28.-29.1.2011
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF MOVIES
WITH ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEMES

MOJE VÁLKY/MY WARS

Czech Republic, 2010, 26 min
Jiřina Kosíková
29.01.2011 14:00

Věra Fialová was born at the end of the First World War as the out-of-wedlock child of a Czech woman and a Polish man, a Russian prisoner of war. In an old suitcase she keeps her old letters and pictures from the First and Second World Wars. Her memoirs, accompanied by songs from her family repertoire, capture the "small history" - the life story of an "ordinary woman" against the backgraound of the great historical events of the 20th century.

An edited document taken as part of ethnological field research in 2007 and 2009. The Film was produced as part of the research project of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. Prague "Cultural Identity and Cultural Regionalism in the Process of Shaping European Ethnic Patterns" (reg. number AV0Z90580513).

The director Jiřina Kosíková (*1952) works as ethnologist at the Institute of Ethnology at the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. Prague - Department Brno. Specialisation: Visual Anthropology. Use of video recording as an ethnological field research method and technique.

Production:Institute of Ethnology at the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Veveří 97, 602 00 Brno

Edit and script: Petr Baran

Camera: Jiřina Kosíková

Language of dialogues: Czech

Language of subtitles: English

HOLUBOJE

Czech Republic, 2010, 25 min
Martin Šmoldas
29.01.2011 16:10

The compatriotic village of Holuboje was founded in the so called Bessarabia (part of today’s Moldavia) by Czech colonists in 1864. Holuboj compatriots managed to preserve aspects of their language and folk culture, often long forgotten in the Czech Republic, in the manifold national variety of this region. The most extraordinary of all is the folk band which has continuously functioned here for incredible 146 years and which has various Czech songs in its repertoire.

Despite these folk singularities, local people are afflicted with the same problems as all the people of the isolated and poor Moldavia. The decline in economics, disintegration of agricultural co-operatives and everyday existential problems endanger the existence of this folk band. The author of the film introduces four protagonists, inhabitants of Holuboj, who provide an insight into the past and present lives of compatriots in Moldavia.

Director, production, camera, edit: Martin Šmoldas

Martin is a student of Social Anthropology at the University of Pardubice. He is interests in the field in Moldova.

Language of dialogues: Czech

Language of subtitles: No subtitles

Premiere!!!

FRIENDS

Norway, Macedonia, 2010, 35 min
Frode Storaas, Elizabeta Koneska
29.01.2011 20:05

Filip is a student at Mac Brod Gymnasium. He stays at the dormitory. Alija is a good friend of him at school. But they relate to different religions and that separate them not only during lunch-breaks at school, but all the time outside school. Filip spends his weekends in his home village Samokov, collecting mushrooms for sale and helping his grandparents and his mother in her small shop. Alija commutes everyday from his home village Plasnica.

The film hints on the situation in Macedonian countryside where unemployment forces people to leave the villages. This situation of dejection shadows the relationships between ethnic and religious groups.

Director, Camera: Frode Storaas, Elizabeta Koneska

As an anthropologist Storaas has worked with pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. General anthropology, i.e. adaptation, economy and politics, has been his main concern.

As a filmmaker he has been involved in projects in Africa and the Middle East, in Greece and Macedonia, in Mexico and USA, in China and in Norway. A theme conveyed in some of these projects has been magic, how magical beliefs may influence everyday life.

Koneska is a senior curator at the National Museum of Macedonia in Skopje, ethnology department. Her main topics of research and scientific relates to: traditional food; coppersmith and tinsmith crafts; Slavic Orthodox community in Istanbul; Shared Shrines; Turkish and other Muslims ethnic and religious community’s.

Koneska has directed 12 films based on research in Macedonia and Turkey.

Production: Macedonian Centre for Photography, Skopje, Macedonia

Edit: Frode Storaas

Language of dialogues: Macedonian, English

Language of subtitles: Czech, English