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| The
first Bilan du Film Ethnographique,
organised by Jean Rouch, was
held on 8th March 1982. Since
then, nearly a thousand films
have been programmed, averaging
forty a year, most of which
have been quite widely distributed
both in France and abroad. Internationally,
it is doubtless one of the first
and largest events of its kind,
and the time has now come for
us to inaugurate the twenty-fifth
edition. The Bilan has certainly
made a sizeable contribution
to revolutionising the very
concept of anthropology. New
ways of knowledge have opened
up, combining experimentation
in film techniques with anthropological
know-how. |
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Experience in the field and an awareness
of modernity have driven a new way
of looking at the world, which is
gradually drawing near to what Jean
Rouch proposed as shared anthropology.
Little by little, the language of
cinema, as applied to anthropology,
has made it possible to explore aspects
that had long been neglected : duration,
relationship between time and space,
emotions, relativity of behaviour
and values, comparative treatment
of body, cultural forms of individual
expression, mise en scène of
the spoken word and the ongoing construction
of reality, concrete modalities of
all representations… These are
now the means to insure reciprocal
attention. Visual anthropology has
become a very widespread field of
research and experiment, and the Bilan
has been one of the crucial vectors
for this development.
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Today,
the shared experiences of the Bilan’s
twenty-five years of existence will
renew the questions of instrumental
modalities as well as the nature of
research fields. Revolutionary technologies
are to hand, but are themselves useless
if our way of looking at ourselves
and others remains unchanged. During
the 2004 Bilan, aware of the differentiated
ways of operating in the widened field
of audiovisual anthropology, we already
started thinking about these new technologies. |
The
experiences presented to the 2006
Bilan and the diversity of filmmakers
from many countries reflect such preoccupations.
In order to broaden our thinking on
this topic, we have decided to conclude
the 25th Bilan du Film Ethnographique
with an international conference on
the theme: "From Ethnographical
Cinema to Audiovisual Anthropology
". |
| Some
people refer to a certain crisis of
audiovisual anthropology, but I feel
more relevant to speak of a “growth
crisis ”, which is a concern for
all of us. |
Marc
H.Piault – President
Comité du Film Ethnographique |
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| The
Society of Friends of the Musée
de l’Homme is happy to sponsor
the 25th anniversary of the Ethnographic
film Panorama which takes place in
Paris from the 18th to the 24th March
and has decided, on this occasion,
to offer the Nanook-Jean Rouch prize. |
| The
“Friends” mean in this
way to render homage to Jean Rouch
who was member of their Board of Directors
for many years and whose work they
have always followed and supported,
also to show their continuing interest
in the development of ethnographic
films, help the organisers to pursue
the work of Jean Rouch and celebrate
with them this important anniversary. |
Vincent
Timothée,
Chairman of the Société
des Amis du Musée de l’Homme. |
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| Following
the PaleFox’strails, next step… |
I'm
quite fond of the idea that it's this
same little Pale Fox who introduced
the "digital" in our electronic
systems. … There will be books
associated with those discs that will
cost nothing at all….You'll
take out a disc that reads Sigui19-0,
and a little label explaining : an
old man tells the myth in a secret
language…..It's these video
disc books that future generations
will read in a hundred years, and
I'll receive the best criticisms of
my films in maybe two centuries! I
like this idea. In Jean Rouch, The
Camera and Man, Anthropology on Visual
Communication, Vol 1, 1973. |
Celebrating
the 25th anniversary of the Bilan
du film ethnographique is the perfect
occasion to pay tribute to the legacy
of Jean Rouch, who created this international
gathering that became so essential
in our field and as a means for him
to pursue his pioneering work. |
In
1973 Jean Rouch was already imagining
new ways to present knowledge-based
artifacts conceived with digital technologies,
and thirty years later the blooming
of these new technologies allows us
to re-examine the famous opposition
between Pythagoras and Aristotle,
between the precedence of numbers
and that of feelings in the architecture
of the world. |
An
industrial art form conceived in the
age of analog technology, cinema generated
critical analysis of our society and
its systems of representation. Today,
in the era of digitalization and globalization,
visual anthropology is tackling new
ethical, political, and economic issues,
closely related to the new systems
of production and distribution for
data collection. |
The
aim of the conference, beyond the
sharing of new experiences, is to
promote a fruitful dialogue on the
new approaches and new fields appearing
in visual anthropology, and to encourage
the emergence of new ethical values
shared by the actors, authors and
spectators of the “res publica”,
the public sphere. It is indeed a
global space, but one which we must
invest with the gaze, the sense of
wonder and the concerns of all. |
| Nadine
Wanono - CEMAf-SPAN,
CNRS, ethnologue, cinéaste. |
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