Hey!
Culture Unplugged partly based in India has recently launched this online film festival that include a great collection of films of different genres and from all over the world. Most of the time film festivals are too local. If you don’t have the money to fly over and stay, you can’t make it to most of them. So this online film festival format is quite interesting. You may find films more easily on this page.
The organizer found me through youtube. So “Mosuo Song Journey” is part of it.
You can visit my documentary page in the film fest here. You can watch some more clips from my documentary site.
You can vote for the films. If you like, you can vote for me. So it’s like I am promoting my documentary…But then it’s kind of tricky to ask people to vote for friendship not for the quality of the story…:) There are so many interesting pieces on the site.
Anyways, enjoy!
Diedie
I am in D.C. for the screenings of the Mosuo doc. One of the screenings is the Society of Visual Anthropology (SVA) Film Festival. SVA film festival is a special event for the American Association of Anthropology (AAA) year conference. Thousands of anthropologists are gathering together in a huge hotel. It is hard to find anything. But I did run into Tami right before her presentation about the first Mosuo film festival she held in Lugu Lake.
Its been over three years since we last met one another in Lugu Lake. I started filming my Mosuo documentary when she went for her research trip in the same area. Hehe. You inspired me to hold the film festival. You were one of the annoying filmmakers. You walked around the village with your camera asking people all these questions. You pointed the camera to Erche, and he took the camera from you and asked: Now tell me how you feel. I was a bit embarrassed and laughed. I should admit that I was learning and I am still learning. The making process of Mosuo doc is a great self-education on ethical dilemma in documentary filmmaking. Also I often encountered the local Mosuo children, who were interested in being like me as media makers. I became interested in community media, teaching locals to make documentaries about their own cultures and communities.
Back to Tamis AAA presentation. Tami had run into so many film crews in Lugu Lake since she started her research in the area. So many filmmakers have made films about Mosuo people, but Mosuo people themselves seldom get a chance to see how they are portrayed in these films. So Tami collaborated with some local people to hold the first Mosuo Film Festival at Lugu Lake in 2006. She showed films mostly made about Mosuo by outside filmmakers in different Mosuo villages and the Mosuo county Yongning. She also some part of the footage shot by two local Mosuo young people, who actually started the Mosuo Museum at Luo Shui Village. Tami intended to provoke the local Mosuo voices on the Mosuo representation in mass media through the discussions after the film screenings.
It was challenging for Tami to collect and select the films for the festival. Some films about Mosuo really exhausted the exotic views on the Mosuo walking marriage culture. Tami mentioned it was difficult to decide what films to be shown especially to what degree they should show the films that sexualize Mosuo culture. They ended up avoiding most of the films about Mosuo with sexual contents. Tami reflected that, if she did it again, she would choose to show those films with a note telling that the films may contain sexual content. So the Mosuo people can choose whether they want to watch them or not.
The Mosuo film festival traveled among different tourist villages and Youngning Township. In the tourist villages, local people often left after they watched the films. When the film festival did their event in Yongning township, the room was packed. Because people went there only to see the films. They didn’t have many other options for entertainment. The film festival generated good discussions on how to improve the education of Mosuo traditional culture for the younger generation. After Tamis presentation, one audience suggested that it might be useful to try alternative way to show films for local discussions rather than a film festival. I think it is an interesting idea. I remember some Mosuo friends used to mention that Mosuo has a shy culture. For example, brothers and sisters dont talk about romantic relationship in front of one another or their elders at home. It must be uneasy to discuss how Mosuo culture has been sexualized in the films in the public film festival then.
Tami and her local Mosuo collaborators also shot some footage about the Mosuo film festival. I look forward to seeing the final film. Well, this is only what I can remember for now. Tami is in the process of writing about her experience of holding the first Mosuo film festival.
Link TV will air the documentary this week and some more times after this week. This channel is a basic service through a satellite dish. DirecTV 375, DISH 9410. The Sechdule is on the left bottom corner of the page? http://www.linktv.org/programs/mosuo
The director is kind enough to make a note about it at the bottom of this page. hehe:http://www.linktv.org/worldmusic
Schedule:
Monday, October 29th 01:00 am
Friday, November 2nd 06:20 pm
Saturday, November 3rd 02:13 pm
Saturday, November 3rd 11:30 pm
Friday, November 9th 12:19 am
“Mosuo Song Journey” will be screened in the Society of Visual Anthropology/American Association of Anthropology(SVA/AAA) Film Festival 2007.
Time: 7:17pm, November 29th
Place: Washington D.C. (specific location to be confirmed)
