WATCHING LAST JUDGEMENT
ČR / PL, 2011, 8 min
Milan Durňák
26.01.2013 17:05
Voroneț is one of the best known and the most visited monastery`s in Romania, especially because of church Saint George. On the wall, it has preserved a lot of frescos (murals) from the 15th century with intensive and not so faded colors. Cultural importance of this place has been appreciated by UNESCO as well, when it has added it to its heritage list. The surrealistic image is created by 6 days observations of the place of monastery and surrounded market place, which are crossed real and symbolic ways of people. Intensive perception of the most fascinating mural of Last Judgement creates mosaic confrontation with the mirror of ideas, visions, watched and listened. Voroneț symbolically conceptualizes the way of life, we believe in.
Milan Durňak is a PhD student of Institute of ethnology (Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague). He concentrates on the problematic of visual ethnography, especially on the possibilities and limits of anthropological film. He has debuted with Christos Voskres /2007/. ANTROPOFEST 2012 has presented his long-term anthropological trilogy Tumenge /2012/, which was released at ETNOFILM ČADCA 2012, festival of documentary films with ethnological and cultural anthropological themes.
Direction: Milan Durňák
Production: Uniwersytet Szczecinski, Polsko / Erasmus Intensive Programme 2011: "Polish settlements in Europe. Anthropological Visualisations of Cultural Phenomena" / Coordinator Dr. Natalia Maksymowicz, Uniwersytet Szczecinski/
Language of dialogues: -
Language of subtitles: -
PREMIERE!!!
This film focuses how people share a collective sense of history through the auditory experience. dehong Tai people embrace Theravada Budhism. In ordes to live better in this world and the next, they perform dignified rituals and acquire "merit". For the rituals they spend years and save money, then they do a good deed like contribution of Budhist statues and building the bridges. chief donators commission an intellectual to write historical scriptures to hand down the good deed to posterity. It is called "Lik Yaat" in Tai and written with beautiful words and rhyme. After the cultural revolution, only a few intellectuals can create and chant "Lik Yaat" now. There is a woman, Wan Xiand-ya, who strives for the tradition of "Lik Yaat". She should be their first and last female intellectual who can write "Lik Yaat" in Tai history.
When inhabitants of rainforest walk under its canopy, they see resources for life. The ways of collecting, processing and utilization of these resources are based upon traditional indigenous knowledge which is for „western“ science examined by ethnobotany. The discipline generally focuses on cultural, social and economical relationships between plants and indigenous peoples. Movie camera is during field research used very rarely.Among the other goals of scientific expedition Wayvana Peru 2011 we have strived to answer the question: „Are methods of visual anthropology for preservation of traditional indigenous knowledge applicable? If so, what are pros and cons of this approach?“ The movie is part of „visual ethnobotany“ series and depicts „the story of resource“ piassaba palm (Aphandra natalia).
