Hommage to David & Judith McDougall

DIYA

Judith MacDougall
Australia 2001 | 55 Min. | DV Cam, OmeU
This film attempts to pro­vide a new way of explor­ing the com­plex social life sur­round­ing mate­r­i­al objects. DIYA fol­lows the life his­to­ry an object through the every­day expe­ri­ences of the … read more

DOON SCHOOL CHRONICLES

David MacDougall
Australia 2000 | 140 Min. | DV Cam, OmeU

The Doon School, locat­ed in Dehra Dun in Uttar Pradesh, is India’s most famous board­ing school for boys and has some­times been called »the Eton of India«. It was estab­lished by a group of Indian nation­al­ists in the 1930s to pro­duce a new gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers who would help guide the nation after Inde­pen­dence. It has been influ­en­tial in the cre­ation of the new Indian elites and has come to epit­o­mize cer­tain aspects of Indian post-coloniality. 

DOON SCHOOL CRONICLES is the first film in a five film study of the school. Filmed over a two year period, it looks at the life of mid­dle­class Indian boys coming under the influ­ence of insti­tu­tion­al and global pres­sures during their ado­les­cent years. The film explores the »social aes­thet­ics« and ide­ol­o­gy of Doon School through its rit­u­als, the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment it has cre­at­ed, and its effects upon sev­er­al boys of dif­fer­ent ages and tem­pera­ments. The film is divid­ed into ten »chap­ters«, each headed by a text taken from school documents. 

LORANG’S WAY

David MacDougall, Judith MacDougall
Austria 1979 | 70 Min. | 16 mm, OmeU
A por­trait of Lorang, the patri­arch of a large home­stead among the semi­no­madic Turkana of north-west­ern Kenya. At the time the film was made, most Turkana (includ­ing Lorang’s own son) … read more

TAKEOVER

David & Judith MacDougall
Australia 1980 | 90 Min. | 16 mm, OmeU
In March 1978, the Queens­land state gov­ern­ment in Aus­tralia announced its inten­tion to take over man­age­ment of the Aurukun Abo­rig­i­nal Reserve on Cape York Penin­su­la. The reserve had been admin­is­tered … read more