VII Moscow International Festival of Visual Anthropology
“MEDIATING CAMERA”
15-20 May, 2017
VII-th International Festival of Visual Anthropology “Mediating Camera”, which was held in Moscow on May 15-20, 2017, completed its work. The organizers of the festival are the Lomonosov Moscow State University, N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State Pedagogical University.
At various venues in Moscow 23 films made by authors from different countries in different parts of the world were screened.
At the opening of the festival in the Main building of MSPU on Malaya Pirogovskaya st. was shown a film by Vladimir Bocev “Rosse from Zagrad” about the inhabitants and traditions of the mountain Macedonian village.
At the Documentary Film Center on Zubovskaya Square, program started with the film of Quino Piñero (Spain) “Roaring Abyss”, introducing the magic palette of the musical universe of Ethiopia.
The evening was opened by the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Federative Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in the Russian Federation, Mr. Grum Abai Teshome, who thanked the creator of the film and the organizers of the festival.
During the whole week, the most vivid full-length films were shown at the evening sessions at the Documentary Center.
For the sophisticated audience of the CDC, the real opening was the movie “We are Cuba” of two young women from Germany – Annette Illiev and Friederike Schuchardt. The eyes of the audience was Andres, who lives in a suburb of Havana on the eve of a change in Cuban society. He directs the lens of the amateur camera to his immediate surroundings, to the everyday life of his family, friends, neighbors. When a film was assembled from these unpretentious perennial filming, the effect of ultimate sincerity and reliability emerged. It turned out to be a living and deep film, showing the real life of ordinary Cubans, previously unavailable to outsiders.
In the movie “Flaneurs – street rambles” the audience, along with Canadian film director Matthew Lancit and his little daughter, went on a poetic walk through the boulevards of Paris, meeting with people, sharing with them the experience of knowing the world.
Argentine director Alejandro Fernandez Moujan in the movie “Damiana Kryygi” reconstructs the hundred-year history of the short tragic life of an Indian girl.
Experienced director from France Edurad Mills-Affif in the film “The Bride of the Nile”, building a tense plausible plot, discovers in the family drama the deep contradictions of the crisis period in the history of Egypt.
Two films, different in stylistics, but united by a topical theme about the fate of migrants in European countries, completed the program in the CDC: the versatile and profound social analysis of Italian director Mauro Buchchi in his film “Hotel Splendid” and the film “Mass” of young directors from the Czech Republic Michal Pavlásek, Ivo Bystřičan, striking with the accuracy of observations.
Great interest was caused by special author’s programs. Vladimir Bocev as an anthropologist and curator of the National Museum of Macedonia, using fragments of his own video shootings, gave a master class on the subject “Kurban and ceremonies with masks: two ceremonies of modern traditional culture of Macedonians” at the IEA RAS. The report is available for viewing on the anthrotube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FvZZ7zEvaI
Another master class was conducted by Martin Gruber, a well-known anthropologist and director from the University of Bremen, at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University. The film “Between Islam and the sacred forest”, which became the result of anthropological research, told about memorial ceremonies in a small village on the coast of Guinea in West Africa, including Muslim 40th day celebration after death and ritual of Mkisaat members of the secret female society of Nalu.
For the student audience in the Humanitarian building of the Moscow State University, a debut competition was hold, in which nine films of beginning visual anthropologists participated.
The international jury of the contest was Vladimir Botsev, Vladimir Klyaus, the head of the MSPU master’s program “Visual Anthropology of Childhood” and Oleg Raev, chair of Audiovisual Technologies of VGIK.
The prizes were distributed as follows:
III place – the film “To work is to grow” (Lea Claue, Norway);
II place – the film “Memory” (Maria Soboleva, Russia);
I place – the film “Boxgirls” (Jaime Murciego, Spain).
A special prize of the Organizing Committee was awarded to the film “Solaris” (Pavel Borecky, Czech Republic).
In the MSPU also a part of the main program of the festival was shown, including films related to social issues, themes of childhood and the preservation of cultural heritage:
“High Schooling” by Michele Trentini (Italy);
“Living with Boko Haram” by Trond Waage (Norway) and Mouzamou Ahamadou (Cameroon);
“This high willow” by Orzumurod Sharipov and Galina Rodionova (Tajikistan);
“Haying time” by Evgeny Aleksandrov and Elena Danilko (Moscow);
“Holy Friday in Huaynamota” by Aleksey Obukhov (Moscow).
The Organizing Committee expresses gratitude to the Goethe-Institut in Moscow, the Czech Cultural Center, the Embassy of the Republic of Ethiopia, which provided financial support to the festival, as well as to all those who provided information support: Antrotub, Politru Portal, Instituto Cervantes, the Institute of France, the Argentine Embassy, The radio channel “Culture” and many others who posted information about the festival.
Special thanks to all volunteers, organizers and participants of discussions, thanks to which the festival was held and a friendly atmosphere of intercultural communication was created.
All relevant information is available on the festival’s website and social networks:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mediating.camera/
https://vk.com/mediating_camera
Contacts:
e-mail: mediating.camera@gmail.com
8(495)9393292, +79268386058, (495) 9381820, +79263647851