2017 Film Festival
Ninth Annual Anthropology Film Festival
2015 Film Festival: Work and Solidarity
The Eighth Annual Anthropology Film Festival, held on April 12, 2015, presented the following stories.
OIL & WATER is the coming of age story of two boys as they each confront one of the world’s worst toxic disasters, the prolonged contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon by Texaco and other oil companies. Hugo comes to America to fight for the survival of his tribe, the Cofán, while David goes to Ecuador to launch the world’s first company to certify oil as “fair trade.” Can Hugo become the leader his tribe so desperately wants him to be? Will David clean up one of the world’s dirtiest industries? Eight years in the making OIL & WATER is a shocking and inspiring David and Goliath story.
JIKOO, A WISH. The inhabitants of Bakadadji, a village located in a Senegalese national park, are trying to finance fencing to secure their fields from protected species of animals that ruin their crops year after year. In doing so, these farmers are claiming recognition for their rural way of life, to which they are deeply attached. Reflecting the village’s everyday reality, this film talks about a meeting that does not actually take place, as well as how we view rural society, whose voice is barely heard.
THE WEIGHT OF GOLD. Ten million artisanal small-scale gold miners in 70 countries around the world. I had never heard about their existence, yet my father devoted his career as a Mining Engineer trying to help them. Ten years after his death in a car accident in Bolivia, where he was working on a project to reduce mercury contamination caused by artisanal small-scale gold miners in the Amazon, I embark on a journey to understand the flip side of his numerous work trips. I discover the man my father actually was, through the every day lives of Bolivian miners working and dreaming to the rhythm of the international gold price. They are the actors of this modern gold rush, a reality that is feeding the economic instabilities of our times.
TAIGA. The Mongolian economy is growing because of a mining boom, ancestral traditions and values are evolving as new relations develop between man and nature. Like most nomadic shepherds in Mongolia, Purejav is a hunter. Tempted by easy money and by revenge, he declares war on a pack of wolves constantly harassing his herd. But the old man becomes aware that he is violating an ancient pact between man and nature…
TOKYO BLUE, The place beside the river. About twenty years ago, a tent city of about fifty homeless people took root on a small green space next to the River Arakawa in Tokyo. They call their home Kasenjiki, the place beside the river. They have all adapted to this way of life, far from “normal” Japanese. But it is coming to an end. Kasenjiki is going to disappear…Takeda-san has gone away. He could not stand the idea of being expelled from what was his home, a tent in Kasenjiki. Before disappearing, he left me a letter asking me to make a good movie. I can only hope to have fulfilled his wish…
2014 Film Festival: Seven Generations, respecting our past, looking to our future
The Seventh Annual Anthropology Film Festival, held on April 4 & 6, 2014, honoured the efforts and intentions of “Idle No More” through our festival theme. The festival highlighted films by Indigenous filmmakers, films framed by an Indigenous perspective, and films about Indigenous issues.
2013 Film Festival
The Sixth Annual Anthropology Film Festival, held in March, 2013, focussed on politically engaged and activist anthropological films that turn the lens on what it means to challenge cultural norms and political authority.
2011 Film Festival
The Fifth Annual Anthropology Film Festival, co-sponsored by The Museum of Anthropology and University Neighbourhoods Association, was held on April 30 and May 1, 2011.
2010 Film Festival
The Fourth Annual Anthropology Film Festival was held in the newly refurbished Michael M. Ames Theatre, Museum of Anthropology, UBC on April 30 and May 1, 2010. The festival co-sponsored by The Museum of Anthropology.
2010 New Film Series
UBC premiere of Histakshitl Ts’awaatskwii– We Come From One Root at 8:00 pm at the Coach House, Green College on January 18, 2010.
2009 Film Festival
The Third Annual Anthropology Film Festival was held from May 13-16, 2009, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Canadian Anthropological Society.
2008 Film Festival
The Second Annual Anthropology Film Festival (co-sponsored by University Neighbourhoods Association), was held on March 7 & 8, 2008. The jury prize for best film was awarded to The Water Front.
Inaugural Film Festival
First Annual Anthropology Film Festival at UBC presented by the Ethnographic Film Unit.
