Delhi Inernational Ethnographic Film Festival: Screening Schedule for 27 November
Rahul Roy
Venues: Vivekanada Hall, Delhi School of Economics / School of Environmental Studies / JB Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia / Alliance Francaise, Lodi Estate.
Panel Discussion:
Practicing The Craft, Crafting The Practice
Judith MacDougall / Rahul Roy / Reena Mohan / Nandini Bedi / Sanjay Kak
27 November 2008 / 12 to 1 PM / Seminar Hall, Department of Sociology / Delhi University
Alliance Francaise, Lodi Estate, New Delhi
Mosso Mosso - Jean Rouch Comme Si… at 5:00 pm / 27 Nov / Alliance Francaise/ Lodi Estate
Dir: Jean-Andre Fieschi / 73 min / France
The core of this encounter with Jean Rouch lies in the appropriateness of the "comme si" ("let's pretend"), in which he describes what has become for him both a rule to live by and a rule to make films by: "By pretending something is true, you get much closer to reality". And as Jean Rouch, with his greatest friends Damouré and Tallou, by his side, pretends to be making a film called "La Vache Merveilleuse", Jean-Andre Fieschi succeeds in defining the man and his method, creating here a moving homage imbued with the spirit of Rouch the filmmaker. It is in his relationship, close and respectful, with his greatest African companions, Damouré and Tallou, that we discover the full personality of this man of the cinema – an improviser, a chameleon, at one with Africa.
Elder Blossom at 6:30 pm / 27 Nov / Alliance Francaise/ Lodi Estate
Dir: Volker Koepp / 89 min / Germany
"Elder Blossom" is a journey to children living in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave within the European Union, lying between Poland and Lithuania. Formerly, Gastellovo village was home to an important agricultural fair. Today, with the decline of the Soviet empire, the village is only half-alive. With the calamity of unemployment and the ravages of alcohol, many children are left to their own devices in landscapes that are returning to the wild.
In Volker Koepp's film, this sad, abandoned land, forgotten by the "Motherland", is transformed into enchantingly beautiful landscapes where children, left in the places their parents have deserted, invent a shared world of games and a Utopian society bordering on the fantastic and reminiscent of the dreamlike world of the outcasts in Kurosawa's "Dodesukaden".
James Beveridge Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC, Jami Millia Islamia
Mulaqat at 10:00 / 27 Nov / James Beveridge Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC/
Jamia
Dir: José Inacio Parente and Cláudio Costa Pinheiro / India, Brazil
This film was born from an encounter with a group of Chitrakars a caste of traditional storytellers and artists from the Naya village, Mednipur district, West Bengal, India.
The documentary is about the experience of having some of these artists telling, through paintings and songs, the history of the Portuguese travelers' finding new pathways to the East, the discovery of people and idioms, their first arrival in India and codifying this new world throughout the Portuguese language.
3 Carnivals and a Half at 11:30 / 27 Nov / James Beveridge Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC/ Jamia
Dir: Michele Trentini / 50 min / 2007 / Italy
One day in Valfloriana (Valley of Fiemme), 1 day in Grauno (Valley of Cembra), one day in Palu del Fersina (Valley of Mocheni) and one day in Varignano (Valley of the Lakes), the film follows three (and one-half) of the most significant traditional carnivals that still take place in the valleys of Trenino (Alps, Northern-Italy). Far from the prevailing format of the masked pageant, in reality these carnivals are closely reminiscent of the winter fertility rituals that are found in all Europe.
Back to the Street at 2:00 pm / 27 Nov / James Beveridge Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC/ Jamia
Dir: Guerim Van De Vorst / 47 min / Belgium
Their past is blurry and obscure, their future nonexistent, and their present a daily emergency made of deprivation and a permanent threat of death. The heroes of this documentary are those for whom we haven't found an acceptable name yet – mendicant, beggar, homeless, miserable? Two of them, Jean- Pierre Vanobbergh and Raoul de Ridder open up about their lives. The documentary examines the state of their existence without being reductive or pejorative.
If it Rains at 3:15 pm / 27 Nov / James Beveridge Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC/ Jamia
Dir: Nilanjan Bhattacharya / 26 min / Japan, India / dir. present
Shot over nine years, the film follows the lives of three generations of men of the Bhutia family: a mask-maker/rain-stopper, a mask-making trainer/lottery-addict, and a young boy. All three live between the small city of Gangtok and the mountain hamlet of Tinjim, in the state of Sikkim in India bordering Tibet in the eastern Himalayas. "If It Rains" attempts to explore the conflicts of life in contemporary India.
Moi un Noir at 4:00 pm / 27 Nov / James Beveridge Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC/ Jamia
Dir: Jean Rouch / 73 min / France
A group of young Nigerians leave the Savannah to work in the Ivory Coast. They end up in Treichville, a poor quarter of Abidjan, lost and rootless in modern civilization. The hero, who narrates his own story, calls himself Edward G. Robinson in homage to the American actor. Like him, his friends have adopted pseudonyms intended to create, symbolically, an ideal personality.
School Of Environmental Studies, Delhi University
Every Season has an End at 10:00 am / 27 Nov / School of Environmental Studies / DU
Dir: Baptiste Charles & Sarah Jaoui / 53 min / Belgium
Eric, Brandon and Buysile live at St. Philomena, a home for abandoned children in the middle of the ultra-urban jungle of Durban. "St. Phils", their spiritual father, shapes them and makes them real men, "warriors" ready to face the life that seems to run away from them. Brothers and sisters, but also foreigners to each other, they live together all year long, and form an atypical family.
On the other side, there is the real family, the original one, pouring in their veins and tattooed on their skins, although it is often the cause of their troubles. During the holidays, they leave the city to return to their "true" family in the village, trying to get back the time carelessly lost.
This film traces an intimate encounter, the inner journey of these teenagers, from their life in the ultra-urban city, to their roots, in their family's bush.
We Corner People / 11:00 am / 27 Nov / School of Environmental Studies / DU
Dir: Kesang Tseten / 50 min / Nepal
They call themselves 'corner' people. No settlement lies beyond their high hills. The poorest among them are sub-subsistence; there is no electricity, and not a single shop. Children attend a 3-room school that goes up only to class 3; after that they must walk 4 hours daily. Villagers walk that distance just to buy chili or salt and to sell their bamboo weaving, their only means of a cash income.
Now a bridge comes to this remote village in Rasuwa District.
The bridge will make life easier for villagers; and it will placate fear. One of the rivers straddling the village swept away a young bride when it inexplicably swelled. The event haunts the village.
La Voi Peule at 12:00 / 27 Nov / School of Environmental Studies / DU
Dir: Sylvain Vesco / 52 min / Belgium-France
This film tells the current destiny of the peuls of West Africa. In Mali, one of the poorest states of the world, these people are confronted with the terrible question of their future. In a Malian society in full transformation, can the traditions and the way of life of these semi-nomadic shepherds continue to exist in the face of the inevitable modernization of the country? Through a touching meeting with this traditional culture, the narrative shows the universal movement of transformation of rural mentalities.
Mosso Mosso - Jean Rouch Comme Si… at 2:00 pm / 27 Nov / School of Environmental Studies / DU
Dir: Jean-Andre Fieschi / 73 min / France
The core of this encounter with Jean Rouch lies in the appropriateness of the "comme si" ("let's pretend"), in which he describes what has become for him both a rule to live by and a rule to make films by: "By pretending something is true, you get much closer to reality". And as Jean Rouch, with his greatest friends Damouré and Tallou, by his side, pretends to be making a film called "La Vache Merveilleuse", Jean-Andre Fieschi succeeds in defining the man and his method, creating here a moving homage imbued with the spirit of Rouch the filmmaker. It is in his relationship, close and respectful, with his greatest African companions, Damouré and Tallou, that we discover the full personality of this man of the cinema – an improviser, a chameleon, at one with Africa.
Saint Death at 3:30 pm / 27 Nov / School of Environmental Studies / DU
Dir: Cinzia D'Auria / 38 min / Italy
Between the end of October and beginning of November, the traditional "Day of the Dead" is celebrated in most parts of Mexico. Through a dialogue between the images and some passages from the Aztec and Spanish reports of the Conquest, the performance of the "Fiesta de los Muertos" takes place, a syncretic blend of pre-Hispanic traditions and Catholic beliefs.
During the night between October 31 and November 1, in the village of Atzompa, situated some kilometres from Oaxaca, the indios zapotechi go to the graveyard with offerings of food, photos, alcohol, cigarettes and whatever the dead liked and they spend the entire night awaiting the souls of their own beloved. Following the path traced by the smoke of "copal" and the petals of flowers, the spirits arrive and rest after the long journey.
From Honey to Ashes at 4:15 pm / 27 Nov / School of Environmental Studies / DU
Dir: Lucas Bessire / 47 min / US, Paraguay
In March 2004, one of the world's last voluntarily isolated groups of hunter-gatherers walked out of the forest in northern Paraguay, fleeing ranchers' bulldozers. They formed a new village with their more settled relatives, where they confronted the complexities of learning how to become 'Ayoreo Indians' and more critically, how to survive in a rapidly changing world.
This documentary provides an intimate portrait of a divided community four months after this historical event, and their efforts to chart a collective future in a context shaped by deforestation, NGO activity, anthropologists and evangelical Christianity.
A Wife Among Wives at 10 am / 27 Nov / Vivekananda hall, Delhi School of Economics / DU
Dir: David and Judith MacDougall / 72 min / dirs. present
The Turkana are semi-nomadic herders in the dry savannah of northwestern Kenya. This third and final film in the MacDougalls' Turkana Conversations Trilogy investigates the views of the Turkana, especially Turkana women, on marriage and polygyny. As the plans for a marriage in a nearby homestead unfold, the film explores why a Turkana woman would want her husband to take a second (or third) wife, and how the system of polygyny can be a source of solidarity among women while at the same time it may disregard individual feelings. The Turkana are well aware of the contradictory problems associated with individual liberty and communal survival. The film demonstrates how Turkana culture - and, by extension, human culture - is a living thing, shaped by the people who carry it.
Jengi at 11:30 / 27 Nov / Vivekananda Hall, Delhi School of Economics / DU
Dir: Daisuke Bundo / 20 min / Japan
The Baka, one of the hunter-gatherers groups, live in the tropical rainforests of the eastern provinces of the Republic of Cameroon in Africa. The people believe that spirits live in the forest, and the most important of these numerous spirits is a spirit called jengi. The men have organized themselves to protect jengi, and all the men undergo a rite of passage as youths to join the society. The initiates obey jengi's words and actions, and are protected from all diseases and dangers they encounter in the forest by jengi. This film shows the rite of passage.
Ngat is Dead: Studying Mortuary Traditions at 12:00 / 27 Nov / Vivekananda Hall, Delhi School of Economics / DU
Dir: Christian Suhr Nielsen and Ton Otto / 59 min / Denmark
What does it mean when anthropologists claim to study the cultural traditions of others by participating in them? This film follows the Dutch anthropologist Ton Otto, who has been adopted by a family on the island of Baluan in the South Pacific. Due to the death of his adoptive father, he has to take part in mortuary ceremonies whose form and content are however forcefully contested by different groups of relatives. Through the ensuing negotiations Ton learns how Baluan people perform and develop their traditions and not least what role he plays himself. The film is part of long-term fieldwork in which filmmaking has become integrated in the ongoing dialogue and exchange relations between the islanders and the anthropologist.
In Pursuit of the Siberian Shaman at 2:30 pm / 27 Nov / Vivekananda Hall, Delhi School of Economics / DU
Dir: Anya Bernstein / 72 min / US, Russia / dir. present
This film takes a behind-the-scenes look at an indigenous shaman living on a remote Siberian island as he moves between intimate shamanic rituals performed for local clientele and shows performed at various resorts for Western tourists in search of 'primitive' cultures. The film captures cross-cultural miscommunication as the shaman and tourists misunderstand one another, usually comically, sometimes disturbingly, made all the more poignant by conflict between the dominant Russian Orthodox Church and the local shamanic tradition.
Old Spirits, New Persons - Rose Healer and Diviner in West Kenya at 4:15 pm / 27 Nov / Vivekananda Hall, Delhi School of Economics / DU
Dir: Carla Risseeuw / 40 min / 1999 / The Netherlands / dir. present
Carla Risseeuw first met Rose, an indigenous healer and diviner, during her field work as a medical anthropologist in Kenya. The film is compiled from several film sequences shot in 1976 and 1992, with photographic material from the years in between.
The film shows the development of Rose as a healer from a young woman in her twenties working with one of her first patients to an experienced and known healer treating a patient 18 years later.
The film focuses on performance and event rather than on ritual and shows how the diviners work with the patient and persist for days when the healing does not take place.
One also sees them off-stage: how the relate to their patient between healing sessions and how they interact with the anthropologists as well as her - at times ambivalent - interpreter, who questions the healing as well as the work of an anthropologist.