FILM TALK: ABOUT ETHNOGRAPHIC ART AND THE ART OF ETHNOGRAPHY
Ramona Badescu and Jeff Silva
MONDAY, 08.05. | 3–5pm
Volkskundemuseum Wien
Laudongasse 15–19, 1080 Wien
Free Entry
In this year’s FILM TALK, Ramona Badescu and Jeff Silva elaborate on their artistic-academic collaboration and ask whether collaborations such as theirs can lead to new forms of expression and narrative. At the heart of the conversation is their latest film, THE ORDER OF THINGS, that recounts the memories of Badescu’s grandfather, who is one of the last eyewitnesses to the Romanian forced labor camps and political prison of the Ceaușescu dictatorship.
Jeff Silva, filmmaker and visual anthropologist, contributes his approach to film, which is informed by social science methods and follows a humanistic and sensory mission statement. Children’s author, poet and photographer Ramona Badescu shares her subjective style, which in the specific film refers to her Romanian family background, and how she uses it to create an intimate portrait of her grandfather. How can a documentary film benefit from the merging of a personal with a reflexive anthropological approach, in order to contribute to a new style of sensory-sensitive filmmaking? Through film clips, they provide insights into their collaboration and share how they found a common cinematic language that considers the historical and personal dimensions of the subject matter addressed in the film.
Talk is held in English.
Film Screening THE ORDER OF THINGS
THE ORDER OF THINGS
Biographies
Ramona Badescu is a French-Romanian poet & author. Born in Romania, Badescu immigrated to France at the age of 10 after the fall of the dictatorship. Ramona has published more than 30 children’s books and poetry in French, many of which have been translated into over 20 different languages and garnering numerous accolades. Ramona is also a photographer and recently began making documentary films. “The Order of Things” is her first feature film, where she questions her Romanian roots through dialogue with her grandfather.
Jeff Silva is an American filmmaker and anthropologist who has worked at leading American schools and universities, including the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University. Trained in cinema and visual arts in the US with a Ph.D. from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Silva humanistically and sensorially combines artistic practices with social science research. He has made four feature films and several shorts, all of which have to do with the fragility of individuals in the midst of turbulent social contexts. His films have been shown in festivals including Visions du Réel, MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight, The Viennale, BAFICI, Doclisboa, Open City Documentary Festival… He is now based in Marseille leading the documentary cinema branch of La fabrique des écritures ethnographiques.
