16th RAI Film Festival

Others? Experiences of translation between different languages, poems, pictures and borders.

This panel aims to discuss the realisation of film-poems in a context of intercultural artistic collaboration, following the Moving Pictures and Borders, an international writing and film project matching writers with filmmakers across six countries.

From left to right: Eric Bent (Artist and Animator, Montreal), Roseline Lambert (Concordia University, Montreal), Annie Watson (Filmmaker and SGL Film Production, SHU) Katharine Cox (Head of English, SHU) and (on skype) Rachel McCrum (Mile End Poet's Festival, Montreal).

Abstract

In asking filmmakers and writers to collaborate across language, practice, and distance, how may we explore the boundaries of ethnographic film? This panel brings together participants from the 2018 Moving Pictures and Borders project. Six international literary festivals: Wordlife (UK), Dhaka Lit Festival (Bangladesh), Bocas Lit Festival (Trinidad & Tobago), FESS (Croatia), Mile End Poets' Festival (Canada) and Open Book Festival (South Africa), who in 2017 engaged poets on the theme of 'inheritance', and were then paired with six filmmakers to create a suite of filmpoems to show at each festival.

We propose a panel discussion based on metaphor of translation: 1) linguistic translation: how to translate the local subtleties of a poem into film between two artists who do not share a first language 2) translation of artistic practice: how to translate a poem in a cinematographic language, over different filmic medium 3) translation of culture: how to translate cultural aspects expressed in this project for an international audience?

In discussing this project via the panel, we propose to raise questions including tensions between languages and genres; complications of remote collaborations; and definition of filmpoems as ethnographic films.

We are able to screen all six of the films from the project during the panel, to stimulate discussion. Six participants in this project (filmmakers, poets, translators, coordinators) from three different countries will participate in this panel, but we would also be very interested to discuss with speakers who have similar projects, or who may offer an external perspective.

Expanding the Frame: Ethnographic Film and its others.

What is ethnographic film? Anthropologists have failed - or declined - to agree on what ethnographic is or should be. It is a gloriously unstable category. Rather than being chained to the "classics" or a "canon", visual anthropology always reinvents itself, undoes itself, and carves new approaches. We witness - and celebrate - this push for innovation in the films programme at the RAI Film Festival.

This conference brings together anthropologists, film scholars and practitioners to explore the boundaries of ethnographic film today and explore which new paths it is forging. We will look, at particular, in its productive relationships between anthropological filmmakers and their fellow travellers, including indigenous, diasporic, intercultural, African/black cinemas and experimental/art film. We'll consider the relationship between ethnographic film and other filmmaking endeavours that are - or have the potential to be - constructive critical interlocutors. To what extent can ethnographic film practice creatively engage with other film traditions yet still retain its scholarly roots and aims? Does it need to?

I have underlined the two sentences that have been quite a revelation to me at this conference and that have helped me to further think about how to approach the filming of BT, forest.

We discussed the 6 filmpoems made across 6 countries:

For Those Who Mispronounce My Name – filmmaker Maya Cozier (Trinidad &Tobago)/poet Kayo Chingonyi (UK) 2:39 min

La Couleur de la Temperature - filmmaker Annie Watson (UK)/poet Roseline Lambert (Montreal) 5:20 min

Tema (filmmaker/animator Eric Bent (Montreal)/poet Miroslav Mićanović (Croatia) 3:42 min Inheritance – filmmaker Sergej Stanojkovski (Croatia)/poet Nausheen Esuf (Bangladesh) 5:57 min There is A Woman – filmmaker Probar Ripon (Bangladesh)/poet Toni Stuart (South Africa) 4:26 min

The Jaguars Daughter – filmmaker Puleng Langa Stuart (South Africa)/Danielle Boodoo-Fortune (Trinidad & Tobago)

We talked about the process and the subsequent process of matching up students from film and literature and going to Montreal. It was centered on the three elements of translation:

1. Linguistic translation.

2. The translation of artistic practice

3. The translation of culture.

Edge of the Knife (Sgaawaay K'uuna) Gwaai Edenshaw, Canada 2018.

A historical tale that is based on Haida oral story-telling and mythology. It is the first feature film in the endangered Haida langauge. The director was present and visibly overwhelmed with the event. The cinema was sold out (can't remember the last time I sat in a packed out auditorium) and he cried.

I found the film problematic, it had a very male viewpoint, a story of a myth of a man who became a wild man, a monster, and then had to be purged of this evil. The story was about 2 men and a son - the only inclusion within the narrative of the mother was to question the paternity. But this response is very personal and subjective for me. I can't help seeing films through this lens and now they appear dated. It's such a well trodden discourse that (I thnk) Western films would not get through development without at least acknowledging the male centric vision.

We discussed the film afterwards, particularly with the focus on these questions:

To what extent can ethnographic film practice creatively engage with other film traditions yet still retain its scholarly roots and aims? Does it need to?

My second issue was around the filmmaking skills - the film needed about 30 minutes cut, specifically from the 'struggle' the wild man goes through - only so many times we need to see him pushing his way through thorns and pouring in blood. It began to take on a fetishistic and glorified notion - the male struggle - eurghhhh - he cried - slight ew.

Much more interesting were the stories from the elders - women weaving and complaining that another woman was singing their song, and then the humour of singing the other song as a joke.

But...BUT I'm so aware that we are discussing this film in relation to other films, and to Western culture. What was the purpose of the film? To record the language? To share the culture? To make a film?

The acting, again, seemed stilted, contrived, like they were trying too hard to pronounce to declare the language, but I switched my understanding - it's 1800, there's time to contemplate, time to watch the clouds, time to watch the sea, to watch colours, to take time speaking. To slow down. It's lovely this. And felt unusually fresh. An insight into 1800 in a way that isn't Hollywood-ified.

But then...then the acting, the 'acting of characters telling a myth' continued. Perhaps this would have been better as a myth narrated by the women over their weaving, and 'acted out' by the men. Could have been so much more improved.

We discussed it as both - within the context of anthropology and within the context of a contemporary feature fiction film. I think it needed work and don't expect it to be broadly distributed. RL and EB said it will be shown in Canada - broadly.

Up Down and Sideways Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar (India 2017)

The title refers to the way the different voices harmonise as the community sings ancient songs to accompany the cycle of rice growing, from planting, cutting, drying bagging up etc. The film follows them through the seasons, the songs change as the jobs and the weather does. The songs are different between genders, sometimes women work jobs, sometimes it's only men, and occasionally it's altogether, like in one scene where a group of young people stood around a heap of cut rice plants, and on a signal, all began a jumping and kicking routine that was in time with each other, and moved around the circle of plants, separating the rice from the grass. It looked physically exhausting, and didn't last long, people dropping out until (in both cases) only two men remained. A lot of the work was physical. It was interesting how physical they were and how much they enjoyed life. They laughed all the time. Kids played high jump games. Really high. Adults played standing still long jump in the rest between carrying 80kg of rice up a mountain. Women hacked away at the earth, creating rice paddies, and all of this was accompanied by complex vocal arrangements, apparently improvised and spontaneous, but perhaps only as far as the length of time that it lasted, as the lyrics (subtitled) were clearly pre learnt, except one example where the subtitles described the lyrics as nonsense. I suppose this means sounds rather than words. One scene was remarkable. A locked off shot of men clearing away the used (picked) rice plants, and reforming the paddy into a watery bed. It lasted for the entirity of the job. This was ten minutes of intense physical work, (the men have ridiculous six packs), accompanied by complex singing. One man sings a low sustained and repeated tone, another sings an inbetween note, providing rhythm and another high up. At least that what it sounded like.

This was a delight to watch. A portrait of a warm, funny, equal community who talked of the need for each other; they couldn't carry 80kgs of rice on their own as they'd just hear the sound of their heartbeat in their ears, but with others, and singing, they don't notice the weight. A community not bound by gender roles determined by sexual roles (everybody seemed to do everything).

Barley Norton, Reader in Ethnomusicology and Director of the Asian Music Unit at Goldsmiths asked us the question of whether the film was romanticised, the assumption being that, given his expertise, the answer was probably yes, but a member of the audience answered, 'probably, but who cares?' and I liked this.

This brought up 3 ideas for my film which I will talk about in FilmProcess29th March, but in brief:

1. The silence when the army arrived, signifying the absolute silence and halt of the music. Beautifully done. Would like to use this when Anne calls her name.

2. Use music. What is it that triggers this exact memory for her? Music?

3. The stills of the forest that I get from Tom could be overlaid with sounds to create a sense of the forest coming alive.

A Delicate Weave Anjali Monteiro, KP Jayasankar, India 2017

I found this film so boring. I'm not sure why I took such a dislike to it. It felt so square and rudimentary and basic in comparison to Up, Down and Sideways. Just a series of vox pops, and then the music. And the music was so horrible to listen to. It was 15th century. The men who spoke were, largely, pompous and lordly, even though their sentiment was always amount sharing, and a lot about building bridges between muslims and sikhs. I don't know, I just felt 'told to' and expected to be impressed, without being able to make up my own mind. Didn't help that it was mostly old men. The female singers had a strange narrative. In the end when they washd their clothes in the river, they said how glad they were to have shared their singing through the TV because then they'd be famous. Odd. Really strange. the audience was full of elderly white people who laughed at that. I was uncomfortable and didn't join in the applause at the end. An elderly couple next to me said (in loud voices) "Isn't she wonderful?" about one of the women who said she was illiterate and wanted to be well known through this film. I was wondering if these same middle class westerners would be just as impressed by similarly lacking in education English people, singing in groups and clamouring for attention? Or sidelined travellers? Mmmmmmmm.

The Raven and The Seagull (Lykkelænder) Lasse Lau, Denmark 2018

Oh no, sitting next to the same elderly people again. How can this be?!?! I guess we all like back rows. And the woman to the left of me who has holes in her walking trainers sat next to me at Edge of the Knife!! Hilarious.

Anyway, this was a beautiful film. Stunning cinematography, complex layering of narratives, full of symbolism that I guessed at, some of which I am sure passed me by. There was an interesting acknowledgement of actors playing characters of themselves, by setting two of them up in an empty cinema and then keeping the directors' voice in, telling them "you can talk about how the cinema is empty" and then the two of them improvised, I guess, talking about the previous characters that we had seen them play, laughing at the national costume and nods to Greenland iconography - kayaks and a well known film. Raised the question of how many of the encounters were staged.