Summer Course in Sweden
Upon our arrival in Stockholm, we were privileged to sit in for a lecture by Professor Alison Griffiths on Early Cinema and Cross-Cultural Representation at the Swedish film institute.
She explored the relationship between ethnography and early film making. 3 films were screened, Torres Straits Islanders, Hopi Snake Dance and Borneo Head-Hunters.
It was interesting to see and discuss how scientists / anthropologists use films to study different societies or even used it for commercial profit and how they choose to portray native people as inferior human beings.
It is sad though that after almost 100 years, filmmakers still choose to create that gap of superior and inferior between the “advance” and native people (advance in inverted coma’s because if it can definitely be redefined, for example we can measure a community as advance in terms of happiness or satisfaction or contentment or stress levels etc).
Ok, don’t wanna do an essay blog! Just thinking out loud. -r
Pic is of the Swedish Film Institute.
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Tags: Alison Griffiths, borneo, cinema, course, cross cultural, Documentary, ethnographic, hopi snake dance, lecture, stockholm, straits islanders, university
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