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 naked “sav­ages” and the pre-modern era in which they appar­ent­ly lived. This sup­pos­ed­ly idyl­lic world became Gardi’s par­adise, as Africa was trans­formed into a pro­jec­tion screen for the desires of the audi­ence back home.
The film AFRICAN MIRROR tells the story using mate­ri­als from Gardi’s recent­ly opened archive, whose ambiva­lent pic­tures mirror our Euro­pean self-con­cep­tion in myriad ways. The film reveals image pro­duc­tion as a form of colo­nial­ism and shows how we have refused to truly look into this mirror to this very day.

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, … read more

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