Claus Mueller

Continuing its tradition of high quality programming The Margaret Mead Film Festival celebrated its 40th anniversary at its home, the American Museum of Natural History.  Established in 1977 it is the longest running annual international documentary festival in the United States.   Of the more than 40,000 submissions since its inception, 2,000 films have been shown by the festival of which 1,000 are kept in the Museum’s Mead Festival Archives. Over the years, documentaries from award-winning directors have been shown at the festival, such as Italianamerican from Martin Scorcese, episodes from David Attenborough’s Tribal Eye series, Mira Nair’s So Far From India, Alfred Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein’s The Memory of Camps, Frederick Wiseman’s Missile and Zoo, the Maysles Brothers’ Christo in Paris, Errol Morris’ Stairway to Heaven and Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A requiem in Four Acts. Numerous films screened at the fest were nominated for the Academy Award for the best Documentary Feature and several received an Oscar, Ryan, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, and The Blood of Yingzhou District.

From October 13-16, The Margaret Mead Film Festival presented special events and films from 50 countries. Among the noteworthy aspects of the festival events were premieres such as the New York Times documentary, Ladies First: Saudi Arabia’s Female Candidate, a multimedia installation Aue Aaway by the Samoan artist Dan Taulapapa McMullin, a Virtual Reality Lounge providing a platform for attendees to experience nomadic cultures or Cuban dance; and several workshops. The events explored the exploration of funding, the applications of Virtual Reality and a showcase of new ethnographic documentaries.

As in 2015, more than half of the productions selected for 2016 were directed by women. More than 700 films were submitted to the festival of which 44 made it to the final selection. An estimated 6,000 people attended the screening and over 1,000 viewed documentaries with VR headsets, with thousands more exposed to the installations in the grand gallery.

As articulated by Bella Disai, the Museum’s director of public programs and exhibition education, “The themes of the films reflect contemporary issues that communities are dealing with… many films illuminate issues we see in the news such as immigration, women in politics, climate change, and indigenous rights... The sense of division in our society – over politics, identity, and values - feels overwhelming… this year with the theme Re: Frame we seek to reconnect, rediscover our common humanity and rethink how we see the world around us”

Re: Frame as the guiding rational for the film festival presented stories from new perspectives. This focus on the framework of interpretation which structures our perception of reality is an essential tool for making sense of the cultural context we are embedded in. Social scientists frequently use the term frame analysis to detect the determinants of our perception.  Visual representations such as the arts, documentaries, and feature films are an essential tool to introduce us to the divergent frames defining socially constructed realities and actions of other groups and cultures.  The exposure to interpretations shared by other cultures can have an important impact on our frame of interpretation and be instrumental for the modification of our views by challenging pre-judgements.  The Mead film festival is crucial in providing a means to shape our perception of realities beyond our socio-economic confines.

Among the outstanding productions of the festival were:

Under the Clouds, Marco Antonio Concalves, Eliska Altmann, 2015, Brazil

In the sixties a diary by Carolina Maria de Jesus, Quarto de Despoja was published. It described her experience living in one of Sao Paulo’s worst favela, living in a cardboard house and supporting her family recycling paper. The story of her struggle for survival in a violent slum became a bestseller. Fifty years later, two film makers adapted Carolina’s prose and poetry about the favelas of Rio de Janeira with the help of six women representing the roles women played in the diary. Influenced by their anthropological training, the classic work by Jaen Rouch, and knowledge gained by extensive fieldwork carried out in the Rio favelas, Concalves and Altmann delivered an outstanding film produced on a low budget. The photography is remarkable and the actresses convincingly portray life in the favelas, with the film successfully transposing fifty year old reflections from Sao Paulo into the contemporary settings. The women are strong characters, have pride living in their favela, engage in difficult but successful working lives, and show themselves to be strong female role models in the Brazilian favelas. Under the Clouds presents the vibrant social force of the favelas and the essential role women play in sustaining them.

Farewell Ferris Wheel, Jamie Sisley and Miguel Martinez, USA, 2016

About 80% of the workers in the traveling carnivals and fares in the United States come from Mexico with about 60,000 people entering the county under the temporary H-2B visa program. This labor force is easily recruited in spite of low wages and miserable working conditions because the earnings far exceed what these Mexicans make as unskilled workers at home. American employers depend on them because few Americans want to work in the Carnival industry and most are considered unreliable.  For the workers visas, travel arrangements and job placement are arranged by an independent contractor. The carnival industry is declining as a result of the growing alternative leisure options in the United States. The Mexican workers are paid less than minimum wages, lack health care, and live in miserable conditions while working. Attempts to improve the working conditions of Mexican workers are vigorously fought against by lobbyists paid by carnival owners. The National Labor Relations Board is the governmental organization responsible for protecting and overseeing H-2B visa workers, but due to a lack of congressional funding is unable to enforce existing regulations which would protect the workers. It took Sisley and Martinez eight years to complete the film. They provided such a balanced and well researched view of Mexican workers and their seasonal employers that the documentary has been requested by Washington  D.C policy makers.

Casa Blanca, Aleksandra Maciuszek, Poland, Mexico, Cuba, 2015

This remarkable film from first time Polish film maker Maciuszek, who learned her craft in Cuba, captures the process of aging and restricted communication in an exemplary manner. Vladimir is in his forties, suffering from Down syndrome and loves to drink. For many years, his mother Nelsa has taken care of him. Both have been living in a single room. Vladimir has not pursued a career and his limited social life is shaped by his relationship with his mother and encounters with his friends.  Over a period of several months, the film makers record the interactions between Vladimir and Nelsa. Their roles have reversed as Vladimir now must take care of his frail and weakening mother, washing, feeding, and clothing her. Vladimir’s relationship with Nelsa is one of close emotional report, though their verbal communication is extremely limited and reduced to childlike utterances. After Nelsa falls and has to spend some time in the hospital Vladimir must become her full-time caretaker.  The use of point of view shots by the film makers creates a great deal of intimacy between the view, Nelsa, and Vladimir. As the film approaches its end, there is virtually no discourse and the overarching presence of intimacy is felt even more so. Shortly after filming was completed Nelsa passed away.

Ladies First: Saudi Arabia’s Female Candidate, New York Times,  2016

This short documentary offers a fresh view into Saudi Arabia’s political process by focusing on women and their participation in the 2015 national elections.  Under the guidance of Mohammed bin Salman the government decided to allow women to run for office for the first time and 900 decided to do so, most of them from the elite strata. Though women could also vote less than 130,000 out of a population of 20 million registered to do so. Several female candidates were interviewed for the documentary, including a married homemaker in a traditional role, an activist just out of jail for driving a car, and a professional.  In the Saudi Arabian society women have no role outside their home, and even there their spouses and male family members define their activities.  Outside the university setting public roles for women are nonexistent.  One woman was eliminated as a candidate, others had to restrict their campaign in a cautious manner to chat rooms, none could use public spaces to advocate their platforms, and interviews at home had to be approved by their husbands.  Except for shopping in malls, women can only travel outside the home when chaperoned by a male. They are not allowed to drive cars or open checking accounts. There are no comparable restrictions on men.  Across the entire country only 21 women were elected to occupy 1% of all seats. It was stipulated that these women cannot attend council meetings in person but could participate through teleconferencing.

Kolwezi on Air, Idriss Gabel, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2016

Known for its resources and never-ending armed conflicts costing the lives of more than a million people, the DR Congo has no mass communications in the Western sense. Rather, its regions are served by small local radio stations establishing the link between the audience they serve and the outside world. Kolwezi on the Air (RTM) provides locally produced news items and entertainment programs to this provincial capital surrounded by cobalt and coper mines. Management funds the programs through advertising, maintains a precarious balance with local politicians, and serves as an intermediary between the people and local authorities. It has an important role because  are no other media outlets exist.  There is investigative reporting on wages not having paid to workers, dangerous mining work, deformed babies because of mothers’ exposure to radioactivity, and on the outbreak of a disease as well as. Studio shows present local music and debates of local issues such as the faith healing of AIDS and of modern medical practices, and feature scenes of marriages and funerals. Transmissions are periodically interrupted by power failures and generators must be used. In a discussion with a former local member of Parliament the station manager is told that the expectations of progressive change are unrealistic and that the population is not ready for democracy. The manager remains optimistic because the Congolese people are eminently capable of adaptation. Kolwezi on Air is an ideal instrument for understanding local broadcast operations in developing countries. 

Claus Mueller,  filmexchange@gmail.com