Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Goslinga, Gillian / All Films

The Child the Stork Brought Home

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

The Child the Stork Brought Home
Buy Now: $320.00

The Child the Stork Brought Home is an intimate portrait of a gestational surrogacy arrangement, from the embryo transfer that "took" and got both the gestational surrogate and genetic parents "pregnant," to the birth of a slightly premature baby girl 34 weeks later.

The film captures, through spaced interviews and cinema verite scenes; doctor visits, the baby shower, the birth and its emotional aftermath. The ethical complexity of this most controversial of reproductive arrangements is revealed, at once celebrating its potential to transform understandings of the nuclear family and motherhood, while raising an alarm: that class privilege, and genetic laboratory assisted procreation, can seem to make breeders out of gestational surrogates.

The Child the Stork Brought Home has been used in Women's Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Science and Technology, Bioethics and Contemporary Studies classes at UCSC, UCLA, and U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The film was made at the Center for Visual Anthropology, at the University of Southern California.

An accompanying essay, "Body Boundaries, Fiction of the Female Self: An ethnographic perspective on power, feminism and reproductive technologies," has been published in Feminist Studies (Spring 2000, V.26, N.1, 113-140).

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The Poojari's Daughter

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:58:00 GMT

The Poojari's Daughter
Buy Now: $320.00

The Poojari's Daughter opens with flashbacks of the South Indian priestess Rajathiammal 'cutting the goat' and ritually having her head tonsured in Madurai, Tamilnadu. Both moments fulfill the priestess' deepest desires: to have herself filmed performing the annual goat sacrifice to the Saivite God Paandi, and to renounce her family life altogether.

Using experimental film techniques that recall the work of Trinh Minh Ha, The Poojari's Daughter weaves dramatic footage of these rituals and temple life at Paandi Kooyil with Rajathiammal's moving narration of her process, interviews with close family, and brief narrations by the filmmaker. Together, these create a vivid and unforgettably intimate portrait of the devotional worlds of this remarkable woman and South Indian Hinduism

“This film is, indeed, a brilliant attempt at conveying the richness of a female ascetic-householder. I would recommend it to students of anthropology and religious studies who are studying issues of health, healing, ritual possession, South Asian Studies, Tamil ritual life, women, and religious leadership.” — Vijaya Nagarajan, American Anthropologist, Vol. 114, No. 2

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Society for the Anthropology of Religion Meeting, New Mexico, 2011

SVA Film, Video, and Interactive Media Festival, Lousiana, 2010

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Pepino Mango Nance

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:57:00 GMT

Pepino Mango Nance
Buy Now: $275.00

Pepino Mango Nance was a class project made under the strict "rules" of CNTV 508 (at USC). The rules of the class were: the film had to be non-sync 16 mm, the number of shoot days could not exceed 10, the shooting ratio could not be more than 1:3, only two sessions of 4 hours each were allowed for the sound mix, and the finished film could not be longer than 400 Feet in length (approx. 11 minutes).

Bann and Gillian chose to be partners for this class but were considered to have very different approaches in style and method. They were inspired by Mike Davis's book City of Quartz, and so they started conducting research about day labor and their own work experiences in the households and businesses of the rich.

The filmmakers met Joseph Julian Gonzales, a second generation Chicano and music composer, who was beginning an experimental composition for a string quartet inspired by hawker calls of the vendors of downtown Los Angeles. Most of the street vendors were first generation immigrants - many of them undocumented migrants from Central America.

The film and the developing score influenced each other. Joseph's main concern was the "emotional pull" of the piece; the filmmakers' interest was the political scenario in which the project was situated. There was a considerable amount of conflict and tension among all parties in the making of the film, which was ultimately resolved.

During the course of shooting, a close friendship evolved between the filmmakers and Marta-Julia Lemus, the street vendor whose story runs parallel with Joseph's in the film. The street scenes were the most difficult to shoot, as they involved visual evidence of police action against the street vendors while not calling attention to them or placing them in any compromising situation.

In the end, the film is a complex mix - weaving art, politics, law, and culture into a whole package, experienced in 10 minutes. Pepino Mango Nance serves as an example of what is possible under very restricted means to other students of film. It also can be used in classroom discussions of immigration, urban America, politics and law as well as providing an inside look at the act of creation.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Student Film, Society of Visual Anthropology 1996

3rd Prize Documentary, Universty Film and Video Association

Virginia Festival of American Films

Women of Color Film Festival

"VISTA LA" KABC TV Channel 7

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