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Each year, the committee awaits the arrival of films submitted for the Bilan with a degree of trepidation. Each year, we embark on the early stages of the selection process with the same reluctance and foreboding, gripped by a sort of panic at the prospect of having to go through the whole rigmarole all over again ‑ all the usual suspects and a feeling of “been there, done that”. And yet each year we are struck by the same moving realization that we are not just going through the motions, tediously treading the same worn paths as the previous year, as there are always fresh discoveries to be made, triggering gasps of admiration or howls of controversy. In this respect, our annual harvest can be said to be full of unsurprising surprises.
We are currently witnessing the arrival in force of young anthropologists for whom film and video appear to constitute the prime mode of expression for their research, a specific way of thinking. Indeed, we may now have entered the age of “nontext anthropology”, where the autonomy of film language is used to render the spaces of emotion, movement, bodies, duration and the subtleties of sound. However, these fresh discoveries are not just about young filmmakers, for we also receive productions which go far beyond the traditional frontiers of exoticism. A whole host of productions from the Far East (China, India, Japan, Nepal, Taiwan) and the Middle East (Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria) are now replenishing our traditional crop of films from and about other regions of the world.
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Running parallel to the exploration of different horizons is an increasingly private use of film language, in all its wealth, complexity and the legitimate multiplicity of its uses. This new nontext anthropology is well and truly on the move and its authors are beginning to make a name for themselves, though never to the detriment of the realities they probe and ask us to ponder |
| Although we are not devoting a specific session to “students’ films” this year, visual anthropology schools are well represented, with eleven first films from Bayreuth, Harvard, Leyden, Manchester, Nanterre, Paris-EHESS, Strasbourg-Marc Bloch, TromsØ and Zurich. There is no doubt in my mind that these films deserve to be in contention with all the others. |
| And so this year we will once more rediscover and reinvent the world thanks to the astonishing powers of film. We cannot begin to thank all the people who send us their messages and who seek to share with us their outlook on the world, their quests and questions, emotions and encounters. Our gratitude also goes to all our partners in this great adventure, which we could not possibly pursue were it not for their generous and invaluable assistance. Thanks to them, we hope to continue doing what Jean Rouch always sought to achieve in his films – “sharing our dreams”. |
Marc H. Piault
Chairman of the Ethographic Film Committee |
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Contacts : Françoise Foucault, responsable du Bilan du Film Ethnographique
Laurent Pellé, coordinateur - Tél. : 01 47 04 38 20 - fax : 01 45 53 52 82 - cfe@mnhn.fr |
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