UQ shows films from around the world

A vibrant selection of documentaries, short films and video installations from around the world will be shown at The University of Queensland as part of the 2012 Australian Anthropological Society Conference.

The program offers audiences 18 documentaries, collaborative ethnographic films, animations, video installations and short films from Australia, USA, UK, Slovakia and Brazil, shown from September 26-28.

Works in the program ask new questions, tell new stories and grapple with key issues in the representation of cultures on screen in the 21st century.

The event will showcase established US and UK visual anthropology study and production programs and films from the University of Manchester Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology.

The New York University Program in Culture Media will be shown and discussed through live online link-ups with NYU Professor Faye Ginsburg and GCVA Fellow Dr Andrew Irving.

Student filmmaker Ma Khin Mar Mar Kyi will present and discuss her documentary Dreams of Dutiful Daughters, produced as part of her research in the Australian National University Department of Anthropology.

Collaborative visual media projects involving anthropologists and Indigenous filmmakers and artists are highlighted in sessions featuring new Australian and Brazilian work.

The conference is proud to be presenting the Australian premiere of the visually stunning award-winning collaborative feature documentary As Hiper Mulheres (The Hyperwomen, 2011/12) by Carlos Fausto, Leonardo Sette and Takumã Kuikuro.

Carolina Abreu’s short documentary Tribo Planetaria about Brazilian rave music festivals takes viewers into the contradictions of the utopian ‘planetary tribe’ movement.

The Miyarrka Media session featuring new work by Paul Gurrumuruwuy, Jennifer Deger and David Mackenzie will focus attention to the intersection of art, ritual and film in both ethnographic film and multi-track video installation work.

Exciting short films are being produced by a new generation of desert Aboriginal Australian filmmakers and artists. New short dramas and animations made in desert community media centres feature at a special lunchtime session.

Multi-award-winning feature documentary We Still Live Here (Âs Nutayuneân) by USA filmmaker Anne Makepeace presents a remarkable story of native language revitalisation in Massachusetts.

An intimate chapter in the historiography of anthropology is offered in Savage Memories, a film by Bronislaw Malinowski’s great-grandson reflecting on the legacy of the legendary man within his extended family matrix.

Closing the program, from Slovakia, a hilarious feature documentary Matchmaking Mayor about a worried and ambitious mayor’s attempts to make sure that no one in their reproductive years in his village remains single.

All screenings are on in the Abel Smith Lecture Theatre, free and open to the public.

Visit the event Facebook site for more information. View the conference schedule here or contact programmers Caro Macdonald 0427 508 720 and Lisa Stefanoff 0405 419 412.