Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores how Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó filmmakers in Amazonia are firmly embedded within complex and intersectional social networks, norms of conviviality, and governance structures that impact the way they make films, pursue their careers, and navigate conflicts over political status.

Paper long abstract:

Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó filmmakers of the Brazilian Amazon are firmly embedded within complex and intersectional social networks, norms of conviviality, and governance structures that impact the way they make films and pursue their filmmaking careers. This paper describes the entangled sociocultural and political inner workings involved in their filmmaking practices, including different types of social frictions and convivial moments that emerge, are contested, and debated in this process. Of particular interest are "productive frictions" (stresses that develop as the perspectives and practices of Indigenous Peoples, media researchers, Indigenous cultural activists, and media producers rub up against each other in the complex processes of making culture visible. In Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó filmmaking production history, Terry Turner (1991) described early cases of productive frictions when communities first acquired video cameras. He noted village leaders prioritized video production for collective political and cultural struggles, while simultaneously understanding the power-laden implications of such new positions. Turner concluded his article with questions about whether video would become politicized and controlled by community chiefs or remain a more open field of social praxis available to younger men and women. He also questioned whether Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó documentarians would have flexibility in the choice of subject matter or be required to follow community prescripts, which he felt would affect Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó communities and their video representations for future generations. Nearly thirty years later, through our research and collaborative community partnerships with several Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó villages, along with training workshops, and even film tours by filmmakers in the USA, we can begin to answer Turner’s questions.

Paper short abstract:

As a film festival programmer during the Columbus Quincentennial the author curated a sidebar program screening selections about Native Americans and by native makers themselves. In this paper I recount the history of one problematic “post-contact” encounter – between a Hopi maker and myself.

Paper long abstract:

As a film festival programmer during the Columbus Quincentennial the author curated a sidebar program screening selections from 100 years of filmmaking about Native Americans and recent works by native makers themselves. In this paper I recount the history of one problematic “post-contact” encounter – between a Hopi maker and myself. The incident in question relates to the decision to exhibit Itam Hakim Hopiit (we someone, the Hopi) by noted Hopi video artist Victor Masayesva, paired with Techqua Ikachi, Land – My Life by Swiss/German filmmakers Anka Schmid and Agnes Barmettler, in collaboration with Hopi informant James Danaqyumptewa. Both Masayesva and Danaqyumptewa have ties to the same village of Hotevilla (Third Mesa), and each of the two productions makes use of a village elder who, speaking in Hopi, weaves together a native discourse around the origins and history of the Hopi people – and in the case of Danaqyumptewa, about troubled relations with the U.S. government. But as a non-native actor choosing to pair two works tied to the same cultural milieu, I learned that topic and locale is where similarities end and potential for conflict begins. My paper is both an attempt to appraise unforeseen (and unseen) social forces at work in circumstances of public cultural programming and a consideration of ethical issues inherent in screening Native American film and video.

Paper short abstract:

SATELLITE DREAMING REVISITED is a website that explories Indigenous media work in Australia from the 1980s to now. I will discuss here how the site illustrates the different, and sometimes conflicting, media histories in the more 'urban' coastal areas, and the more 'remote' desert communities.

Paper long abstract:

SATELLITE DREAMING REVISITED is a website that analyses the last four decades of Australian Indigenous media.

'Satellite Dreaming' was a TV programme – broadcast in Australia and in the UK in the early 1990s – which traced the emergence of Australian Indigenous electronic media at the time. It is still seen as ‘a film of considerable historic importance’ (SBS/NITV) and a ‘a useful teaching resource on the history of Indigenous media, and how it differs from mainstream programming’ (Australia's National Film and Sound Archive).

SATELLITE DREAMING REVISITED uses the 1991 programme as the focus for exploring Indigenous media work in Australia from the 1980s to now – through interviews with many of the people involved in the original programme, and in the wider field – some of whom have also written essays for the site. The Sources section contains over 100 pages of information about relevant films, books, documents and organisations, as well as the interviews.

In this presentation I will talk about the development and production of the website. I will use material from the site itself to discuss some of the arguments about indigenous and resistant media that emerge from it, and in this way indicate how the site illustrates "the filmmaker's relationship with other members of their communities, and the "agency" of the camera in the differing relationships relationship between images and subjects" - particularly in relation to the very different media histories in the more 'urban' coastal areas, and the more 'remote' desert communities.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is based on "Anywhere on this Road", an auto-ethnographic film, highlighting the lives of 6 Kurdish intellectual women and their struggle against the male-dominated and colonised socio-cultural spheres in Europe and Turkish Kurdistan through an Oxford academic woman, a Kurd herself.

Paper long abstract:

Kurds, the fourth largest ethnic group in Middle East and one of the indigenous people of Mesopotamian plains in what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran and south-western Armenia, have never obtained permanent nation-state which makes them the biggest stateless nation in the world. They have long been suppressed and denied basic rights in their respective countries. As a result of labor migration, political turmoil, and conflicts in four Kurdish regions in Middle East, many Kurds have become dispersed throughout Europe and beyond. By going beyond stereotypical portrayals of Kurdish women either reflected as a victim of honour-based violence or someone who suffers war or violent conflict in any Kurdish region, this paper, through the auto-ethnographic film ‘Anywhere on the Road’ will be challenging these stereotyping images of Middle Eastern women and put forth strong and competent migrant women images.The paper will address to the objectives and the production of the film, dominated by road and journey images (referring to the migration and mobility of these women) both in Europe and Turkish Kurdistan, which is reflected through the eyes of Oxford university scholar Özlem Belçim Galip, a migrant woman herself in the UK, who travels back to her hometown (Şırnak, South East of Turkey) shows the destruction and war in her home country having led to these women to migrate to Europe.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the works of three indigenous documentary film-makers from Kashmir who present an observational and feministic approach towards countering the colonial narratives of state in representing Kashmir. It explores the relation of film-makers and the subjects to decolonize narratives.

Paper long abstract:

It has been more than seven decades since Kashmir is under the Indian occupation and has been constantly subjugated by different war tactics of colonialism. Indian media including films have been at forefront in presenting the ‘normalcy’ narrative of Kashmir to rest of the world. Cinema in the recent times has witnessed a dynamic change in resistance discourse and presented counter hegemonic narratives to blur the agencies of colonial gaze and political aesthetics. The present paper discusses work of three contemporary indigenous documentary film makers of Kashmir trying to resist the narratives of colonial power and exploring the possibilities of excavation of ‘subjugated knowledges’. The documentaries include, Jashn-e- Azaadi (How we Celebrate Freedom, 2007) by Sanjay Kak, Khoon Diy Baarav (Blood Leaves Its Trail, 2015) by Iffat Fatima and Till then the Roads Carry Her, 2015 by Uzma Falak. These documentaries explore issues of violence and memory in Kashmir. The first film interweaves the historical account of Kashmir issue and presents the lives of common Kashmiris into the day-to-day violence. The film strives towards the struggle of self-determination of Kashmir. The other two films are based on collaborative feminist film-making from South Asia. The films attempt to challenge the dominant narratives of victimhood of Kashmiri women by bringing up the stories of resistance and the spaces created by women agencies to contextualize their experiences. All these documentaries reinforce the interconnectedness of cinema, indigenous film-makers and their relationship with their subjects to counter the state narratives and explore the invisible histories.