Slices of Life
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| 10 € |
| English |
| Filme mit Untertiteln |
| Ground Floor, Hall 2 |
In collaboration with the German International Ethnographic Film Festival, the Humboldt Forum will be screening seven films shot in Mali, Cameroon, India, Brazil, USA and Papua New Guinea.
The uniting factor common to all these ethnographic films is the collaborative creative process of the people both behind and in front of the camera. In an ethnofilm , the strict demarcation between filmmaker and actor is torn down. In these cooperative film projects, the focus is on transparent decision-making structures and a common goal. The complexity of the relationships between filmmakers and the people being filmed will be discussed in conversations with the participants following each of the five screenings. The film day will be hosted by Dorothee Wenner.
All films will be screened in their original language (Bambara, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Tok Pisin) with English subtitles.
The Slices of Life film day is a collaboration between the Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss and the German International Ethnographic Film Festival (GIEFF).
PROGRAMME
Host
Dorothee Wenner is a freelanced filmmaker, curator and writer based in Berlin.
Since 1990 has been working for Berlin International Filmfestival in various positions, currently as as the delegate for the festival for the Subsahara African region. In 2009, she joined the team of the Dubai International Film Festival as programmer for films from India/Africa/Germany until the festival’s closure. She has been member of the board and jury of the Lagos based African Movie Academy Awards since inception 2005. Her latest work as filmmaker is the webseries is www.kinshasa-collection.com. Since 2020 she works as a consultant for film/cinema at Berlin Humboldt Forum.
11:00
Welcome
Gina Knapp is Curator of Visual Anthropology at the Media Department of the Ethnologisches Museum/Museum für AsiaEsche Kunst Berlin. She is an anthropologist and filmmaker with extensive research and filming experience in Papua New Guinea, where she has conducted research projects since 1997. Her research topics include culture change and exchange (PhD, Australian NaEonal University), language documentaEon (VW-FoundaEon/ Max Planck InsEtute Leipzig), concepts of person, Eme and value (University of Regina, Canada). In her research, she applies audiovisual documentaEon as key method and she has produced a number of ethnographic films and topical clips. Her latest film Voices of Kula (Wenner Gren FoundaEon) has just had its premiere at FiFo TahiE. Although her regional interest concerns the whole South Pacific, Regina has been working most of the Emes with the Napamogona, a community in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Her long- term relaEonship with the Napamogona made it possible for her to collect a large body of ethnographic footage that is partly used in her current project A Slice of Life, the first community-telenovela of the country. As curator for visual anthropology in the museum her aim is to increase cooperaEon with persons, groups, organisaEons and insEtuEons from “source communiEes” and to develop a “collaboraEve archive” of the film and foto collecEons.
11:10 – 12:50
A Kali Temple Inside Out
83 min, 2018, India
Hindi with english subtitles
a film by Dipesh Kharel and Frode Storaas based on the anthropological research of Kathinka Frøystad.
Religious boundaries are not necessarily as sharp and antagonistic as the news media lead us to believe. This film shows the everyday life inside and around a Kali temple in the city of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. The temple building houses a Kali shrine and a smaller Hanuman shrine, and visitors to the site present offerings in both. Through a closer presentation of a priest and three devotees, the film shows why this temple is so important to them. Yet they also occasionally visit holy places of other religious traditions, whether to learn or seek additional divine support. The film is thus a silent critique against the obsession with religious conflict in contemporary debates. God is one, the religions are made by humans, as the priest concludes in the film.
Film-Talk
Inside and Outside. Perspectives in the making of the film A Kali Temple Inside Out
Dipesh Kharel is a visual ethnographer and filmmaker and has a post-doctoral fellowship at Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. He has already produced several award-wining ethnographic films, notably A Life with Slate (2006) and Playing with Nan (2012), Tama Gaun (2015) and A Kali Temple Inside Out (2018) – those have been screened at more than 60 international film festivals around the world and won several prizes.
Hans Frodes Storaas is a professor in visual anthropology at the University Museum of Bergen, Norway. As a filmmaker he has worked in several countries. Among his award-winning films are A Kali Temple Inside Out, India (2018) and Tama Gaun, Nepal (2015) (both together with Dipesh Kharel), Making Rain, Mozambique (2007), (together with Liivo Niglas), Our Courtyard (2006), China, (together with He Yuan Wang). Storaas is among the founders and co-editors of Journal of Anthropological Films (jaf.uib.no).
Break
13:00 – 14:45
Family Song
75 min, 2020, Brazil
Brazilian Portuguise with english subtitles
a film by Paula Bessa Braz and Mihai Andrei Leaha
A family decides to open a classical music school in their own house. The young six Cruz brothers start to teach various musical instruments to the children in their neighborhood. Little by little the house becomes a musical meeting place in one of Fortaleza’s most dangerous neighborhoods. But in order to live their dream of becoming professional musicians the family need to look for new horizons. How far will music take them?
Film-Talk
Filming (in) times of crisis: reflecting upon visual politics and collaboration against controlling images in Brazil
Mihai Andrei Leaha, is a Romanian audio-visual researcher and filmmaker working in South-America. His films have been shown at various film festivals and winning prizes. As a board member of Commission on Visual Anthropology, IUAES, and other organizations, he is involved in curating, promoting and programming ethnographic films at various conferences and festivals. He taught visual anthropology in Cluj and São Paulo. He has also organized conferences and workshops on visual and multimodal anthropology in Romania, Brazil and Peru. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo doing a research on the DIY electronic music scene in São Paulo.
Paula Bessa Braz is an anthropologist and PhD student in Social Anthropology at Universidade de São Paulo (USP), in Brazil. Dedicated to the study of musical cultures in urban settings, she integrates the research group “Local Musicking: new pathways to ethnomusicology”, coordinated by Suzel Reily, supported by FAPESP, Funding Agency of the State of São Paulo. She also integrates the group Pesquisa em Antropologia e Música, attached to Laboratório de Imagem e Som em Antropologia (LISA). For her Masters, Paula engaged on a research about the teaching and learning processes and identity building through musical discourse and the playing among children of a family in the outskirts of a violent city in Brazil. As a product of the research, in addition to the written ethnography, Paula also developed a filmic ethnography, where the aspects of the sensible and sensitive music making of the family are addressed with a sensorial take, revealing the atmosphere of intimacy, closeness and harshness that is built by their musicking and within their surroundings.
Break
16:00 – 17:30
New York, Just Another City
18,5 min, 2019, USA, Guarani Mbya
with Portuguese, Spanish or English subtiteles
a film by André Lopes and Joana Brandão.
A young leader and audiovisual director, Patrícia Ferreira has been recognized for the documentaries she has been making with her people, the Guarani Mbya. She was called to debate her work at one of the world’s largest ethnographic film festivals, the Margaret Mead Film Festival, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In that place, Patricia comes across some exhibitions, debates and attitudes that make her think about the “juruá” people’s world, contrasting it with the Guarani’s modes of existence.
Ãjãí: the Headball Game of the Myky and Manoki
48 min, 2019, Brazil
Brazilian Portuguese and Myky with Brazilian Portuguese and englisch subtitles
a film by André Lopes and Typju Myky
Ãjãí is a fun game where only the players’ heads can touch the ball. This practice, shared by a few indigenous people in the world, is present among the Myky and Manoki populations of Mato Grosso state, Brazil, who speak a language of an isolated linguistic family. Youngsters of the Myky people decide to film and edit their game for the first time, to publicize it outside the villages. But to organize this great party, its chiefs will find some challenges ahead.
Film-Talk
Collaborative Films in Indigenous Terms I
Typju Mỹky is 25 years old, graduated from an agroecological high school and live in Japuíra indigenous village, municipality of Brasnorte, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. He have been working with documentary production since 2016, when he started recording and editing images from video workshops. In addition to these activities, he have always followed and organized work in his community, in the coordination of cultural celebrations, such as the headball game. In 2019, he made the first record of this party in his first documentary: “Ãjãi, the headball game of Mỹky and Manoki”, which received some awards, such as the best feature film at the “10th Cine Kurumin”, an indigenous film festival. After this first work, he made three other documentaries: “Ini: the mỹky longhouse” (2020, 12 min), “Mỹky Community against Covid-19” (2020, 6 min) and “Jãkany Ãkakjey: Our Foods” (2021, 20 min). These works address the cultural practices and ancestral knowledge of his community. He is currently directing a new film called “Hosts for half a century”, in which he will tell the stories of his people since their contact with national society, especially addressing prejudice and discrimination against his community in Brasnorte city. For the work he have done with indigenous cinema, he received the “Ana Primavesi” trophy at the International Agroecological Film Festival – FICAECO.
He continue on the learning path, seeking experiences with our indigenous masters and professionals in the audiovisual production area. The footage made by Mỹky filmmakers, is of great importance for the strengthening of our ways of existence and, at the same time, for celebrating our creativity. Today, the young people, seek to strengthen their struggle through videos, that’s why they created the “Ijã Mytyli Cine Collective”, in which they produce with indigenous filmmakers from Mỹky and Manoki people, interested in continuing to work with audiovisual in the villages
André Lopes is an anthropologist and filmmaker, conducting his PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo, with a research internship at New York University. He is a founding member of Ijã Mytyli Cinema Collective of Manoki and Myky indigenous people, with whom he has been working since 2008. He participated in the training of indigenous filmmakers in six different peoples in Brazil, with which he directed or produced collaborative documentaries in the last decade. Among some of his award-winning works, his film “New York, just another city” won the Marsh Short Film Prize in 2021, for best short documentary, at the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival.
Break
18:00 – 19:30
Everyday Survival
39 min, 2020, Cameroon
Musgum and Fulfulde with English subtitles
a film by Addoul Aziz Wadazoua
Due to ecological disturbances, the scarcity of natural resources, especially fish, is increasingly disrupting the rhythm of life of local fishermen Musgum in the flood plain to the point where Moumin and his family (47 individuals) are integrating new activities to survive on a daily basis according to the seasons and fishing. These activities considered temporary, the management of the gain obtained from the fish during the fishing season changes the socio-economic life of Moumin’s family. Between these different survival activities, far from giving up their status as fishermen, Moumin’s family considers these secondary activities as a strategy for dealing with the environmental crises of the plain.
Wadazoua Abdoul Aziz, Master in Visual Anthropology affiliated as a editing ethnographic film assistant at the Visual anthropology Laboratory (The University of Maroua-Cameroon). Currently works in the Sahel on Sahel Project as a Cinematographic Trainer in communities, His research projects focus on ecological anthropology. He made 3 ethnographic films for academic purposes.
Kɔtɛ
26 min, 2020, Mali
French and Bambara with english subtitles
a film by Sidylamine Bagayoko
In Mali, in the localities of San and Bla, and in particular in the belt of Dâdougou, kɔtɛ was widely practiced and integrated into a system of initiatory societies like the NYA and the DO. In most of the villages of Dâdugu, the ceremony of kɔtɛ takes place either following the death of a head of the village, or every seven years. There are several activities organized around the core secret initiation ceremony during two days of festivities. Each stage of initiation is represented by a fight. It brings two actors from two sides with opposite functions face to face. The monyontigi are bearers of long burning logs. They try to touch the body of the actors representing the opposite camp, who protect themselves with the branches of thorns.
Film-Talk
The Viscam project
Dr. Mouazamou Ahmadou is a lecturer and researcher in Visual anthropology. He is affiliated with the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and the Social Sciences for development at the faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences of the University of Maroua in Northern Cameroon. He is a Director of the Visual Anthropology Laboratory and a board member of the Commission on Visual Anthropology. Author of several articles and films shot in Cameroon, Chad and Norway.
Dr. Sidylamine Bagayoko is an anthropologist with expertise in visual anthropology and digital communication (film). He is lecturer and coordinator of the Master Program of Collaborative Visual Anthropology at the University of Bamako, Mali. He has also directed several research films related to education and poverty in Mali. His research focuses on visual anthropology, economic anthropology, environmental anthropology, urban poverty and education.
Break
20:00 – 21:45
A Slice of Life
42 min, 2022, Papua New Guinea
Tok Pisin with english subtitles
a film by Gina Knapp, Verena Thomas and Jackie Kauli
A Slice of Life – Opena Gosalo is the pilot film of a telenovela from Papua New Guinea by the same name. It plays in Lopatena, a community of subsistence farmers and warriors in the Eastern Highlands. A Slice of Life combines fiction/drama with ethnographic footage of twenty-five years and is based on true stories. The script has been developed on site by the filmmakers/anthropologist and the community members, who also became the actors of the film.
Film-Talk
Collaborative Films in Indigenous Terms II
Gina Knapp is Curator of Visual Anthropology at the Media Department of the Ethnologisches Museum/Museum für AsiaEsche Kunst Berlin. She is an anthropologist and filmmaker with extensive research and filming experience in Papua New Guinea, where she has conducted research projects since 1997. Her research topics include culture change and exchange (PhD, Australian NaEonal University), language documentaEon (VW-FoundaEon/ Max Planck InsEtute Leipzig), concepts of person, Eme and value (University of Regina, Canada). In her research, she applies audiovisual documentaEon as key method and she has produced a number of ethnographic films and topical clips. Her latest film Voices of Kula (Wenner Gren FoundaEon) has just had its premiere at FiFo TahiE. Although her regional interest concerns the whole South Pacific, Regina has been working most of the Emes with the Napamogona, a community in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Her long- term relaEonship with the Napamogona made it possible for her to collect a large body of ethnographic footage that is partly used in her current project A Slice of Life, the first community-telenovela of the country. As curator for visual anthropology in the museum her aim is to increase cooperaEon with persons, groups, organisaEons and insEtuEons from “source communiEes” and to develop a “collaboraEve archive” of the film and foto collecEons.
Verena Thomas is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology. Her research and production projects focus on communication and social change initiatives in close collaboration with community groups. An award-winning filmmaking and producer, Verena established the Centre for Social and Creative Media at the University of Goroka, Papua New Guinea, to focus on the integration of indigenous knowledge systems in development programs through creative processes. Verena is Director of Yumi Piksa, an organisation that supports community filmmaking projects and the creative industries in Papua New Guinea. As an experienced facilitator in participatory filmmaking, digital storytelling, and more broadly creative research methods, she works closely with communities, organisations and institutions who want to strategically integrate creative approaches into social change programs.
Jackie Kauli is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology. She works across several research and development projects which support the use of indigenous and arts-based research approaches. Jackie’s work focuses on harnessing drama techniques, creative practice and communication strategies to contribute to understanding varying social issues. She has used these processes to contribute to the development of films addressing social issues. Jackie is a Rotary Peace Fellow and contributes to this global network of scholars and practitioners exploring strategies for peace building. This has also informed the creative development of the film “A Slice of Life”.
Karufe Kotile is from the comunity of Katagu in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, a neighbouring village of Napamogona. Karufe has been cooperating with Regina Knapp in her researches on language documentation and was part of the organising team of the film „A Slice of Life“. She is married, has three children and lives as subsitence farmer.
David Papua’e is a subsistence farmer and village elder in the community of Napamogona in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. During war times he tried to mediate between the opposing parties and has been encouraging peace processes ever since. David’s aim is to teach especially the young men in the village peaceful ways of conflict solution.
Mama Daisy Meko Samuel is a women’s right activist and subsistence farmer in the community of Napamogona in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Since 1996 she has become a close friend, adopted mother and cooperation partner to Regina Knapp and collaborated with her in film and research. Since the destruction of her villae in 2006, Daisy has become increasingly engaged in promoting peace in her area to build and increase peace building capacities.
