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45-680: Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival (SIEFF) is an International Ethnographic film Festival based in Nuoro ( Sardinia - Italy) organized by the Istituto superiore regionale etnografico (the Sardinian Regional Institute of Ethnography ). The festival, born in 1982 (with the name Festival Internazionale Biennale di Film Etnografici ) in conjunction with the Bilan du Film Ethnographique by Jean Rouch , (now Jean Rouch Festival ) housed in

90-870: A measles epidemic among the Yanomamö people. Most of the allegations made in Darkness in El Dorado were publicly rejected by the Provost 's office of the University of Michigan in November 2000. For example, the interviews upon which the book was based all came from members of the Salesians of Don Bosco , a congregation of the Catholic Church , which Chagnon had criticized and angered. The American Anthropological Association convened

135-560: A memoir . Chagnon was born in Port Austin, Michigan , and was the second of twelve children. After enrolling at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology in 1957, he transferred to the University of Michigan after his first year and there received a bachelor's degree in 1961, an M.A. in 1963, and a Ph.D. in 1966 under the tutelage of Leslie White . Based on seventeen months of fieldwork begun in 1964, Chagnon's thesis examined

180-489: A 1978 paper: "Ethnographic films cannot be said to constitute a genre, nor is ethnographic film-making a discipline with unified origins and an established methodology. Since the first conference on ethnographic film was held at the Musée de l'Homme 30 years ago, the term has served a largely emblematic function, giving a semblance of unity to extremely diverse efforts in the cinema and social sciences." The genre has its origins in

225-525: A bestseller and is frequently assigned in introductory anthropology courses. Admirers described him as a pioneer of scientific anthropology. Chagnon was called the "most controversial anthropologist" in the United States in a New York Times Magazine profile preceding the publication of Chagnon's most recent book, Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists ,

270-421: A direct representation of the subject, film-makers then perceived their work as a venture of the complexities of the presented cultural, or their work as a continuing inquiry. However, the camera continues to see selectively. This means leaving the film-maker with the precaution of interpretation during the process of recording. While observing informal events, a technique of filming from different angles or shooting

315-667: A fight among two Yanomami groups and analyzing it as it relates to kinship networks, is considered a classic in ethnographic film making. In 2012 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Marshall Sahlins , who was a major critic of Chagnon, resigned from the academy, citing Chagnon's induction as one of the reasons he quit. On 21 September 2019, Chagnon died at the age of 81. In 2000, Patrick Tierney , in his book Darkness in El Dorado , accused Chagnon and his colleague James V. Neel of unethical behavior, such as, among other things, manipulating data, and exacerbating

360-609: A film artist, collaborated with several anthropologists ( Karl G. Heider among them) to produce Dead Birds (1963), a study of ritual warfare among the Dani of New Guinea. David Maybury-Lewis was among the first to receive enough funding to send many video cameras into the field in a single field setting to gain multiple simultaneous points of view. In the 1970s, Judith and David MacDougall introduced subtitling to their subjects' speech and went on to make films that involved more collaborative relationships with their subjects. MacDougall made

405-487: A five-part series called The Doon School Quintet , which studied an elite boys' boarding school, The Doon School in India. It was filmed over a period of three years, during which MacDougall lived on the school campus, closely observing the boys, their daily rituals, conversations, thought processes, and ways of functioning. Although ethnographic film can be seen as a way of presenting and understanding different cultures that

450-567: A measles epidemic. In June 2005, however, the AAA voted two-to-one to rescind the acceptance of the 2002 report. Alice Dreger , a historian of medicine and science, concluded after a year's research that Tierney's claims were false and the American Anthropological Association was complicit and irresponsible in helping spread these falsehoods and not protecting "scholars from baseless and sensationalistic charges". The controversy

495-461: A selection of recent films, guided by an ethno-anthropological perspective. The festival has an international character and for the selection the films come from all over the world. As well as the committee for the selection of films, which is regularly composed of representatives of various institutions, which in the world deal with visual anthropology . Ethnographic film Anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall wrote in

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540-620: A task force in February 2001 to investigate some of the allegations made in Tierney's book. Their report, which was issued by the AAA in May 2002, held that Chagnon had both represented the Yanomamö in harmful ways and failed in some instances to obtain proper consent from both the government and the groups he studied. However, the Task Force stated that there was no support for the claim that Chagnon and Neel began

585-434: Is covered in the 2005 book Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It by anthropologist Robert Borofsky . Chagnon's work with the Yanomamö was widely criticized by other anthropologists. Anthropologists critiqued both aspects of his research methods as well as the theoretical approach, and the interpretations and conclusions he drew from his data. Most controversial was his claim that Yanomamö society

630-500: Is not normally seen, there are some issues in the case of portrayal. As of late, ethnographic film has been influenced by ideas of observational cinema similar to the British Free Cinema movement. The arrival of lightweight sound cameras and their accessories opened up possibilities of being able to film almost everywhere. This led to revealing private and informal behaviours to already discreet film-makers. The issue of presentation

675-422: Is particularly violent, and his claim that this feature of their culture is grounded in biological differences that are the result of natural selection. The anthropologist Brian Ferguson argued that Yanomamö culture is not particularly violent, and that the violence that does exist is largely a result of socio-political reconfigurations of their society under the influence of colonization. Bruce Albert rejected

720-721: The Musée de l'Homme in Paris, is the oldest ethnographic cinema festival in Europe . The event is held every two years and takes place in the Auditorium of Museo della vita e delle tradizioni popolari sarde ( Museum of Sardinian folk life and traditions ) in Nuoro . From 1982 to 2006 the exhibition was dedicated from time to time to a specific theme; since 2006 the Festival has abandoned the traditional monothematic characterization and has focused its program on

765-676: The Torres Straits , initiated by Alfred Cort Haddon in 1898, covered all aspects of Torres Strait Islander life. Haddon wrote to his friend Walter Baldwin Spencer recommending he use film for recording evidence. Spencer then recorded the Australian Aborigines , a project that consisted of 7,000 feet of film, later housed in the National Museum at Victoria. In the 1930s, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead discovered that using film

810-523: The Yanomamo . The genre flourished in France in the fifties due to the role of ethnographers such as Marcel Griaule , Germaine Dieterlen , and Jean Rouch . Light 16 mm cameras synchronized with light tape-recorders would revolutionise the methods of both cinema and anthropology. Rouch, who had developed the concept in theory and practice, went against the dogma that in research the camera person must stay out of

855-472: The National Academy of Sciences, in part in protest of Chagnon's election to the body. Other researchers of the Yanomamö such as Brian Ferguson argued that Chagnon himself contributed to escalating violence among the Yanomamö by offering machetes , axes , and shotguns to selected groups to elicit their cooperation. Chagnon said that it was instead local Salesian priests who were supplying guns to

900-560: The Yanomamö by settlers and colonists in the area. Emily Eakin countered that Albert "cannot demonstrate a direct connection between Chagnon's writings and the government's Indian policy" and that the idea that scientists should suppress unflattering information about their subjects is troubling and supports the idea that nonviolence is a prerequisite for protecting the Yanomamö. The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins , one of Chagnon's graduate teachers, criticized Chagnon's methods, pointing out that Chagnon acknowledged engaging in behavior that

945-482: The Yanomamö, who then used them to kill each other. In his autobiography , Chagnon stated that most criticisms of his work were based on a postmodern and antiscientific ideology that arose within anthropology, in which careful study of isolated tribes was replaced in many cases by explicit political advocacy that denied less pleasant aspects of the Yanomamö culture, such as warfare, domestic violence, and infanticide. Chagnon stated that much of his work has undermined

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990-591: The alleged unethical practices with the Yanomami, Chagnon was officially barred from studying the Yanomami and from reentering their country in Venezuela. Chagnon worked with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch to produce at least forty films on Yanomamo culture, including The Feast (1969), Magical Death (1973) and The Ax Fight (1975). These films, especially The Ax Fight , are widely used in anthropological and visual culture curriculum and are considered to be among

1035-646: The beginning of the 20th century, they were employed by colonial powers to show their European audiences the peoples and their cultures of the distant colonies. Thereby, depictions were frequently denigrating and confirmed pre-conceived stereotypes of indigenous people as wild, savage and uncivilized. These ethnographic films often presented foreign peoples as a spectacle for Europeans who were promised an experience of other cultures without having to leave their own country. Justified by claims to be scientific, these productions anatomized indigenous people and their cultures. Nakedness usually prohibited in films of this period

1080-401: The behaviour recorded. Film-makers then had new intentions for their films to be self-revelatory, making sure to film the primary encounter as evidence of their production. An example of this would be Chronique d'un éte , a film by Rouch and Morin, which touched on questions about how film deals with reality and changed the course of ethnographic film-making. Due to the difficulty of film being

1125-483: The central character, N!ai, incorporating footage from her childhood through adulthood. Marshall ended his career with a five-part series, A Kalahari Family (2004), that critically examined his fifty-year involvement with the Ju/'hoansi. Napoleon Chagnon and Tim Asch 's two famous films, The Ax Fight and The Feast (both filmed in the 1960s), are intimately documented ethnographic accounts of an Amazonian rainforest people,

1170-541: The colonial context. Prospector, explorer, and eventual filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty is considered to be the forefather of ethnographic film. He is most famous for his 1922 film Nanook of the North . Flaherty's attempts to realistically portray Inuit on film were considered valuable for exploring a little-known way of life. Flaherty was not trained in anthropology, but he did have a good relationship with his subjects. The contribution of Felix-Louis Regnault may have started

1215-457: The context of entertainment and consumerism, disseminating and naturalizing racial stereotypes. Many of the early ethnographic films prior to 1920 were not shot by professional anthropologists but by production companies with primarily commercial interests. They mostly addressed a popular audience, thereby aiming to correspond to its expectations and often blurring the border between real and faked. These producers often had little knowledge about

1260-481: The cultures they filmed and tended to homogenize indigenous people, disregarding the specificities traits of distinct cultures. Founders Napoleon Chagnon Napoleon Alphonseau Chagnon (27 August 1938 – 21 September 2019) was an American cultural anthropologist , professor of sociocultural anthropology at the University of Missouri in Columbia and member of the National Academy of Sciences . Chagnon

1305-562: The event or distance him/herself as an observer. He decided to make the camera interfere as an actor, developing and popularizing Cinéma vérité . This was earlier deemed the " observer effect " by Gregory Bateson, who was perhaps unaware of the dogma Rouch was attempting to violate. Bateson, as one of the earliest to write about using cameras in the studies of humans, was not only aware of the observer effect, but both he and his partner, Margaret Mead, wrote about many ways of dealing theoretically and practically with that effect. Robert Gardner ,

1350-678: The film Spirits of Defiance: The Mangbetu People of Zaire about the Mangbetu people of the Democratic Republic of Congo anthropologist Robert Guy McKee notes that the subtitles can not only leave out part of what is said, but at times even change what is said to support the point of view of the film's producers. Timothy Asch has set out ethical principles for producers of ethnographic films to ensure that communities being filmed have input into how they are portrayed. Recent critiques have pointed out ethical and epistemological issues relating to

1395-413: The idea of the 'Noble savage' – a romanticized stereotype of indigenous people living in synchrony with nature and uncorrupted by modern civilization. Chagnon also stated that his beliefs about sociobiology and kin selection were misinterpreted and misunderstood, similarly because of a rejection of scientific and biological explanations for culture within anthropology. As a result of the controversy and

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1440-413: The latter half of the 1990s. According to Chagnon, when he arrived he realised that the theories he had been taught during his training had shortcomings, because contrary to what they predicted, raiding and fighting, often over women, was endemic. His habit of constantly asking them questions earned Chagnon the Yanomamö nickname "pesky bee." A major focus of his research was the collection of genealogies of

1485-471: The level of the villages, the war-like populations expanded at the expense of their neighbors. Chagnon's positing of a link between reproductive success and violence cast doubt on the sociocultural perspective that cultures are constructed from human experience. An enduring controversy over Chagnon's work has been described as a microcosm of the conflict between biological and sociocultural anthropology. Chagnon's ethnography , Yanomamö: The Fierce People ,

1530-441: The limited accessibility of ethnographic films, which, according to those critics, affects the individuals and communities depicted in such films, as well as the discipline and the wider public. Postcolonial studies discuss the power structures involved in ethnographic film making. A majority of ethnographic films have been shot and produced by white filmmakers about people of color. Originating at an early stage of film history at

1575-480: The movement. He was filming a Wolof woman making pottery without the aid of a wheel at the Exposition Ethnographique de l'Afrique Occidentale. He published his findings in 1895. His later films followed the same subject, described to capture the "cross cultural study of movement." He later proposed the creation of an archive of anthropological research footage. The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to

1620-452: The relationship between kinship and the social organization of Yanomamö villages. Chagnon was best known for his long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamö , indigenous Amazonians who live in the border area between Venezuela and Brazil. Working primarily in the headwaters of the upper Siapa and upper Mavaca Rivers in Venezuela, he conducted fieldwork from the mid-1960s until

1665-611: The residents of the villages he visited, and from these he would analyze patterns of relatedness, marriage patterns, cooperation, and settlement pattern histories. The degree of kinship was seen by Chagnon as important for the forming of alliances in social interactions, including conflict. Chagnon's methods of analysis are widely seen as having been influenced by sociobiology . As Chagnon described it, Yanomamö society produced fierceness, because that behavior furthered male reproductive success. The genealogies showed that men who killed had more wives and children than men who did not kill. At

1710-448: The scene more than once has been developed. Many ethnographic films include recorded speech by people in the community being filmed. When this speech is in a language unfamiliar to the intended audience of the ethnographic film, the producers generally use voice-over translation or subtitles . However, it has been shown that these translations of the film's subjects to the film's audience have not always been accurate. In his analysis of

1755-422: The statistical basis for his claims that more violent Yanomamö men have more children. Others questioned the ethics inherent in painting an ethnic group as violent savages, pointing out that Chagnon's depiction of the Yanomamö as such breaks with anthropology's traditional ethics of trying to describe foreign societies sympathetically, and argued that his depictions resulted in increased hostility and racism against

1800-602: Was an essential component of documenting complex rituals in Bali and New Guinea . John Marshall made what is likely the most-viewed ethnographic film in American colleges, The Hunters , based on the Ju/'hoansi of the Kalahari Desert (the !Kung-San ) that spans from 1951 to 2000. His ethnographic film N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman is not only ethnography, but also a biography of

1845-647: Was considered acceptable in this context. Race theories dominant at that time were implicitly or explicitly applied to many ethnographic films. The camera as a supposedly objective tool additionally fostered perceptions of authenticity. The exhibition of ethnographic films served as a celebration of assumed Western superiority by exhibiting both the new technology of film and the control over foreign lands and peoples. The cinema, thereby, became an important institution to garner approval and enthusiasm for colonialization and imperialism across gender and class boundaries within colonizing countries. It embedded racist notions in

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1890-553: Was disagreeable to his informants by not participating in food-sharing obligations. Sahlins claimed that Chagnon's trade of steel weaponry for blood samples and genealogical information amounted to "participant-instigation" which encouraged economic competition and violence. Lastly, Sahlins argued that Chagnon's publications, which contend that violent Yanomamö men are conferred with reproductive advantages, made false assumptions in designating killers and omit other variables that explain reproductive success. In 2013, Sahlins resigned from

1935-544: Was known for his long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamö , a society of indigenous tribal Amazonians , in which he used an evolutionary approach to understand social behavior in terms of genetic relatedness. His work centered on the analysis of violence among tribal peoples, and, using socio-biological analyses, he advanced the argument that violence among the Yanomami is fueled by an evolutionary process in which successful warriors have more offspring. His 1967 ethnography Yanomamö: The Fierce People became

1980-436: Was noted by Flaherty, when he realized that when the audience is shown individuals dealing with problems, it helps them affirm the rationality of their own choices. Despite new lightweight camera equipment, the status of the camera was still seen as an invisible presence. This only led to undermine the idea of film being a disembodied observer. It was later realized that the procedure of filming could carry false interpretations of

2025-498: Was published in 1968 and ran to several editions, selling nearly a million copies,. It is commonly used as a text in university-level introductory anthropology classes, making it one of the bestselling anthropological texts of all time. Chagnon was also a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology . He collaborated with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch and produced a series of more than twenty ethnographic films documenting Yanomamö life. The ethnographic film The Ax Fight , showing

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