Helicopter Images: Mediating Injustice in Environmental Film
Marian Ahn Thorpe, Princeton University § The fictional movie Even the Rain (Bollaín 2010) tells the story of a Spanish-Mexican team as it attempts to make a drama…
Tag: Ethnographic film
Through the Lens of the Anthropocene: The Shared Histories and Futures of Ethnographic and Natural History Filmmaking
By Alejandra Melian-Morse, McGill University § The very first scene of the BBC’s Planet Earth II (Berlowitz et al. 2016) breaks the mould of early BBC natural history…
Book Review: Muddied Waters: The Fictionalisation of Ethnographic Film by Toni de Bromhead
In Muddied Waters: The Fictionalisation of Ethnographic Film, Toni de Bromhead examines twelve documentary films about southern Italy to argue for a definition of ethnographic filmmaking as the ‘…
“Sociology is a combat sport”
On February 20th, Allies Julie Billaud, Alessandro Chidichimo, Miriam Odoni, Marie-Claire Peytrignet, together with other members of the Swiss-based non-profit association Programme Indépendant de Rec…
Transparencies Report
Introduction TRANSPARENCIES 2018 celebrated the creativity and initiative of our students, how they gave of themselves and collaborated to be able to realise the films they wanted.…
Natasha Raheja
Natasha Raheja’s short film Cast in India calls attention to the connection between New York’s iconic manhole covers and the workers in India who make them. This is…
The Mallet: Making a Maul in a Baiku Yao Community
This guest post by Jon Kay, Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures provides Jon with the opportunity to share the first…
East Side Orchestras: Music and Social Change
I am currently working on a research project that looks at the social impacts of Arohanui Strings, Porirua Soundscapes, and Virtuoso Strings. These groups provide free, Sistema-inspired orchestral mus…
Ethnographic Films: A Family of Resemblances
This is the third post in my series on the definition of “ethnographic film.” In the first post I laid out the basic approach I am using: one…
The Four Dimensions of Ethnographic Films
In my last post I argued that rather than choosing between overly narrow (“closed”) or overly broad (“open”) definitions of ethnographic film, it would be better to follow…
Do we even need to define ethnographic film?
Before this year I never felt the need to come up with a clear definition for what counts as an “ethnographic film.” Constructing better pigeonholes only seems to…
#EVENTS for the summer!
Summer is coming… And with it, a brand new list of fabulous events! A workshop in Switzerland? A summer school in Romania? How about making a film? This…
How Can Making Movies Do Sheep Any Good? #VisualANTH
John Adair and Sol Worth, American anthropologists and filmmakers, found themselves in the sticky situation of answering the above question in 1966. They had just presented the leading…
Thin Description? Notes on the Amsterdam Anthropology Lecture Series (AALS)
Dr Paolo Favero giving his AALS lecture at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam By Matthias Teeuwen Last AALS lecture was an inspiring and thought-provoking presentation by Dr. Paolo Favero…
#Ageing and Care in a ‘Man’s World’
I am thrown into an image: Two figures climbing steep stone stairs, so tall that I cannot see what lies at the top. They are father and son.…
#Ageing and Care in a ‘Man’s World’
I am thrown into an image: Two figures climbing steep stone stairs, so tall that I cannot see what lies at the top. They are father and son.…
#Ageing and Care in a ‘Man’s World’
I am thrown into an image: Two figures climbing steep stone stairs, so tall that I cannot see what lies at the top. They are father and son.…
New documentary on faith, resilience and change in the Himalayas
Greetings from the Pennines! I am delighted to say that my long-awaited Himalayan ethnographic documentary, co-directed by the brilliant Ross Harrison, is now available for free viewing on facingthemo…
A Review of Virtual Reality Ethnographic Film, or: How We’ve Always been Creating Virtual Reality
By Haley Bryant Upon opening my eyes, I see that a figure has appeared on the horizon: a young boy adorned in the iconic red vestments of the…
Care on Display
Via Gabriela Nicolescu, Goldsmiths College Thursday 23 June 2016 06:30pm – 08:30pm, Film screening and discussion Care on Display Care on Display brings together documentary and artistic fi…
Call for Papers: Visual Anthropology and The City
Via Barbara Knorpp, UCL Institute for Archaeology/Museum Studies Photo: Paola Catrica Photo: Paola Catrica Visual Anthropology and the City is a one-day-symposium at UCL, which brings together anthrop…
Filming Empathy – Part 1
In their essay “Whatever Happened to Empathy?” Hollan and Throop1 cite the ambivalence that Franz Boas felt about the usefulness of the concept for ethnography: On the one…
THE ANTHROPOLOGIST! #WorldAnthropologyDay!
IT’S WORLD ANTHROPOLOGY DAY!!! (Admit it, this one calls for all capital lettering.) And we are very pleased to celebrate by joining – virtually, that is – in…
‘Silence is golden/but my eyes still see’: Award winning documentary ‘The Silence of the Flies’
In December 2015 the School of Anthropology and Conservation was privileged to welcome alumnus Gonzalo Chacon for a screening and discussion of the award winning documentary ‘The Silence…