to the film. Guided only by visual imagery and indigenous voices, (the film goes) beyond western representations of global processes and faces (the viewer) with actual human impacts, illustrating the ongoing legacy of colonialism. We come to see that the manner of exploitation, which plays on vulnerabilities within traditional societies to the pressures and promises of westernization, has not changed much in the last century." Keith Prufer, Dept. of Anthropology, Auburn University, for Anthropology Review Database
SUDAN TRILOGY BY ARTHUR HOWES (special price, 3 for 2, when buying the trilogy)
KAFI’S STORY (1)
Colour, 53 minutes, 1989 (not for sale in Africa and USA)
Filmmakers: Arthur Howes, Amy Hardie
Shot in 1989, Kafi's Story captures Nuba life at the moment before it was engulfed in the Sudanese civil war. Kafi narrates his own story into a portable tape record as he travels from his village, Torogi, to Khartoum to earn enough money to buy a new dress for his second wife, Tete. Kafi is quite consciously negotiating his own path between modernity and tradition.
Kafi and the other Nuba react to the presence of the camera with neither awe nor apprehension; they seem to welcome the camera as an extension of their open, out-going, hospitable lifestyle. At the same time, they rapidly become sophisticated about the way film conventions can frame reality. When a friend walks away from a shot, they joke that he is walking into the screen. At the film's end Kafi asks the filmmaker for one thing: a camera of his own. (Commendation Basil Wright Film Prize 1990)
NUBA CONVERSATION (2)
Colour, 53 minutes, 1999 (not for Sale in USA)
Filmmaker: Arthur Howes
Ten years after he made Kafi's Story, director Arthur Howes returns to the Sudan to find the members of the Nuba who featured in his earlier documentary film. Soon after he had left the Sudan, the mountain area they had been living in became the battlefield of the civil war that has been destroying much of the Sudan ever since. With a government that is attempting to gain absolute control, the people of Nuba have been persecuted, deported, and deprived of much of their land. Children have been put into camps, many of them brainwashed in the military. Many of their fathers have voluntarily joined the army and are now being forced to fight their own people, as they have not been able to find any other way of making a living. Some of the Nuba people have fled to other countries, such as Ethiopia and Kenya. Groups of women have withdrawn further into the mountains. Howes, who had a great deal of difficulty obtaining a visa for the Sudan, manages to find several of the Nuba men and women he filmed back in the late eighties, and their testimonies are, without exception, revealing. He succeeds in organizing secret screenings of Kafi's Story, which they have never seen before, and the contrast between their lives then and now is shocking. It is rare to hear stories collected from so deeply within a community. Howes gives his personal perspective during much of his commentary.
BENJAMIN AND HIS BROTHER (3)
Colour, 87 minutes, 2002 (not for Sale in USA)
Location: Kenya /USA; Dinka, Arabic and English (Engl. Sub)
Filmmaker: Arthur Howes
Years of war and ethnic conflict in the Sudan have created a generation of young men, known as the "Lost Boys," who have spent more years in refugee camps than in their home communities. This intimate film recounts the story of Benjamin and William Deng, brothers joined in the struggle of a seemingly never-ending exile, who are then separated when one is accepted into a United States resettlement program while the other remains in a Kenyan refugee camp.
THE WELL-BEING QUEST IN BOTSWANA
This Series by Richard Werbner follows charismatic healers and their patients in their quest from their villages to the capital city, as they divine, dance and pray for healing, and are see and heard reflecting on their experience. (special price 4 for 3, when buying the whole series)
SéANCE REFLECTIONS with Richard Werbner
Colour, 45 minutes, 2004
Filmmaker: Richard Werbner
Njebe and Martha, a childless couple living in Botswana’s capital, turn for healing to a charismatic diviner, Rantii, in Njebe’s old village, Moremi. Moved by the diviner’s intimate revelations, they accept his two-sided insight, reaching both personal responsibility for care of kin and blame for occult attack and witchcraft. They find some moments puzzling, when they watch their filmed séances and reflect with ethnographer Richard Werbner, who has known Njebe since he was a boy. Focusing on urban villagers who straddle the city and the village, the film turns back and forth in time, and it moves across town and country, showing every-day moments in Martha’s life as a teacher at a Muslim nursery school and Njebe’s life as a landlord, now unemployed.
SHADE SEEKER AND THE MIXER
Colour, 57 minutes, 2007
Filmmaker: Richard Werbner
In Botswana’s Moremi village, a charismatic healer and diviner, Rantii, who claims a God-given, original mission, becomes suspect. When he fails to respect the public good, some villagers fear his practice pollutes the earth. Four elders, including a Bishop and a regional cult’s oracle keeper, view and discuss the film of his séances with Njebe, a former patient, now the anthropologist’s research assistant. Against the background of the awesome Tswapong hills, Shade Seekers and The Mixer illuminates the play of light and darkness in séances, a funeral, a wedding, and at a sacrifice to restore communication with the ancestors. The focus is on an idea at the heart of village life. Seriti, ‘Shade’ is their word for it, and it ties dignity and power to the light in which a person is seen by others, the ancestors above all.
ENCOUNTERING ELOYI
Colour, 56 minutes, 2008
Filmmaker: Richard Werbner
Of all the faith-healing churches in Botswana, Eloyi is the most controversial. Sensational stories in newspapers and on television have made Eloyi notorious for so-called witch-busting and for exorcising demons. Known as tokoloshi, they appear like a nightmare image of an overwhelming consumer society. While attacking traditional ritual as Satan’s work, Eloyi brings back, in a Christian or even more remarkably Old Testament guise, many old Tswana practices. Rarely in the ritual of other churches is empathy for others’ and their mortal frailty so powerfully realised as in this Apostolic church during a séance.
The film shows the impact of such empathy and the demonic in the lives of a childless couple, Martha and Njebe, originally from the countryside and now settled in Botswana’s capital city.
HOLY HUSTLERS
Colour, 53 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Richard Werbner
Charismatic, street-wise young men, living in Botswana’s capital, command the prophetic domain in Eloyi, their Apostolic faith-healing church.
This film shows how, in a crisis dividing Eloyi’s village-based archbishop and his son, the city-based bishop, city prophets assert themselves powerfully because, waging a war of good and evil, they are both holy and hustlers. For protection, they extract fees the church forbids. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, prophets are seen in trance, whirling in ecstasy, praying, running wild in exorcism and feeling patients’ pain in their own bodies. But beyond empathy and avowed compassion, prophets hustle and shock. Pushing impatiently, they batter their patients emotionally in fear. With strong village ties, city prophets reveal dangers in a familiar world: their own street-wise vision of deceptive appearances among intimates, trusted relatives’ hidden malice and witchcraft from home beyond the city
TAIGA NOMADS (Special Price, 3 for 2 buying the whole series)
Part 1: Hundreds of Homes Part 2: The Skills You Passed On Part 3: The School and the Village
Colour, 50 minutes each, 1992
Filmmaker: Heimo Lappalainen
Taiga Nomads is a film series about the Evenki (previously the Tungus), a nomadic people scattered all over eastern Siberia, and living under harsh conditions in the taiga ± an area predominated by coniferous/larch forests and swamp lands. This series gives a picture of everyday life, during the four seasons the film crew lived with the main characters, consisting of three generations of members of the Archemku family. The first part, Hundreds of Homes, relates the story of Sasha Archemku and his family. He is the leader of Sovchos Brigade No. 6 which actually consists of his closest family members and some temporary helpers. They move throughout the taiga with their herd of reindeer in the traditional Evenki way. Each year the family sets up "home" in more than ten different campsites.
WAITING FOR HARRY
Colour, 57 minutes, 1980
Filmmaker: Kim McKenzie, Anthropologist: Les Hiatt
Although the events around which this film was planned were the final mortuary rites for Les Angabarraparra, the subject of the film became interaction. Interaction between the anthropologist Les Hiatt and the Anbarra people of northern Australia, between the Anbarra and other Aboriginal groups in the area, and finally the relations between various Anbarra and the ever-absent Harry. The film-makers are effective in using this interaction to create a continuity, giving the viewer insights into Anbarra life as everyone grows tense waiting for Harry. Harry is the dead man's maternal uncle and a leader in the community of Maningrida. He is vital for the mortuary ritual because his appearance authorizes the use of motifs on the coffin and bones. Frank Gurrmanamana, instigator and narrator for the film and classificatory brother of the dead man, needs important people such as Harry to give the rites validity and a proper respect for the dead man. The men build a shade structure and prepare a hollow log coffin for the necessary painting. They wait three weeks, but still no Harry.
Frank begins the painting without Harry. Then, wonder of wonders, Harry arrives. They make a sand sculpture but Harry has to leave again because his son has a court case. People from other groups arrive for the ceremony, but no Harry. Les Hiatt is an integral part of the film. Both he and Frank cope together in various ways with the frustration of the delays. Finally Frank suggests that Les go into town and get Harry. After some negotiation, Les agrees, Harry returns with him-the magistrate had never shown up for the court case-and the ceremony begins. Another group arrives to inspect the accuracy of the coffin painting. The bones are covered with ochre and smashed, then put in the hollow log.
Part of what makes this film intriguing is the triangular involvement of the audience, the film-makers and the filmed. It is as much a film about film making as it is about a ceremony, but it works. Les and Frank negotiate to have the ceremony performed during the day so they can film and we see Frank telling various people who are participating in the ceremony about the film and its purpose.
We are pleased to announce that we are sub-distributing the following classical films from Australian National University (on DVD only)
FOUR FILMS ON A HEALER IN CENTRAL BALI (103 min total)
Filmmaker/anthropologists: Timothy Asch, Linda Connor and Patsy Asch
A study guide, Jero Tapakan: Balinese Healer, written by the three filmmakers, complements these films.
A Balinese Trance Séance (46 min)
Jero Tapakan is ‘entered’ by deities and spirits who converse with her clients . Unbeknown to her, they wish to contact the spirit of their dead son to learn the cause of his death and his wishes for his cremation ceremony.
Jero on Jero: A Balinese Trance Séance Observed (16 min)
For the first time Jero sees herself on film as she watches A Balinese Trance Séance. Her spontaneous comments provide insights into her feelings while possessed, her understanding of her practices and her humility in the presence of the supernatural world.
The Medium is the Masseuse: a Balinese Massage (31 min)
Jero uses massage and traditional medicines to treat Ida Bagus, who suffers from sterility and seizures. Through her treatment and her words, Jero reveals her conceptions of the human body, the nature of illness, the contrast between Western and traditional Balinese medicine, and the relationship between human beings and the cosmos.
Jero Tapakan: Stories from the life of a Balinese Healer (26 min)
Jero beings with an account of her family’s extreme poverty that culminated in her desire to leave her family and travel as a pedlar. She describes mystical experiences that led her to recognise her own ‘blessed madness’ and to return home. Jero’s account is unique but themes of poverty, mysticism, madness and humility are common elements in the autobiographical accounts of many Balinese healers.
THREE FILMS FROM EASTERN INDONESIA (97 min total)
The Water of Words: a cultural ecology of a small island in Eastern Indonesia
Filmmakers/anthropologists: J. Fox, Timothy Asch and Patsy Asch (30 min).
This film examines the ecology and poetry of everyday life. Two Rotinese narrate this film, each offering his perception of the importance of the Lontar (Borassus) palm: a clan leader describes the many practical uses of the palm; a poet tells of its origin and mythic significance. The film complements Fox’s book, The Harvest of the Palm, as well as his essays on ritual language.
Spear and Sword: a payment of bridewealth on the island of Roti
Filmmakers/anthropologists: James J. Fox, Timothy Asch and Patsy Asch (22min)
The film begins as the groom’s side gathers the animals and money for a bridewealth payment, and discusses problems that might arise in negotiating the exchange. In ritual silence, they walk to the bride’s family house, where discussions proceed, interspersing ritual forms with lively conversation. When agreement is reached, drinking and feasting begin and a chanter recounts the origin of the first bridewealth payment.
A Celebration of Origins: Wai Brama, Flores, Indonesia
Filmmakers/anthropologists: E. Douglas Lewis, Patsy Asch and Timothy Asch. (45 min)
This film is a record of the gren mahe rituals of the people of the domain of Wai Brama. The gren mahe is the largest religious event of the Wai Brama ceremonial system and requires the participation of the whole community. The film examines ceremonial leadership and the role of evolving religious practice in a changing society. (See Lewis’ book, People of the Source. The Social and Ceremonial Order of Tana Wai Brama on Flores)
TWO FILMS ON CREMATION IN BALI
Releasing the Spirits: a village cremation in Bali
Filmmakers/anthropologists: Patsy Asch, Linda Connor and Timothy Asch (44 min)
In 1978, as part of the preparations for the island-wide ceremony eka dasa rudra, religious officials urged all Balinese to cleanse the island by cremating their dead. Many were forced to pool resources and hold group cremation rituals. The film shows preparations for such a ceremony and its cycle of rituals: the cremation, post-cremation and casting of the ashes into the sea. This film includes subtitled comments by four of the participants.
Ngarap: fighting over a corpse
Filmmaker/anthropologist: Anthony Forge (17min)
In 1993, Anthony Forge filmed the cremation of an older woman from an affluent ‘commoner’ family. As her body was moved from her family compound to the cremation tower, men of the ward seized the body and began to fight over it, as was traditional in that part of Bali. Forge juxtaposes his recording of this event with Gregory Bateson’s 1937 footage of a ngarap and footage of Balinese paintings. The video is based on an unfinished version Forge was working on with Patsy Asch before his death.
TWO VIDEOS ABOUT A CHARISMATIC LEADER IN EAST JAVA
Filmmakers/anthropologists: Raharjo Suwandi, Patsy Asch and James J. Fox (67 min total)
In the Play of Life: a wayang performance in East Java (25 min)
Consulting Embah Wali (42 min)
These companion films examine the philosophy and ritual practices of the followers of a holy man popularly known as Embah Wali. The movement, centred in Blitar, East Java, regards wayang as a model for living. Their ritual practices involve the performance of a unique form of wayang with human actors.
CONTESTATIONS (Indonesia Series - Australia National University, DVD 6 )
Colour, 55 minutes, 1996
Filmmakers: Michael P. Vischer, Thomas Richter;
Editor: Patsy Asch
The recording follows a journey from the island of Palu'e to the mainland to purchase water buffalo. Back at Palu'e, a series of sacrifices is held to make amends for transgressions. The events, part of the ceremonial cycle of the domain of Ko'a, are the arena in which the order of precedence is periodically contested and reasserted. The strategies employed by various factions of the domain are highlighted.
NEW STUDENT FILMS:
CALCUTTA CALLING
Colour, 17 minutes, 2006
Filmmakers: André Hörmann, HFF ”Konraf Wolf”, Germany / India
“Business Process Outsourcing” is the fastest growing industry in the world. In India, approximately 350,000 people are currently working in call centres to maintain the contact between western companies and their customers. Vikhee Uppal is one of them. From a busy office in Calcutta, he pretends to be a guy named Ethan Reed and calls Americans, Brits and Australians to try and sell them cell phones and subscriptions. Vikhee hopes to make it in this sector. On the bulletin board, we see that he and his colleagues keep track of who sells the most. The Americans are the most impolite: they yell at the salespeople and hang up on them. The English, on the contrary, are the most willing to listen to their sales pitch. Even though Vikhee pretends to be a westerner at work, Indian traditions remain very important for him. He wants to get married to a girl from Punjab, and if he doesn’t` t succeed, his family will find a bride for him. At work, Vekhee gets tutored in English. Each night, he watches English soccer matches to see what the people on the other end of the line actually look like.
CULTIVATING DEATH
DVD/PAL, Colour | 2003 | 23 minutes
Filmmaker: Martin Gruber, Goldsmith’s College, UK | Germany
Cemeteries are not only places for the dead. They are also spaces in which the living interact with each other – and with the dead. “Cultivating Death” depicts the different ways in which bereaved people remember and commemorate their deceased family members and friends, by visiting and tending their graves at a Victorian cemetery in London. It is a common belief in the West that the bereaved have to ‘let go’ and ‘get over the loss’ of their deceased kin, in order to return to a ‘normal’ life. In contrast to these cultural norms, many survivors maintain strong social relationships with their dead. “Cultivating Death” portrays some visitors of Kensal Green Cemetery in West-London, as they actively sustain these continuing bonds by arranging and tending the graves of their deceased, talking to them and bringing them gifts. They thereby speak frankly about this important aspect of their mourning for which the cemetery constitutes a unique environment.
PEPE
DVD/PAL all region, 23 minutes, 2004
Filmmaker/ Anthropologist: Juana Schlenker, Goldsmiths College
Pepe is a Spanish immigrant who came to England more than forty years ago to work as a waiter. After working in several restaurants and hotels, he retired two years ago and now he fills his days with daily routines that keep him occupied. This film offers an insight into the daily life of a retired person in London. As the spectator discovers, behind the repetitive routines that fill up his days lies a rich personal story. The film is a visual exploration of the spaces where the character moves, his memories and desires.
ROYA AND OMID
DVD/Pal, Colour | 2006 | 17 minutes
Filmmaker: Elhum Shakerifar, Goldsmith’s College, UK
This film is an exploration of transsexuality in the Islamic setting of Iran. The film follows 22 year old Bardia, a female-to-male transsexual, now living in America, who war previously known as Roya, when he was a girl, and as Omid, when he dressed up as a boy. His testimony of sex change contrasts with those of Handry, Lila and Donya, male to female transsexuals still living in Iran and enduring the difficulties of losing the rights they enjoyed as men, and embodying their new roles as women, an inferior sex.
SOUTHEAST LONDON ETHNOGRAPHY
These 3 films on Southeast London were made by GCC college students who took a course in anthropology & film. (13.15 min total, 2007)
Produced by the Royal Anthropological Institute
Anglesea Road (4.55 min)
Situated in Woolwich, South East London, Anglesea Road is a small world rich in Somali culture and tradition.
The Good Ol’ Days (4.30 min)
The well-established butchers, Kennedy’s, famed for it’s sausages, is closing down this December after 130 years of business.
Talk of the Trade (4.30 min)
Since the 1600s, Woolwich market has been a source of food, clothing and conversation for all who know it. This film explores the multi-cultures introduced by the 100 open and closed stalls.
NEW STUDENT FILMS FROM THE GRANADA CENTRE OF VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
ANDRÉ AND NÁNDI
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 2000
Filmmaker: Charlotte Grégoire
Hungarian-born André Reinitz only discovered his Jewish identity when he moved to Brussels at the age of ten. Since then, in spite of the silence of his parents, he has become involved in the Jewish community as a Klezmer musician. This film follows him, torn between Brussels and Budapest, as he tries to learn more about his cultural and family roots.
BORN AGAIN
DVD/PAL, Colour | 19 minutes | 2003
Filmmaker: Carla Huysmans
Carla last met Maureen Mulozi in 1998 in Lusaka, Zambia where they were colleagues and friends. Since then Maureen's life has changed considerably: she became a 'born again' Christian and moved to Namibia where she is teaching English in a remote settlement. Her new strong faith however turns out to be a serious challenge for their friendship. Will it survive this religious gap?
THE BOY FROM ALLISON STREET
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 1998
Filmmaker: Caroline Allward
Wayne has left school, sweet 16, disillusioned, with no qualifications. He is briefly distracted by Becka, the girl next door, and the discovery of his father's porno movie. But all he really wants is to find the right girl. An unlikely poet, he reveals his hopes and fears as he tries to woo Kimberley, his dream woman.
BUSINESS AS USUAL
DVD/PAL, Colour | 27 minutes | 2002
Filmmaker: Lucy Pardee
Everyone knows about Ground Zero in New York but have you bought into the memory? Big Mike, Tyrone and the other street vendors will sell you part of the disaster whilst offering you their views on life, the universe and everything - for free.
CINEMA PEDREGAL
DVD/PAL, Colour | 27 minutes | 1994
Filmmaker:Ricardo Leizaola
For forty years Alejandro Farfán has been making and showing films in El Pedregal. Now located in the heart of Caracas, this community was a small village when Alejandro first went to the cinema. This is a portrait of a local film-maker and of El Pedregal itself, exploring the place and its memories.
DRIVE IT, CRASH IT, PAINT IT
DVD/PAL, Colour | 26 minutes | 2002
Filmmaker: James Bolchover
Kelzo grew up in Hulme and has been writing on walls, wrecked cars and other urban surfaces since 1984. But now that he is a 'graffiti artist' whose work is sold in galleries, is he still in touch with his roots?
ECOTRIP
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 1997
Filmmaker: Rachel Robertson
A group of eco-activists travel around Britain attending festivals and other events aimed at raising awareness of ecological issues and of new, alternative ways of living. But sometimes relationships within the group do not quite live up to their ideals.
EASY LIFE
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 1996
Filmmaker: Amelia Hann
This film is about a Breton woman and her family, their vision of life, and their clash with the French state which marked them as 'terrorists'.
FIGHTING FOR CONTROL
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 1998
Filmmaker: Alexia Coppe
An unconventional household of two women and five children in south London, attempting to leave a difficult past behind, and build a happy future.
GULE WAMKULU: THE GREAT DANCE
DVD/PAL, Colour | 37 minutes | 1991
Filmmaker: Charles Namondwe
Performed by the Chewa secret societies, Gule Wamkulu is a form of masked dance which takes place at male initiation ceremonies, funerals, and other major celebrations. Acting as a medium between the ancestral world of spirits and the mundane present, Gule Wamkulu symbolises almost the entire spectrum of life's emotions and actions.
HOLDING THE TRADITION
DVD/PAL, Colour | 28 minutes | 2002
Filmmaker: Matthew Fassnidge
The annual regatta on the island of Malta has been passionately contested for over 200 years by a number of local rowing clubs. Marsamxett has been dismissed by the others as being a club for 'old men'. But its members are determined to prove the detractors wrong.
HULME HOMES FOR HULME PEOPLE
DVD/PAL, Colour | 23 minutes | 1992
Filmmaker: Aunund Austena
Summer '92 and Hulme, a densely populated and culturally diverse area of inner city Manchester, is being demolished for the second time in 30 years, this time in consultation with local residents and community groups. But will the new Hulme really provide "Hulme homes for Hulme people" as the graffiti writers of the time demanded?
JUNGLE CAT
DVD/PAL, Colour | 29 minutes | 2000
Filmmaker: Natalie Schädler
In search of the righteous way of living, the Liberian rapper CyLover, aka as 'Jungle Cat' wants to make music for his people. Now based in Ghana, the big chance to finish his first album approaches but he has to prove that being a professional artist means more than being well-known in the 'hood'.
LIFELIBRARY
DVD/PAL, Colour | 22 minutes | 2007
Filmmaker: Amanda Hill
Library spacescape. quiet, history, dreams, wisdom, structure, anomaly, affection, preservation, creation, galaxies, distraction and contemplation. An exploration of a changing world within without the library. Manchester was one of the fist cities in Britain to open a public library. How will the Manchester Central Library evolve?
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
DVD/PAL, Colour | 25 minutes | 1995
Filmmaker: Alex Reed
"It was Star Trek that brought us together". John and Pauline are to be wed beyond the Final Frontier at a Star Trek convention in Manchester. Among the guests are Klingons and Hollywood stars.
NATIVE
DVD/PAL, Colour | 29 minutes | 2002
Filmmaker: Rachel Greenwood
Through his clothing, a young South African fashion designer of mixed race urges freedom and unity in post-apartheid South Africa. His message is reaching not only his fellow South Africans, but also the young people of Europe.
PUSHY WOMEN
DVD/PAL, Colour | 23 minutes | 2001
Filmmaker: Caro MacDonald
The modern Japanese woman has the world at her feet: she can pursue any career, wear whatever she likes, and spend her leisure time however she likes - even playing sumo. This film follows five young wrestlers as they endure the hardships necessary to succeed in the unusual world of female sumo wrestling.
THE RAGGED ONES
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 2002
Filmmaker: David Griggs
The Basotho live in Lesotho, a kingdom of high mountains surrounded by South Africa. Afflicted by famine, poverty and AIDS, they carry on making a science out of their witchcraft beliefs.
ROCK’N ROLL PRAY
DVD/PAL, Colour | 24 minutes | 2001
Filmmaker: Fotini Stefani
The monks from the monastery of Saints Augustine and Serapheim Sarow on mainland Greece have found modern ways to appeal to young people. The film explores how their traditional life co-exists with their popular means of bringing people closer to God.
ROUND TRIPP
DVD/PAL, Colour | 36 minutes | 1999
Filmmaker: Angela Torresan
Portrait of a Brazilian woman and her friends, now living in Lisbon, exploring the basis of their sense of identity in the context of a transnational way of life.
SETTLING DOWN
DVD/PAL, Colour | 28 minutes | 2004
Filmmaker: Declan Healey
Ireland's Traveller community - traditionally a rural nomadic people - have survived despite the effects of modernisation. Based around the experiences of one particular Traveller community in Cork, this film looks at the ways in which Traveller culture and identity have altered as a result of broader changes within Ireland and asks what the future may hold for a people who have come under increasing pressure to settle.
STAGING A RETURN
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 1994
Filmmaker: Jakob Hogel
The Faeroe Islands in the North Atlantic are a Danish dependency and for generations, young people have gone to Denmark to complete their studies. When they return for the summer, there is a tradition to put on a satirical theatrical revue. Through following the preparation and performance of the revue at a time of severe economic crisis, this film reveals what young Faroese feel about their identity and their relationship to Denmark.
THOSE WHO DON”T WORK DON”T MAKE LOVE
DVD/PAL, Colour | 30 minutes | 1998
Filmmaker:Cristina Grasseni
An observational documentary about dairy farmers in the Italian Alps Caught between pride for tradition and the pressure for modernisation, the story of one family is told through the eyes of teenager Sara, full of hopes and doubts, and of her grandmother, tired and frustrated after a life of hard work.
TWO EARS, ONE MOUTH
DVD/PAL, Colour | 28 minutes | 1999
Filmmaker: Andy Benfield
Duncan Williamson is of Traveller descent and lives in Scotland, Amy Douglas is fifty years younger and lives in Cheshire. But they share a love for telling stories and both manage to make a living from it. The film shows them telling stories to school children, fair-goers, tourists as well as to the film-maker. The stories they tell are filled with timeless heroes and an otherworldly charm. Around a camp-fire at night, they meet to discuss their art and their passion for it.
USCH IN THE BUSH
DVD/PAL, Colour | 32 minutes | 2001
Filmmaker: Michaela Schäuble
In the 1980s Ursula Heimer leaves behind her husband and children in Germany and goes to live in the African bush. We meet her seventeen years later in a tiny village in Togo, where she has been living in her own eccentric world, far away from the life she once knew.
