24.-25.1.2014
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF MOVIES
WITH ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEMES

OUR MISSIONARIES

Norsko, 2013, 9 min
Martin Gruber
25.01.2014 19:40

A small village on the coast of Guinea, West Africa. Missionaries settled here in their effort to bring Christianity to this Muslim dominated area. The villagers still speak warmly about their visitors. Nevertheless, the missionaries left after some years – seemingly in a rush, leaving behind many of their belongings. The film “Our Missionaries” tells the story of a misconceived intercultural encounter using the villagers’ memories and images of the missionaries’ material legacy.
 
Martin Gruber studied Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, London and Social Anthropology at Hamburg University. He works as an ethnographic researcher and filmmaker and teaches visual anthropology. Martin recently completed a PhD on participatory ethnographic filmmaking at the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Bremen.

Production, director, camera: Martin Gruber
dialogues: Nalu language
subtitles: English, Czech

Launching:
NAFA Film Festival, Bilbao, 2013
Ethnological Film Festival Kratovo, Macedonia, 2013
Athens Ethnographic Film Festival 2013

MAN DOVE

Indonésie, 2012, 65 min
J.de Séve, K.Tjong
25.01.2014 14:00

Two filmmakers dive into an ancient rite of manhood in Islamic Java – the tender and raucous sport of the singing doves, the Indonesian Nascar. When General Zainuri announces The National Perkutut Championship, thousands of Muslim men arrive at the grounds. Seven hundred poles stand in the center. Men hoist their doves – perkutut – seven meters up and dangle them ina sea of colorful cages.
A team of judges passes trought the forest of tall posts straining to discern the birds magical coos. If the judges are impressed they score a bird´s dong by tacking a small flag to the pole. After three hours a winner is declared. Winning perkutut sell for tens of milion rupiahs – tens of thousands of dollars.

Jim de Séve teches film production at Union College in Schenectady. Prior to that, he was an instructor at Film Video Arts in NYC for ten year. He sists at the board of Media Alliance, a non-for-profit who operates a sanctuary for independent media.
Kian Tjong was born and raised in Indonesia and he has lived in the US since 1997 when he came as a Fujitsu MBA scholar at the University of Hawaii and Japan-America Institute of Management Science.

Dialogues: Indonesian, subtitles: English, Czech 
production, directors, camera: Jim de Séve a Kian Tjong

Launching (selection):
Taiwan Intenational Ethnographic Film Festival, 2013
Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival, Edinburg, 2013
Festival International du Film Ethnographique du Québec, 2013
Moscow International Festival of Visual Anthropology, 2012
Kazan Festival of Muslim Cinema, 2012
 

BEHIND THE WHEEL

Velká Británie, 2013, 20 min
Elise Laker
25.01.2014 17:45

Every year, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers leave Tajikistan in search of employment. The money sent back provides a huge boost to the economy; in fact, Tajikistan is the most remittance-dependent country in the world. The vast majority of these migrants are male, which means the Tajik population is becoming ever-more female. So what happens to the women who are left behind?
Behind the Wheel serves as an inquiry into the moral and emotional turmoil of Nigora, an Uzbek woman whose traditional life of being a housewife is interrupted after her migrant husband fails to send back enough money and she finds out he has been having an affair. No longer able to rely on her husband, Nigora defies prevailing gender norms and sets to work fixing car tyres.

Elise is a recent graduate of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, where she received training in observational filmmaking. Alongside her MA, she hold a BA in French and Russian from University of Nottingham. Elise has travelled extensively throughout Central Asia and has a fascination with post-Soviet countries.

Production: The Granada Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Mancherster, UK
Director, camera: Elise Laker
Dialogues: Uzbeck, subtitles: English, Czech