[Reader-list] [DFA NewsLetter] Delhi Inernational Ethnographic Film Festival: Screening Schedule for 27 November

[Rahul Roy]

**  *Delhi** International Ethnographic Film Festival
**26 -30 November 2008*
*DIEFF Second Day Schedule -- 27 November*

*Venues*: Vivekanada Hall, Delhi School of Economics / School of
Environmental Studies / JB Media Resource Centre, AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia
Islamia / Alliance Francaise, Lodi Estate.
*For More information*: http://sociology.du.ac.in/dieff/
                                     or search the web for -- DIEFF

 *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


*
*Screening Schedule:*
**

*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.


*Vivekananda Hall, **Delhi** **School** of **Economics**, **Delhi** **
University***

* *

*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.



* *

* *

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