 | A scene from "Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan," one of the films from around the world that will be shown during the festival. |
The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, the longest-running documentary film festival in the United States, will come to Yale Oct. 7-13.
Named in honor of the renowned ethnographer and anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978), the festival showcases the best of international documentary cinema and seeks to promote cross-cultural understanding through cinema.
The festival is launched every autumn at New York's American Museum of Natural History. Each year, selected films travel to communities throughout the United States and abroad. This year's traveling film offerings explore a range of topics including arranged marriages, illegal immigration, the loss of a sibling and land mine victims in Afghanistan.
In addition to the core Mead traveling films, the Yale festival will feature screenings and presentations associated with Yale library collections and ongoing Yale research. Many of the screenings will include anthropological input in the form of introduction by or discussion with social scientists, filmmakers or students.
In addition, Sterling Memorial Library will feature library collections related to the additional Yale programs included in the festival; this exhibition will run through Nov. 3.
Noted anthropologist and ethnographer Karl Heider will open the 29th annual Margaret Mead Traveling Film & Video Festival with a keynote address on Saturday, Oct. 7, at 5 p.m. at the Peabody Museum, 170 Whitney Ave. Heider's address, titled "The State of Visual Anthropology," will be followed by a reception and, at 7 p.m., the screening of "Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan." The film, directed by Petr Lom, documents the abductions of four women and their marriages, exploring the nature of love and marriage.
Heider is the Distinguished Professor in Anthropology at the University of South Carolina and author of "Seeing Anthropology: Cultural Anthropology Through Film."
All festival events are free and open to the public. Other festival events are as follows.
Sunday, Oct. 8 -- "Awake Zion," directed by Monica Halm, will be screened at 7 p.m. in Rm. 102, Linsly-Chittendon Hall, 63 High St. The film investigates the symbols, laws, culture and themes shared by Jews and Rastafarians.
Monday, Oct. 9 -- Lillian Guerra, assistant professor of history at Yale, will give a talk illustrated by the film "Cuba and the Cinematic Imagination in the Work of David Stone and Andrew St. George" at 5 p.m. in the lecture hall of the Sterling Memorial Library (entrance on Wall Street). The talk will explore how foreign photographers and Cuban subjects conspired, both consciously and unconsciously, to craft images of utopia and consruct belief in utopia before and after the triumph of Cuba's revolutionary forces in 1959.
Tuesday, Oct. 10 -- "Hanunóo," created by Harold Conklin, will be shown at 5 p.m. in the third-floor auditorium of the Peabody Museum. Released in 1957, this film documents the everyday activities of the Hanunóo, a village of farming people in the mountains of Mindoro, Philippines. A discussion will follow with Conklin, professor emeritus of anthropology at Yale, and Heider.
Later, at 7 p.m., "Land Mines: A Love Story," directed by Dennis O'Rourke, will be screened at the same location. Part observational and part essay, this anti-war film chronicles the love story of Habiba and Shah, two land-mine victims living together in Kabul, Afghanistan, and struggling to make ends meet.
Wednesday, Oct. 11 -- A rough cut of the still-in-production film "Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan" will be screened at 5 p.m. in the third-floor auditorium of the Peabody Museum. The film is being made by Karen Nakamura, assistant professor of anthropology and East Asian studies at Yale, and explores the social and cultural accommodations made in order to allow people with severe psychiatric conditions to live in the community in a small fishing town on the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan. Discussion with Nakamura will follow.
At 7 p.m., there will be a screening of three short films embracing the theme "Reconsidered Identities." The award-winning "Ryan," directed by Chris Landreth, is a tribute to Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. "Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night," directed by Sonali Gulati, looks at the outsourcing of American jobs to India. "Phantom Limb," directed by Jay Rosenblatt, uses the phenomenon of "phantom limb syndrome" as a metaphor to explore feelings about the death of a younger brother 40 years ago.
Thursday, Oct. 12 -- "Al Otro Lado," directed by Natalia Almada, will be screened at 7 p.m. in the lecture hall of Sterling Memorial Library. The film documents an aspiring corrido composer from the drug capital of Mexico who faces two choices to better his life: to traffic drugs or cross the border illegally into the United States.
Friday, Oct. 13 -- "Making Media, Making Change: Youth Rights Media," a series of short films offered as an addition to the Mead festival, will be shown at 5 p.m. in the third-floor auditorium of the Peabody Museum. The films are the work of youth participating in the local non-profit Youth Rights Media (YRM). YRM engages youth in video media production and community organizing so that young people are equipped with tools, skills and strategies for affecting change within themselves, their communities and Connecticut's juvenile justice system. Youth representatives will be on hand to talk with the audience.
At 7 p.m., the film "Home," directed by Jeffrey M. Togman, will be screened at 7 p.m. in the same location. This film tells the story of Sheree Farmer, a single mother of six living in a struggling neighborhood in Newark, as she faces the challenges of buying her first home.
The Mead Festival is co-hosted by the Peabody Museum, Yale's Social Sciences Libraries and Information Services and the Department of Anthropology.
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