Lisbet Holtedahl

Already as a child, Holtedahl became fas­ci­nat­ed by people and objects from dif­fer­ent life worlds. As a young adult she went to Paris in 1964 and watched screen­ings of ethno­graph­i­cal films in the Musée de l’Homme for the first time. There she also met Jean Rouch, who fueled her inter­est in Africa, film, and ethnology.  Early on, she became aware of the dif­fi­cul­ty of con­vey­ing impres­sions of Africa. In her first film, NIGER-NORGE (1975), she address­es the living con­di­tions of women in a vil­lage in east­ern Nige­ria, which she con­trasts with cor­re­spond­ing scenes shot in Tromsø. In this way, she pro­vides a provoca­tive and tongue-in-cheek glimpse of what West­ern­ers con­sid­er normal as a way of over­com­ing stereo­types. The poten­tial and chal­lenge of ade­quate­ly trans­lat­ing dif­fer­ent life worlds through film con­tin­ues to occupy the direc­tor up to this day. In her works, Holtedahl always has West­ern audi­ences in mind – their long­ings and their prej­u­dices. Her main goals are to enable them to empathize with the pro­tag­o­nists and to create space for identification. While sen­so­ry ethno­graph­ic films (freiburg­er film forum 2015) … read more