Archive

EMBODYING BREXIT: A DISCUSSION ABOUT FILM AND ETHNOGRAPHY

There is a time for most anthropologists to actively mention “autoethnography” as a method or take on the(ir) world. They do so informally in seminar discussions, drawing from the non or para-ethnographic anecdotal evidence from their own lives in what we call “society”. Those among them that work with visual means do so through their cameras and engagement in the filmic production.

My relationship to Britain is fourfold: my mother was born a colonial subject of the catastrophic British period of Cyprus; I reinvented myself and became an anthropologist in the UK, and that followed me throughout my life; I lived in London for seven years; and, finally, I maintain an obsession for all things British. I follow the BBC anywhere, read the print media, follow the film and TV series, read the poetry. There is no other place on the planet whose global influence writs so large relative to its stature (after all, Britain is an island barely half the size of France and a twentieth of the population of India). Closer to home, Britain is not only the heartland of social anthropology as we know it, but also the place where two people that most heavily influenced the contemporary critical social sciences focused on, as a site of historical interest: I refer to Karl Marx in the 19th and Karl Polanyi in the 20th century. They both saw in Britain those sociohistorical qualities that were exported to the rest of the world: the market system and contemporary capitalism.

What of Britain now? How can we visually and ethnographically rethink the critical juncture in which the “island home” for some and the “perfidious Albion” for others stands now? Brexit was an enduring event, whose outcomes are still unravelling. What preceded it (a global credit crunch, sovereign debt crises), what developed during its most heated developments (the rise of authoritarian leadership and populism) and what followed it (the coronavirus crisis) formulate a continuum of concatenating crises that leaves many of us befuddled. Unlike many of the existing crises, however, Brexit was a popular choice, and in that, in discussions on “who is the sovereign” (the people, the Parliament, the Queen?), in popular ideas about isolation and world dominance at the same time, it is very, quintessentially British. I think Britain’s fate is embodied by those who are connected to the place. The film-making we showcase here is sensorial and mobilises this sense of embodiment.

The Speaker’s corner in Hyde Park is one manifestation of popular democracy, where quirky ideas like those could be heard many years before the UK leaving the EU. Listen to Britain, a film by Rhys Lewis, explores that tendency in British society for grassroots voices to find their place however eccentric they might are. “Listen to Britain” (1942) after all was a propaganda film during the War. The filming method absorbs the viewer in that the filmmaker has fully involved the protagonist. The limits of whether this is “really” ethnographic can be discussed -but there are original insights in/from the crowd. The postmodern take on the issue of ‘identity’ couples the well-spirited method and visual element of the film.

As an expression of the ‘direct voice’ of the people, and a manifestation of popular sovereignty, the vote to Leave tested the limits and limitations of democracy itself. The drama that followed it, with sovereignty oscillating between ‘people’, Parliament, and even the judicial, have showed the world how what took place in the UK is a case study of the feeble tragedy we call modern democracy. The drama that unfolded alongside Brexit and to a large extent informed it, was “Britain’s place in the world” – its colonial legacy, heritage and residues. Last round of Jaldi Five by Ellen Lapper is really ethnographic in many ways, very entrenched in the life histories of the people it studies. As a film narrating the lives of Anglo-Indians in London, it is very careful and intricate as it treads on their stories. Its modality is anthropological in that it extends over time and is interested in their histories and History. Although it addresses the Brexit subject less palpably than the other two films, it really offers that minority outlook that anthropology strives for – a case through which to illuminate the bigger picture.

The section has critically reflected on the relationships between film processes, aesthetics and the politics of representation. Aiming to unwrap the Brexit boom and bust, the section reflected on phenomena way beyond Britain, including the connections of an increasingly de-connected world. I am inspired by Patrick Kieller and his magnificent work on UK (as) a port space. Way my it did I, a film by the Cypriot director Maria Anastassiou constitutes a site that is, to my mind, where Kieller meets anthropology. Its filmic quality is deeply cinematic and its take is entirely ethnographic: Britain’s world and the world coming to Britain is here the ethnographic subject and the conceptual friction. Some in the documentary filmmaking milieu are sometimes keen on artistic sequences, and those can be routine in ethnographic filmmaking these days. While we can debate the place of those sequences, to me in many ways this film is how anthropology looks like on the screen.

Our understanding of ethnographic film in this thematic section has been open, so we invited documentaries, participatory films, docufiction, as well as artistic and ethnographic forms of filmmaking. The three films we show here and the three directors present among us will engage in conversation about Brexit’s aftermath, Britain’s place in the world and life in post-EU Britain.

Theodoros Rakopoulos
Associate professor, Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

The curated section Focus on Archive emerged from this year’s festival programme and aims to be a first step in highlighting and exploring the current trend of creatively using archival material in documentary-making. Noticing the trend of experimenting with archival materials and the meaning of the archive in several recent ethnographic films, we consider that the lockdown condition makes digital promotion and creative engagement with the archive imperative. We also see a very interesting trend for synergies, interdisciplinarity, and dialogue between artists and anthropologists in this context, through the coupling of experimental ethnography and artistic experimentation.

In this section of special screenings we include four films, characterized by different aspects of the creative use of the archive in cinematic narration. We believe that these films and the suggestions they make about the uses and concepts of the archive, will inspire and trigger  a dialogue which is completely relevant in the current situation, and whose epistemological and artistic consequences will concern us a lot in the future.

In this spirit, we have curated the Focus on Archive section, which is presented as a prelude to a larger thematic tribute to a future edition of the festival.

Specifically in The Fantastic (Maija Blåfield), which focuses on the testimonies of exiled North Koreans through an alternation of documentary footage and visual effects, we will wonder about the relationship between the imaginary and the real. The experimental poetic narrative of the film introduces us to a discussion about what the archive is or what it could be. In the film Judy versus Capitalism (Mike Hoolboom), the life of the prominent radical Canadian feminist, writer and social activist Judy Rebick is unfolded. The lyrical narration is performed through a creative utilization and reinterpretation of archival autobiographical material in parallel with the narrative voice of the protagonist in the first person. In Cernobila / Black and White (Eluned Zoe Aiano και Anna Benner), a director and an artist compose a hidden story of the Second World War around the mythical figure of a nurse, through the technique of animation and mixed genres. Using excerpts from the history of cinema, they deconstruct (pose as problematic) the conventional narratives / representations used to portray the roles of women. Finally, in Specialized Techniques (Onyeka Igwe), the director decolonizes a film archive that focuses on the static description of an African dance and transforms it through the creative contribution of editing into a live spectacle.

Konstantina Bousmpoura
Christos Varvantakis