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 CITY BEAUTIFUL
Colour, 78 minutes, 2003 (not for Sale in USA)
Filmmaker: Rahul Roy
Sunder Nagri (Beautiful City) is a small working class colony on the margins of India’s capital city, Delhi. Most families residing here come from a community of weavers. The last ten years have seen a gradual disintegration of the handloom tradition of this community under the globalisation regime. The families have to cope with change as well as reinvent themselves to eke out a living.
The City Beautiful is a story of two families struggling to make sense of a world, which keeps pushing them to the margins. Radha and Bal Krishan are at a critical point in their relationship. Bal Krishan is underemployed and constantly cheated. They are in disagreement about Radha going out to work. However, through all their ups and downs they retain the ability to laugh.
Shakuntla and Hira Lal hardly communicate. They live under one roof with their children but are locked in their own sense of personal tragedies.
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.
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 Sanmartí
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.
MAJMA (PERFORMANCE)
Colour, 54 minutes, 2001 (not for Sale in USA)
Filmmaker: Rahul Roy
Aslam sells medicines for sexual problems on the pavements of Meena Bazar near Jama Masjid in Delhi. Khalifa Barkat presides over an wrestling gym (akhara) in the adjacent park and puts a group of young men through the moral and physical grind of wrestling. Through the park and the market pass hundreds of men every day. Majma explores the instability of working class lives and its impact on male sexuality and gender relations.NGAT IS DEAD: STUDYING MORTUARY TRADITIONS
Colour, 59 minutes, 2007 (Not for Sale in North America)
Filmmakers: Christian Suhr Nielsen, Ton Otto, Stephen Dalsgaard
A film about how anthropological knowledge is developed through active participation in traditional exchange ceremonies on the small island of Baluan in the South Pacific. The film follows the anthropologist Ton Otto negotiating his way through a myriad of kin relations and family conflicts in order to study but also to find out which ceremonies should be carried out after the death of his adoptive father, Ngat. The film deals with the dilemmas of a participating researcher, who is both social actor and anthropological observer, and gives the viewer a close look at the way Baluan people contest and negotiate their social reality: their kin relations, mortuary traditions, and also the participating anthropologists.
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.
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.
WHEN FOUR FRIENDS MEET
Colour, 43 minutes, 2001 (not for Sale in USA)
Filmmaker: Rahul Roy
Bunty, Kamal, Sanjay and Sanju, best of friends and residents of Jehangiripuri, a working class colony on the outskirts of Delhi are young and trying to make their lives in an environment which is changing rapidly…girls seem to be very bold…stable jobs are not easy to come by…sex is a strange mix of guilt and pleasure…families are claustrophobic…and the blur of television the only sounding board…
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 (1980, 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 (1980, 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 (1982/3, 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 (1982/83, 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 (1983, 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 (1988, 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. (1992, 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 (1993, 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 (1992, 25 min)
Consulting Embah Wali (2000, 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.
ENET YAPAI - AN AMBONWARI GIRL
DVD/PAL all region, 25 minutes, 2008
Filmmaker / Anthropologist: Daniela Vávrová
While her fieldwork research on the women of Ambonwari, Karawari speaking people in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea, anthropologist Daniela Vávrová met Enet Yapai, at the time an eight year old girl. The film is an experiment into which the anthropologist was pulled when Enet started to interact with the camera. The resulting film is not just a documentation of Enet, her family and their daily work of processing sago flour or collecting grass for baskets and mats. It’s the result of a very close interaction between the filmmaker and the girl allowing the viewer to get insight into a fieldwork situation. The camera takes an important role in this interaction. The way Daniela Vávrová uses film as a multi-sensual expression of her experiences reflects her own role in her actual fieldwork research. (Commendation Wiley-Blackwell Student Film Prize 2009)
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
BARAH PAL (12 Castes of Gypsy Artists)
30 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Jennifer Rosen
12 castes of gypsy artists ended their nomadic ways nearly 45 years ago to squat in New Delhi. Now the slum is being dismantled and rehabilitated. These are their last months in the colony as they know it, with an uncertain future ahead.
EARNING A CRUST (Currarse el Pan)
28 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Elisa Contreras
Through their experiences, Uncle Isidro (a horse dealer) and Jeremo (a scrap collector) illustrate traditional gypsy occupations in the south of Spain, as well as the obstacles facing their community’s access to a changing labour market.
G-STRING THERAPY
22 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Piri Korman
A short insight into a male lap dancer’s life and work. The film explores not only the two parts of his life: family life during the day and ‚professional seduction’ at night, it also shows the extraordinairy entertainment women seek for when going to the striptease bar – and how it’s offered by a group of dancers.
IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
31 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Ray Ono
Tokyo life as rarely seen on mainstream media. This short film takes you to the lives of men who live on the outskirts of the city and of Japanese society.
MAKING IT BIG IN BERLIN
24 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Claudia Goldberg
In Berlin, self-employed workers live the alternative to a nine-to-five-job, where low rents and space for creative ideas are still available. A sewing café owner, a freelance journalist and two contemporary dancers give insights into their lifestyles.
MEN OF WORDS
22 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Johanne Haaber Ihle
The film explores how ancient traditions of poetry are still used in contemporary Yemen to discuss social and political problems.
ONLY THINKING
26 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Gabriel Merron
On the North African coast in Ceuta, illegal migrants wait and hope to eventually continue onto the Spanish peninsula where they can attain asylum. Whilst waiting there, they are caught bewteen the borders.
PART OF US
27 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Maria Mariwether
For the Ngarrindjeri people, the living and the dead are connected through shared land and heritage. The preservation of this connection is at the heart of the community’s effort to repatriate the bones of their ancestors.
SHONAR BANFLA (Golden Bengal)
28 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Sara Asadullah
Four scenes from a Bangladeshi community in London. Each scene is an encounter with a different generation (children, teenagers and adults) until the final scene where all generations are brought together in a wedding.
SIN TIERRA, NO SOMOS SHUAR (Without Land, we are not Shuar)
23 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Stacey Williams
Shuar traditions and land are intimately tied to another. This film explores how the traditions and relationships change when foreign mining companies enter their territory.
STILL LIFE
26 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Siobhan Mc Guirk
“I am here because I can’t go home.” Subject to strict controls in the UK, three women asylum seekers wait for claims to be processed and decisions made. Here they find the lives which they fled to save put on indefinite hold.
VENDEMOS RECUERDOS (Memories for Sale)
25 minutes, 2009
Filmmaker: Caroline Corral Paredes
Carlos is an enthusiastic tour guide and Doña Rosa is an indigenous old woman that sells crafts in the market. Both of their life’s works are an effort to provide what inquisitive tourists might be looking for in an indigenous and picturesque region in southern México.
