Asia still under-represented in Paris documentary festivals<\/p>\n
By Kunang Helmi-Picard [10 pts ML]<\/p>\n
PARIS, France (JP): At the recent Academy Awards in the United
\nStates, the Oscar for the best feature documentary was awarded to
\nI am a Promise by Susan and Alan Raymond.<\/p>\n
Despite their preference for the annual Cinema du Reel
\ndocumentary film festival in Paris, which also ended last month,
\nthe couple conquered the limelight in Hollywood with their
\nriveting story about a devoted school principal determined to
\nbring equality in education to the impoverished, inner-city
\nchildren of North Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
The American documentarists' comment about the Cinema du Reel
\nwas, \"Here documentaries are treated as ...priorities, unlike the
\nAcademy Awards in America where huge fiction film productions
\ndominate the screens.\"<\/p>\n
Apart from the 16th Cinema du Reel documentary festival from
\nMarch 11 to 20, Paris also played host to the 13th ethnographic
\nfilm festival, the Bilan du Film Ethnographique from March 21 to
\n25, which always follows the first.<\/p>\n
Suzette Glenadel, the energetic red-haired director of the
\nCinema du Reel, received 550 film applications for the festival
\nthis year, 150 more than last year.<\/p>\n
A total of 45 films were selected for the International
\nCompetition and the Panorama of French Production.<\/p>\n
Of the selection, Glenadel said, \"Woven from memories, time,
\nanticipation or promise in a quest for meaning and truth, our
\nimages of the `real' are all singular stories intended to reveal
\nwhat is universal, to enrich our knowledge and to fight against
\namnesia.\"<\/p>\n
This selection was completed by a retrospective of Italian
\ndocumentaries of over 100 films by such directors as Fellini,
\nVisconti, Bertolucci, and De Seta shown together for the first
\ntime in Europe.<\/p>\n
Thus Parisian film enthusiasts had an amazing choice of high-
\nquality documentaries on large-size screens during the festivals
\n- apart from their daily choice of 400 films in the city.<\/p>\n
Among the overwhelmingly serious themes, three films at the
\nCinema du Reel stood out due to the underlying humor.<\/p>\n
One of them, Metal en Melancholie, which, despite its somber
\ntitle, treated the theme of eccentric Peruvian taxi drivers and
\ntheir battered old cars in Lima in a poetic manner provoking much
\ngaiety among audiences.<\/p>\n
Its Dutch film-maker Heddy Honigmann went on to win the main
\nfestival award, the French Heritage prize.<\/p>\n
The most amusing one was The Lapirovs move to the West, by
\nJean-Luc Leon, showing how a Moscow family emigrated to the U.S.
\nvia Vienna, despite bureaucratic tangles and how they came back
\nto visit their friends in Russia.<\/p>\n
Asia<\/p>\n
Yet again Asia was under-represented at this festival with
\nonly three films, all by non-Asian film-makers: one by Frederic
\nLabourasse on an Indonesian school boy; another by Gianfranco
\nBosi about Indian boatmen of Benares, and Peter Brosens' film on
\nMongolia which won the Joris Ivens prize for a first film.<\/p>\n
Mario Simondi, director of the Italian documentary film
\nfestival in Florence, who had just admired Indonesian Gavin
\nNugroho's Surat untuk Bidadari, asked The Jakarta Post why
\nIndonesian documentary and fiction film directors do not send
\nmore contributions abroad, since film enthusiasts in Europe are
\nwaiting to see more works from Asia.<\/p>\n
Brazilian jury member Caesar Paes stressed the importance of
\nthis festival for those film-makers from Asia, Africa and Latin
\nAmerica.<\/p>\n
\"Since winning an award myself four years ago, I have
\nconsiderably less trouble finding financial backing and
\ndistributing my films world-wide.\"<\/p>\n
The 52-minute film on an Indonesian boy, Uria, Child of the
\nRiver, was twice shown to appreciative audiences at the Georges
\nPompidou Culture Center in Paris.<\/p>\n
The director, Labourasse, is no stranger to Indonesia as he
\nserved as cameraman across the archipelago for a series of
\ntelevision films by the famed marine expert, Jacques Cousteau.<\/p>\n
When Labourasse visited Siberut Island in West Sumatra, he
\ndecided to film a Mentawai schoolboy who came from a remote
\nvillage on the island and who attended a Catholic school in the
\nprincipal village. Uria reaches his school by a strenuous three-
\nday canoe journey.<\/p>\n
Thirteen-year-old Uria is poised between the world of his
\nparents who recently settled down in a newly founded village
\nafter leading a nomadic life through the rain forest, and the
\nmodern world where money for exchanging goods is a new
\nexperience.<\/p>\n
We see an affectionate Uria teaching his father to count
\ncorrectly when he returns home for holidays. Although Uria is
\nCatholic, he still participates in ancient rites because his
\nfather is a dukun (medicine-man).<\/p>\n
He wants to return later to help his family and others after
\ncompleting his high school education on the main island of
\nSumatra like his elder brother.<\/p>\n
School scenes contrast with scenes of daily life at home while
\nthe long journey home on the river and through the rain forest is
\nfully depicted separating the two sections of the film.<\/p>\n
After the festival, film-makers, ethnologists and enthusiasts
\nfrom all over the world then stayed another week to enjoy the
\nBilan du Film Ethnographique, initiated since 1981 by renowned
\nFrench ethnologist Jean Rouch.<\/p>\n
As in the Cinema du Reel, not only spectators and film-makers
\nattended, but also television program directors, distributors and
\nother film professionals eager to discover new talents.<\/p>\n
Flores<\/p>\n
Films by students as well as by visual anthropologists from
\nmany countries on a variety of subjects such as music, rituals
\nand artisans are shown in different theme groups before
\ndiscussions take place.<\/p>\n
From the nostalgic tunes of Parisian accordion music to the
\nfrenzied chants and dances of the Wai Brama tribe in Flores,
\nIndonesia, from the canoes of Senegal to the story of the last
\nYahi Indian of California, tales of the changes in daily or
\nritual lives filled the screen.<\/p>\n
Timothy Asch's A Celebration of Origins about the rituals of
\nthe Wai Brama tribe celebrating their mythic origins was greeted
\nwith much interest.<\/p>\n
Here we are introduced to the problems of upholding
\ntraditional social order in Flores, where the Wai Bramas have to
\nreconcile tradition, Catholicism and modernization.<\/p>\n
The domain of Wai Brama is the largest, and, according to
\ntheir myths of origin, the oldest, of the seven ceremonial
\ndomains among the people of the Tana 'Ai region of Flores.<\/p>\n
On a final note, both Glenadel, director of the Cinema du Reel
\nand Rouch, director of the Bilan du Film Ethnographique,
\nexpressed their regrets about the increased use of videotape in
\nfilming.<\/p>\n
The process destroys the reflective quality and beauty of 16
\nmillimeter or 35 mm film. Archives have grave storage problems as
\nvideo films shot for television purposes only a decade ago are
\nalready fading and have to be restored at great cost.<\/p>\n
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