17 Documentary as Empirical Art?

Cross-Cultural Documentary: An Empirical Art

a ten day visiting scholars program

Thursday 8 - Wednesday 14 September 2005
The Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University

Convenors
David MacDougall and Judith MacDougall

with

Rahul Roy

The City Beautiful

2003, 78 minutes

Sunday 11 September, 7.30pm Coombs Lecture Theatre

Sunder Nagri (Beautiful City) is a small working class colony on the margins of India’s capital city, Delhi. Most families come from a community of weavers, but globalisation has brought about a gradual disintegration of their handloom tradition, and they must reinvent themselves to eke out a living. The City Beautiful is the story of two families struggling to make sense of a world which keeps pushing them to the margins.

Radha and Bal Krishan are at a critical point in their relationship. Bal Krishan is underemployed and constantly cheated. They are in disagreement about Radha going out to work, yet they always retain their ability to laugh. Shakuntla and Hira Lal hardly communicate. They live under one roof with their children but are locked in their own sense of personal tragedies.

Jouko Aaltonen

KUSUM

70 min 2000
Tuesday 13 September 7.30 pm
Old Canberra House Theatrette, Australian National University

A documentary film about the spirits, illness and recovery.
Kusum is an ordinary 14-year-old Indian girl. She lives in Delhi, goes to school and thinks about her future. Until she falls ill. Kusum stops eating, isolates herself and has severe fits of bad temper. Evil spirits have attacked the family, says Bhagat, an experienced healer. The family seeks help from western medicine but eventually turns to traditional spiritual healing under Bhagat. It's the start of a long road and the spirits are not easy opponents` What is wrong with Kusum and what heals her are questions that remain for the viewer to decide.


Bjorn Arntsens

The Fish Come with the Rain

Gary Kildea

Koriam's Law

David MacDougall

Doon School Chronicles

Judith MacDougall

The Art of Regret

http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/documentary/index.php
"The seminar was an informal gathering of 7 documentary filmmakers and 4 postgraduate students. Our aim is to explore the creative aspects of cross-cultural documentary, which we feel are all too often displaced in public discussion by an undue focus on film content and the social, historical and industrial dimensions of documentary filmmaking. We wish instead to discuss some of the principles that guide the creative choices made by documentary filmmakers working in cross-cultural contexts, from the moment of filming through the process of editing. The format of the seminar will provide for the screening of one film each day, followed by intensive discussions with the filmmaker about the intentions and decisions that went into the making of it. We hope to investigate such topics as nuances of framing, sound, rhythm, and language, among many others.

A documentary film is a cross-cultural work when it cuts across differing perspectives of ethnicity, culture, class, age or any of a number of other human categories. Most frequently, the juxtaposition is between the different backgrounds of the filmmaker and the people filmed. Cross-cultural documentaries raise specific questions for filmmakers that are not encountered in other forms of nonfiction filmmaking. Issues of cultural bias, cultural understanding, ethics, aesthetics, and interpretation will thus be among the topics taken up at the seminar."