What it is that makes us human? What distinguishes one group of people from another? Is it even important? These are questions that anthropologists have grappled with ever since European exploration and colonization of the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific sparked an interest in understanding and explaining human life and culture. These are also some of the questions that the annual Image by Image (Beeld voor Beeld) visual anthropology film festival tries to answer.
Documentaries that Challenge Preconceptions
Opponents of traditional anthropology regard it as ethnocentric, paternalistic and an extension of colonization, arguing that it has been dominated by the ideas of white, predominantly male academics. While anthropology has started to re-evaluate its approach, so-called ‘participant observation’ remains the science’s defining methodology. This involves long-term observation of and participation in the life of another culture, with the aim of giving as in-depth and unbiased a view as possible of how and why people live as they do.
Participant observation and (visual) anthropology form the basis of the five-day Image by Image film festival being held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands from June 10-14, 2009. The festival uses challenging, often unexpected documentaries to force viewers to examine their prejudices and preconceptions about other peoples and cultures.
Celebrating 20 Years
The festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In the two decades that the festival has been running “it has professionalized, internationalized and grown from a student initiative showing only Dutch films, to one of the most important festivals in visual anthropology in the world,” says the festival’s director Eddy Appels. Some of the films shown are made by anthropologists and students, but most are made by full-time documentary makers with an interest in anthropology.
Talking about the relevance of the festival, Appels continues: “In a time of social conflict, I feel we need more knowledge and understanding of each other and it must be in the form of a dialogue. Far from being paternalistic, participant observation is aimed at gaining that knowledge and understanding. Having films and filmmakers from different cultures present at the festival, means the audience can experience alternate points of view, and it is exactly by bridging the gap between “us” and “them” that [Image by Image] also avoids being paternalistic.”
Festival Program
The festival will open with the feature-length, multi-award-winning documentary No More Smoke Signals by Swiss filmmaker Fanny Bräuning. Combining humor and poignancy, the film tells the story of Kili Radio, a Lakota Native American radio station in South Dakota, USA, and the different characters whose lives converge there (watch the trailer here).
Prominent themes across the rest of the festival are Europe (after the fall of the Berlin Wall, cultural diversity, migration and identity), world music and the effects of tourism on local communities. The festival will close with Gina’s Wedding, a documentary about a white woman who falls in love with Napamogona, a native village in Papua New Guinea, and is invited to celebrate her marriage to her fiancé Mark there.
More information about the Image by Image festival, location, screening times and ticket sales are available on the website. All films are English spoken or have English subtitles.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
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