Anthro­po­log­i­cal film­mak­ing: Lessons learned As young novice in Anthro­pol­o­gy in the field, I made draw­ings of people and asked chil­dren to do the same thing; I also took pic­tures and … read more

For decades, Swiss trav­eller and film­mak­er René Gardi (1909-2000) explained the African con­ti­nent and its inhab­i­tants to us. In books, tele­vi­sion pro­grams and films, he waxed poetic about the beau­ti­ful … read more

The Arhua­co live in the high­est moun­tains of Colom­bia. They wear their tra­di­tion­al white clothes as they have for many cen­turies and main­tain their cul­ture and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, which is tight­ly … read more

Alha­jji Ibrahim Gonji is an Islam­ic schol­ar. For 46 years, he has served as judge at the Sul­tanate of Ngaoundéré in North­ern Cameroon. The film fol­lows Alha­jji during the last … read more

Emmanuel Gras says that the idea for his film was quite simple. Kab­wi­ta, his pro­tag­o­nist from Kol­wezi in the south of the Congo, makes a living from char­coal burn­ing. Nor­mal­ly, he sells the char­coal in his vil­lage, but because he wants to build a house for his family, he decides to sell a larger amount in the city. He there­fore cuts down a tree, turns the wood into char­coal, fills it into sacks, and then ties the sacks to a rick­ety bicy­cle, which he pushes for miles to the near­est larger town. The trans­port takes days.

While the idea may be simple – the film focus­es exclu­sive­ly on work – the imme­di­a­cy that Gras’ images are able to convey is extreme­ly impres­sive. His shots seem more rem­i­nis­cent of a staged nar­ra­tive than the obser­va­tion of a doc­u­men­tary. Only rarely does the camera leave the action. It always tries to stay close to Kab­wi­ta and shows how his dream of a better life helps to endure this back­break­ing work.

MAKALA is Emmanuel Gras’ second fea­ture-length film, and it won the Grand Prize of the Semaine de la Cri­tique in Cannes in 2017.

 

In Switzer­land, tra­di­tion­al char­coal burn­ing is still a trade. Each summer, smoke rises out of the char­coal piles, or kilns. The pro­ce­dure takes five weeks. The metic­u­lous stack­ing of the … read more