Ethnografilm fest offers a slice of little known cultures

A poster of the Ethnografilm fest organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation

Kochi: In a bid to expose people of Kochi to a slice of little known cultures across the world, Kochi Biennale Foundation has organised the city's first-ever Ethnografilm Festival. As many as 10 ethnographic films from the US, Indonesia, Congo, Australia, the Czech Republic, besides India, were screened during the festival organised at Children's Park Theatre on June 17, KBF release said on Thursday.

The event was organised in association with Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA).

The screened films, which are short non-fiction movies, ranged from old-school anthropological investigations of "disappearing worlds" to illustrated interactive tensions in visual forms.

Internationally-renowned documentary-maker Wesley Shrum, who is the Executive Director of Ethnografilm Festival, attended the screening.

"The idea of the festival is to create an ambience in which academicians can step forward to present their audio- visual work," he said.

Shrum also announced that a new journal of video ethnography had been launched.

"The journal and the film festival have a specific purpose. The idea behind the film festival and the journal is to explore social and cultural milieu across the world through films," he said.