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Into the Field
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Filmmaker Name:
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Alyssa Grossman
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Film Length:
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28 min
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Film Year:
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2006
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Duration:
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21-45 min
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Decade:
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2000s
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Color:
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color
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Region:
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Europe
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This film examines the everyday secular lives of nuns residing in the Romanian Orthodox monastery of Varatec. The majority of the 450 members of this monastery live as small groups in private houses, much like regular villagers, rather than inside the walls of the communal abbey. Throughout the year, they integrate their duties at home with their religious responsibilities to their community and to the church.
By visually exploring the social aesthetics of the monastery, the film depicts certain aspects of the nuns' everyday, lived experiences. Instead of exclusively focusing on the spiritual qualities of monastery existence, it documents the secular aspects of the nuns' relationships, activities, and routines, and offers a glimpse into the concrete ways in which they negotiate their identities within the separate yet connected spaces of home and church.
The film also incorporates brief sequences of stop-motion animation, demonstrating some of the trials and tribulations that anthropologists sometimes encounter during filming and fieldwork. Intended as a reflexive meta-commentary, these passages point to some of the unpredictable and often uncontrollable processes of ethnographic investigation.
“Visually, Grossman captures the dazzling Romanian countryside in summer as well as the women's calmness and happiness with the life they have chosen... an interesting ethnographic field study of a small but vibrant closed community in central post-Soviet Europe. Recommended for undergraduates.”
— Linda Frederiksen, Washington State University,
Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)
SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Student Award for Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology / AAA Film & Video Festival, 2006
Romanian Public Television Award: First Prize for Best Student Film, Astra International Film Festival, 2006
First Prize, Student Film Competition, Göttingen International Film Festival, 2006
Honorable Mention, Black Maria Film & Video Festival, US, 2007
Honorable Mention, Student Section, Iowa City Int'l Documentary Festival, 2006
Into The Fields
SCREENINGS & AWARDSCRONOGRAF International Documentary Film Festival, Republic of Moldova, 2008
Eyes & Lenses IV - Competition of Ethnographic and Anthropologic Films, Poland, 2007
International Ethnographic Film Festival of the Royal Anthropological Institute, UK, 2007
EURORAMA, Ethnographic Film Festival, Trento, Italy, 2007
Torun Film Festival, Torun, Poland, 2007
Art and Culture Exhibition Centre, Ethnographic Film Festival, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2007
New Directions Film Festival, Manchester, UK, 2007
Mostra Etnografica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2006
European Association for Social Anthropology Conference, Bristol, UK, 2006
International Festival of Ethnological Film, Serbia, 2006
Mostra Etnografica Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2006
XV International Festival of Ethnological Film Belgrade, Serbia, 2006
IC Petrescu National Pedagogical Library Ethnological Society Bucharest, Romania, 2006
Sheffield Doc-Fest, Sheffield, UK, 2006
International Women's Film Festival Cologne, Germany, 2006
Moscow International Film Festival Moscow, Russia, 2006
European Association for Social Anthropologists Conference Bristol, UK, 2006
Nordic Anthropological Film Association Festival Bergen, Norway, 2006
Beeld voor Beeld Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2006
Iowa City International Documentary Festival Iowa City, IA, 2006
WorldFilm Tartu Festival of Visual Culture Tartu, Estonia, 2006
New Directions Film Festival, Manchester UK, 2005
Director, Camera, Editing
Alyssa Grossman
Sound
Selena Kimball
Alyssa Grossman
16mm Animations
Selena Kimball
Music
Putnam Smith
On-Line Editing
David Henderson
Sound Mixing
Jon Tipler
Technical Support
William J. Brown
Editorial Advisor
Laetitia Merli
Review: American Anthropologist 111(1):103-104, February 2009, by Alice Forbess
View more documentary photos on flickr.
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