<em>16th RAI Film Festival 2019</em> | Bristol (UK), 27-30 March 2019
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3798
Recensione del 16th RAI Film Festival 2019 | Bristol (UK), 27-30 March 2019.
application/pdf
2239-625X
3798
1
en
Greca N. Meloni
Anuac
<em>16th RAI Film Festival 2019</em> | Bristol (UK), 27-30 March 2019
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac
8
Festival
2019-07-31
2019-06-22
2019-07-31
2019-07-30
259-261
1
Greca N. Meloni
2019/07/31
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3798
259
University of Vienna, Austria
2239-625X
1
en
261
<em>16th RAI Film Festival 2019</em> | Bristol (UK), 27-30 March 2019
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac/article/download/3798/3375
8
                                        2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 1, GIUGNO 2019: 259-261




                                                                           FESTIVAL
16th RAI Film Festival 2019 | Bristol (UK), 27-30 March 2019.


   “Why does ethnographic film matter now?” and “Where is theory in
filmmaking?” These questions and many others were addressed by the 16 th
Edition of the Film Festival of the Royal Anthropological Institute, hosted in
a wonderful and sunny Bristol between the 27 th and 30th of March 2019. The
aims of the festival were to delve into the relationships between
anthropology, documentary filmmaking, and visual culture, and to question
the meaning of ethnographic film today. Over 60 films from more than 30
countries were screened on the four days of the festival. A good number of
special events, conference panels, workshops, and a masterclass contributed
to enrich the festival. The exciting program was complemented by the
conversation between Angela Puccini and Kim Longinotto, who celebrated
her 42-year career as a multi-award-winning filmmaker.
   Especially appropriate to fulfill the expectations triggered by the richness
of the program was the Watershed, a cultural dynamic space located on
Bristolʼs historic harbourside in the city center.
   It could be said that “water” — represented in different ways — was one of
the main themes in some of the movies screened. Water like “all the sea
ahead of” to reach Italy in It Was Tomorrow (Italy, UK 2018). Here, the visual
anthropologist Alexandra D’Onofrio combines animation, storytelling and
collaborative filmmaking methods to narrate the story of Ali, Mahmoud, and
Mohamed, three Egyptian men awarded with legal residence ten years after
their arrival in Italy. Animation and storytelling are also present in the Book
of the Sea (Russia 2018) where Aleksei Vakhrushev intertwines myth and
reality to examine the struggle for survival of a community living on the
frozen fringe of the Bering Strait in Russia. The movie was awarded the
Archaeology and Material Culture Film Prize. Water is also a character in The
Absence of Apricots (Pakistan, Germany 2018) and Paani: Of Women and
Water (India 2018), two films presented in the student program. In the


This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Greca N. Meloni
2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 1, GIUGNO 2019: 259-261.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3798
260                                                      16TH RAI FILM FESTIVAL 2019


former, awarded with the Wiley Blackwell Student Film Prize, the filmmaker
Daniel Asadi Faezi masterfully combines myth, memory, and the perception
of loss to access the everyday lives of people in a village in northern Pakistan
that were dislocated after having lost their home to landslide that created a
lake where once was the village. In the latter, the anthropologist Costanza
Burstin focuses her attention on female social practices connected to the
management of water in a Muslim village of Rajasthan, India. The film gives
a vivid account of the struggles and forms of co-operation between women
dealing with the scarcity of water.
   Intrigued by the proposal made by the filmmaker Julia Dahr and by Julie
Lunde Lillesaeter (Director of Photography) to participate in a movie about
the consequences of climate change in Kenya, Kisilu Musya named only one
condition: that he, too, would get a camera to tell his story with his own
gaze. That’s how Thank You for the Rain (Norway, UK 2017) was born.
Through his camera, the farmer Kisilu welcomes us into the intimacy of his
everyday life, offering a glimpse of his and his family struggles in dealing
with drought, floods, and storms. After an unexpected big storm destroys his
house, we see Kisilu transform from a farmer and a family man, firstly into a
leader for his community, and finally into an activist against climate change
on the global stage.
   As the story unfolds, a profound sense of cultural distance seems to
emerge from the film, intensified by the use of two rather different quality
formats in the picture: glossy photography was used by Julia and a lower
quality camera was used by Kisilu and his family. Furthermore, the
embarrassment of Kisilu’s wife, Christina’s experiences in dealing with
contrasting feelings in seeing her husband rapidly taking on a public role in
the community and worldwide, seems not fully understood by the filmmaker.
Winner of the Basil Wright Film Prize, this compelling movie offers
interesting food for thought to critically reflect on the implications of doing
a documentary or ethnographic film.
   Undoubtedly, the different conference panels have made great
contributions in this respect. Particularly stimulating was the debate that
explored the new possibilities that a multimodal approach can offer to
ethnographic film practices. Recently, the theme of multimodality has led to
reconsider anthropological practices contributing to a very dynamic debate
in the discipline. In this regard, the contribution of the visual anthropologist
Mihai Andrei Leaha (University of São Paulo) was of extreme interest for
reflecting on the role and impact of anthropological knowledge and
technical skills in the context of collaborative practices. Interesting also the
discussion on the use of 360° cameras and VR devices in research practices.


2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 1, GIUGNO 2019: 259-261
16TH RAI FILM FESTIVAL 2019                                                     261


As Mark Westmoreland (University of Leiden) has pointed out, 360° vision
allows stepping out of the binocular view of the predator and taking on a
prey’s perspective, posing the intriguing question of re-thinking the
cinematic grammar. Similarly, Paolo Favero (University of Antwerp)
highlighted how, introducing the possibility of bodily interacting with the
film, the 360° view hides a conceptual break down with the Renaissance
perspective that dominates western ontology.
   Certainly, these positions urge a dense reflection on the blurring relation
between theory and practice in ethnographic filmmaking. According to
Laurent Van Lancker, each film project is different and thus it requires its
own methodology and theoretical background. In his inspiring Masterclass,
Van Lancker pointed out that the choice of filming is never self-evident,
rather it must result from an intense process of critical analysis of the
project itself. Questioning the use of the camera in filming can lead to
developing different narrative forms that could create unusual storylines. In
Kalès (Belgium 2017) a dense process of reflection and intimate relation with
the people involved emerges from the solid narrative. Through collaborative
practice, Van Lancker provides immersive access to the human dimension of
social life and survival strategies of migrants.
   Overall, the Rai Film Festival has proved to be a valuable place of dialogue
and in-depth discussion on the edges of visual ethnography today. In the
past years, there has been a tendency to erase the peculiarities of
ethnographic cinema compared to documentary cinema. Yet, the
contributions at the film festival illustrate the important differences
between the two genres. Ethnographic film-making results from a long
process of in-depth thinking on the anthropological research project. As a
result, the intimate relationship between the anthropologist-filmmaker and
the research informants who are the subject of the film are evident in the
ethnographic reflexivity of the finished work. Documentary films which are
attributed ethnographic value often suffer from weak ethnographic
reflection and fragile thinking on the use of the camera in the field.
   The Rai Film Festival presents us with the opportunity to engage the
question of how to understand ethnography in film. In particular, it prods us
to interrogate the filmmaker’s intentionality. Is it the ethnographic
intentionality that leads the gaze of the filmmaker, or is it rather a
documentary look on an ethnographic subject?


                                                              Greca N. MELONI
                                                           University of Vienna
                                           greca.nathascia.meloni@univie.ac.at


                                    2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 1, GIUGNO 2019: 259-261
