27.-28.1.2017
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF MOVIES
WITH ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEMES

NOBEL NOK DAH

USA, 2015, 23 min
E. Hong, M.Lai, M.Mihai
27.01.2017 20:00

Nobel Nok Dah offers an intimate view into the lives of three refugee women from Burma, whose migratory paths cross in Thailand and eventually meet when they resettle to central New York. Drawing upon methods of feminist oral history and ethno-fiction, the film traces glimmers of subjectivity that complicate any singular narrative of the refugee experience. As camera movements follow the textures of everyday life and work, a weave of sensorial fragments immerse audiences in women's narratives of self, place, and belonging.

Emily Hong is a Seoul-born and New York-raised feminist anthropologist and filmmaker. A graduate of Columbia University and PhD Candidate at Cornell University, Emily’s research and professional expertise lies at the intersection of legal anthropology, media practice, and economic, social, and cultural rights. Emily has directed several collaborative films including Get By (2014), For My Art (2016), and Nobel Nok Dah (2015), which have explored issues of solidarity and labor, the gendered spectatorship of performance art, and questions of womanhood and identity in the refugee experience.
Miasarah Lai is a Puerto-Rican-Chinese-American director and cinematographer from the Lower East Side, New York City. As an MFA Candidate in Documentary Media at Northwestern University, she explores the physicality and performative role of the documentary cinematographer in the dance between the subject and its storytellers. Miasarah’sHer international body of work has included cinematography and directing for projects in Romania, Ghana, Myanmar, and China.
Mariangela Mihai, a Romanian Anthropology and Film PhD Candidate at Cornell University, has worked on issues of refugee political resettlement at the Emory Center for Ethics and the International Rescue Committee. Her current research looks at overlapping nationalisms, identity and ethnicity on the India-Burma border. Select film projects include: To Uphold the Law (2014), a film exploring ideologies of nationalism and anti-drone activism in Upstate N.Y.; and For My Art (2016), a twochannel video installation exploring the sensorial landscape of transition-era Burma/Myanmar through the figure of the performance artist.

Director, Camera, Edit: E. Hong, M.Lai, M.Mihai
Production: Ethnocine

Language od Dialogues: English
language of Subtitles: English, Czech

 

BETWEEN ISLAM AND SACRED FOREST

Germany, USA, 2016, 52 min
M. Gruber, F. Seidel
28.01.2017 17:40

An anthropologist and a linguist from Germany are trying to understand a ritual taking place in a small village on the coast of Guinea, West Africa. They are told that two seemingly conflicting ceremonies take place during a four-day event commemorating a recently deceased woman: A Muslim celebration of the 40th day after death conducted by a local Imam and the Mkisaata ritual, performed by the members of a Nalu female secret society in honour of its deceased member. As different male parties involved tell the filmmakers their respective vision of the events, the researchers get increasingly drawn into the ritual by the women of the secret society and become part of the performance. "Between Islam and the Sacred Forest" shows the possibilities and impossibilities of audio-visual ethnography.

Martin Gruber works as a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Bremen. Martin studied Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, London and Social Anthropology at Hamburg University. He worked as a freelance filmmaker and researcher before completing a PhD on Participatory Ethnographic Filmmaking" in 2013. Martin's research interests are audio-visual research, ethnographic film, collaborative research, urban anthropology, political ecology and human-animal relationships with a focus on bees. Martin has conducted long-term ethnographic research in West Africa, Southern Africa, Bremen and Hamburg.
Frank Seidel studied African Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Political Science at the University of Cologne, Germany. After completing his Ph.D. in 2008 and he worked as a Post-Doc and Visiting Researcher at the University of Florida from 2010 – 2015. Frank is an established fieldworker and his research methods use the full digital array currently available, namely video, audio, imagery, as well as the digital collation of various types of transcriptions. His approach to language research includes leading, training, and/or collaborating with a team of language community members to collect and manage audio-visual language material. Consequently, he now curates two digital language archives of two endangered languages spoken on the coast of Guinea, West Africa.

Director, Script, Edit: M. Gruber, F. Seidel
Production: M. Gruber
WORLD PREMIERE

Language of dialogues: Nalu Language
Language of Subtitles: English, Czech
 

MY ANTROPO FILMS

Česká republika, 2017, 10 min
My Street Films
28.01.2017 15:10

My Street Films aims to interconnect the young generation and audiovisual industry professionals. The online audiovisual map mystreetfilms.cz/en works with general audiences and people interested in media culture in an attractive way. Now we interconnect My Street Films and Antropofest.