Film short abstract:

Waltz for the Shore (2024) follows a young woman who visits her grandmother’s house on the southern coast of Korea. She encounters reclaimed land, where the sea is out of reach. Through her awkward reunions and fragmented experiences, the film explores the loss of belonging and identity.

Film long abstract:

The film examines the socio-spatial disconnection caused by urbanisation and land reclamation in Korea. Haerim’s journey to her grandmother’s coastal home uncovers a transformed landscape where the once-accessible sea is now out of reach, symbolising themes of displacement, belonging, and loss. Summer imagery—facial blush, canned peaches, and the rhythmic soundscape of cicadas and ocean waves—deepens these themes. Film is the ideal medium to convey this narrative as its audiovisual elements capture both the physical and emotional essence of place. The auditory dimension, particularly the machinery noises, coastal echoes, and local dialect between Haerim and her grandmother, immerses the audience in the locality of Masan’s summer. The film explores how socio-spatial transformations like land reclamation erode cultural memory and identity while highlighting the significant perspectives of women. It sparks dialogue on sustainable development, spatial justice, and the effects of coastal landscape changes in Korea.

Film short abstract:

The film aims to capture the sensorial aspects of small-scale agricultural production. With a focus on the anthropology of touch, it follows the daily work of two elderly farmers.

Film long abstract:

The film weaves together clips of visual fieldnotes recorded during my participatory research with small-scale agricultural producers. Guided by my interest in phenomenological anthropology and sensorial ethnography, it is an essay about the daily labour of the hands of my two elderly friends. Explanations, comments, and reasonings are mere background noise in this close focus. The film is experimental in the sense that it intentionally breaks from the narrative-driven tradition of anthropological filmmaking. It is our first attempt at creating an ethnographic film and received no funding from any institution.

Film short abstract:

Experimenting with “unwriting ethnography,” this short documentary, filmed during the initial phase of fieldwork for my master’s thesis, offers a springboard to discuss: What changes when visual media is part of both analysis and presentation of ethnographic fieldwork?

Film long abstract:

This documentary experiments with “unwriting ethnography,” as a part of the initial fieldwork for my master’s thesis in Applied Cultural Analysis at Lund University. The film was made during a few intense weeks while I was conducting semi-structured interviews with walkers along the 27 km long nature trail, the Amarmino, in Copenhagen. Expanding on the premise that transcription is a form of analysis, I employed the film medium to invite the viewer into my listening to this interview, for the first time. The film tries to capture the images that played out in my mind during the interview. Offering the viewer a glimpse into both the mind of the interviewer, and the interviewee, orchestrates an experience of being in the park with my interlocutor, walking beside him. Filmmaking was intertwined with my then unwritten analytical process, rather than an aftermath. The film was made in medias res and affected the following fieldwork, and the themes that played a central part in the analytical chapters of the thesis. Immersion in audio-visual content shaped my primary analysis differently than working with a selection of written quotes on paper; forcing me to work out a whole different narrative structure with the potential to open dialogue with other than academics, inviting them to see the trail and hear the interview sound files that are normally hidden away, transcribed into text and presented as quotes in the written thesis. What changes when visual media is part of both analysis and presentation of ethnographic fieldwork?

Film short abstract:

The salmon boat, luossafanas in Sámi, is an epitome of the Deatnu Sámi culture based on salmon and salmon fishing. The boat embodies the community’s knowledge, skills and represents the social connections and practices, helping the community to remember and carry them forward into the future.

Film long abstract:

The long and streamlined boat, customary to Deatnu river, known as luossafanas in Sámi, is a significant epitome of the Deatnu Sámi culture based on salmon and salmon fishing. This boat embodies the community’s historical knowledge and skills in navigating the river and catching salmon. It also represents shared social connections and practices, helping the community to remember these traditions and to carry them forward into the future. The research project DEATNU – Bringing institutional virtues into governance: Integrating the Scientific, Indigenous, and Local Knowing in Teno River Salmon Policy and Administration, funded by the Academy of Finland, and Interreg Aurora-funded MÁHTUT – Sámi knowledge and practices in the Era of the Green Transition -project collaborated with Sámi boatbuilder Jouni Laiti in order to carve a traditional poling boat. Eventually, the finished boat was added to the University of Lapland’s art collection in October 2024.

Film short abstract:

Tourém is a village at the border between Portugal and Spain. It has a reputation as the “smugglers’ nest”. Many villagers who are still inhabitants there were involved in the business in the past. Dangerous actions, hard livelihood, and unforgettable events… all had craved a mark on their memories.

Film long abstract:

The film takes place in Tourém, a frontier village between Portugal and Spain. As one of the last villages on Portuguese territory, Tourém has several paths to its Galician neighbour villages. Tourém has a reputation as the “smugglers’ nest,” and many of the villagers who are still inhabitants there today were involved in the business in the past.

​The interviews focused on the topic of smuggling from a personal perspective. Paulo, the shop owner, remembers many stories about his father, one of the biggest dealers in the business, and the thriving big actions they had participated in together. Although Paulo has nostalgia for the past days, many of his fellow villagers, who used to be carriers and took real risks smuggled into the mountain, have different perspectives. Teresa’s family suffered hunger. Her smuggling stories are full of obstacles from the fiscal guards. Jaime used to be the mayor of Tourém, he entered the business as a carrier and still remembers vividly the muddy first work with a box of Marlborough…

The film presents selected interviews with people who live in Tourém and have known each other for all their lives. They are from different classes and have played different roles in smuggling. They remember the same events, but sometimes, their opinions contradict each other. The film is focused on a micro-universe, a small scope looking into a small village, but through it, we aim to build a bigger picture of the memory of Portugal's past.