Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Piault, Colette / All Films

Return to the Brouck

Wed, 24 Oct 2018 13:44:00 GMT

Return to the Brouck
Buy Now: $320.00

Forty years after the production of The Fenland (Le Brouck) comes a follow up about the Audomarois Fenland.

Return to the Brouck (Retour au Brouck) (55 min, 2011)

Set in the natural environment of northern France, criss-crossed with water ways, market gardening as well as breeding remain the only productive activities. Nevertheless, the number of fenlanders has seriously diminished from 200 farms in the 1970 to 40 in 2010. Other elements are now intervening such as ecology, preservation and development like the Natural Regional Park and the Romelaere Natural Reserve, or leisure activities like waterfowl hunting, fishing and tourism.

Through images and words Return to the Brouck expresses this new reality, confronting the actors of the past - young fenlanders of the 70s - with the present. Juxtaposing the images of the past with those of 2010. The core of the film still remains, as in the 70s, the vivid problem of the present and the future of the Audomarois Fenland and its inhabitants.

Included on the DVD is the original feature:

The Fenland (Le Brouck) (black & white, 38 min, 1972)

Devised and shot in close collaboration with a group of eight local fenlanders, young men and women who lived and worked as market gardeners in the area of Saint Omer, northern France, the film bears witness to a particular moment in time - a moment of recognition when these young agriculturalists, who belong to a relatively closed specific socio-economic group, asked themselves some hard practical questions about the social and economic problems facing their kind of agriculture.

The film aims to be sociological to the extent that it reveals and fixes a moment of social change. But it takes care not to freeze this in an ideological or political analysis; it does not try to smooth over the positions they take, which are often contradictory yet all the more illuminating for that.

It was the young fenlanders themselves who chose the sequences to film and the themes to bring up in the discussions. These young people offered their views on the future of the Fenland, on aspects of trade unionism in agriculture and the possible options open to them. More than the commentary, which serves merely as introduction or to make a link, it is the discussions between the young people that really weave the film together.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

The Fenland

Festival dei Popoli, Florence, 1972

Festival of Ethnographical & Sociological Film, Venice, 1972

Festival of Visual Culture, Finland, 2010

Return to the Brouck

Days of Ethnographic Cinema, Russia, 2012

SVA Ethnographic Film Festival, USA, 2012

Camera in the Fields, France, 2011

31st Nordic Anthropological Film Association, Scotland, 2011

30th International Ethnographic Film Festival Jean Rouch, Paris, 2011

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Greek series

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

Greek series
Buy Now: $1,570.00

Filmed through the 1970s and 80s, these six films follow different aspects of life in Ano Ravenia, a mountain village in Greece which has been progressively deserted by its most active population. Within these films, intimate observations of the isolated villagers' daily lives - work, family life, marriage - reveal the profound in the ordinary and everyday.

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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Charcoal-Makers

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Charcoal-Makers
Buy Now: $295.00

A strange landscape in the middle of the Greek mountains. The silhouettes of furnaces emerge from the hazy and smoke-dappled light. Charcoal-makers, who come sometimes from distant places with their families, are burning wood to make charcoal. They rent their services out to contractors during the five or six summer months. Verging on the poetic, the film describes the difficult and archaic process of charcoal-making in a modern world.

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day
Buy Now: $340.00

Every Day is Not a Feast Day is a chronicle of the daily life in Ano Ravenia, a mountain village in Greece. Although the village appears to be virtually self-sufficient, the truth is that its economical, social, and family life depends on the outer world to a great extent. Like many mountain villages, Ano Ravenia, has been progressively deserted by it most active population. The film shows the painful transformation from the holiday feasts and the temporary return of those who have left to live elsewhere to the monotony and calm of daily life. Without any commentary, the film respects the daily pace of the villagers.

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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Dead Presumed Missing?

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Dead Presumed Missing?
Buy Now: $295.00

Between 1963-74, about 2000 Turkish and Greek Cypriots disappeared during hostilities between the two communities of Cyprus. Following an abortive coup in 1974, Turkey invaded and occupied the north of the island. 200,000 Greek Cypriots, a third of the population, fled their homes, becoming refugees in the south. During the Turkish invasion, many died in the war, but their bodies were never recovered. Others (including women and children) vanished behind the advancing Turkish army. To this day, Turkey refuses to offer any explanations. The fate and whereabouts of the Greek and Turkish Cypriots missing remains an official secret. In the confusion of 1974, some, but not all, of the missing Greek Cypriots were buried hurriedly on the Greek side. The return of the remains of the rest cannot be realized since they are behind Turkish lines. In spite of various attempts at resolution, including a UN Committee, both sides still guard the unidentified hidden bones of each others' missing persons The film was shot in 2001 when the possibility of DNA identifiication redefined the problem and gave it a new urgency. By following the desperate attempts of two Greek women to discover the fates of their loved ones, the film explores the signficance of mortuary rituals and the different political lives of dead bodies among the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Useful in Political Anthropology classes, and to those interested in ethnic violence, recuperation, memory, rituals, DNA identification, and politics of the body.

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A Hard Life

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:26:00 GMT

A Hard Life
Buy Now: $320.00

Kalliopi Kalogerou has spent her whole life in the Greek village of Ano Ravenia where she was born in 1900. Simple witness of the century, she lived through Turkish domination and successive occupations linked to different wars. Most of her family stays elsewhere, in Greece or abroad (USA, Canada, Germany, Bulgaria); her shattered family world is representative of the Greek diaspora.

A Hard Life focuses on Kalogerou's life story, told to a young Epirot friend, Eleni Pangratiou-Alexakis, and to her daughter, Evguenia, both of whom have settled in the States. The result is a rich, yet austere film where nothing distracts the viewer from the dialogue and the face of the storyteller. It also constitutes an ordinary yet important testimony on this long and painful page of Greek history (1900-1983).

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 1996

Göttingen International Film Festival, Germany, 1996

NAFA Film Festival, Bergen, Norway, 1996

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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Let's Get Married

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:41:00 GMT

Let's Get Married
Buy Now: $295.00

Eleni, who was raised in Greece but lived with her aunt Martha's family in Martin, Tennessee met Demetrios who was living and working with his father in the Greek village of Ano Ravenia. While she was on holiday, they fell in love and married. This observational film follows this Greek-American wedding day in the manner of a home movie shot by professional filmmakers. Delimited, natural, and spontaneous, the film reveals the American influence on Greek culture through behaviors, attitudes, and language.

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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My Family and Me

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:50:00 GMT

My Family and Me
Buy Now: $320.00

Shot over four years, the film shows one specific aspect of migration: family relationships. Thanassakis, a 13-year-old boy, is staying with his grandparents in the Greek village of Ano Ravenia, while his parents stay with his younger brother in Zurich, Switzerland. It was filmed during three periods: winter in the village, summer in the village (while his parents, as most migrants, come back for the holidays), and Christmas in Zurich when the grandfather and the young boy visit their family. Because of the closeness which developed between the crew and the family, the documentary often resembles a fiction film; it attempts to understand the family relationships not through interviews but following and filming moments of daily life, showing their emotional family atmosphere. Only during the last shot does the filmmaker ask a question directly to a member of the family: Who is most important to the young boy – his father or grandfather? The father responds with unexpected precision.

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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Thread of The Needle

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Thread of The Needle
Buy Now: $295.00

Ano Ravenia, a mountain village in Greece, young men leave to find work, learn a trade or serve in the Army while a young woman may leave her father’s house only to enter that of her husband. The unmarried girls remain in the village amoung the elderly folk, meeting together to embroider their trousseaus and chat. In a rural Greek community, it is not the role of women to express their point of view in public. The film allows the spectator to sit in one of these casual sewing sessions where the girls talk about their wishes and problems, most of which revolve around marriages that will change their lives.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York, 1983

Bilan du Film Ethnographique, France, 1984

Broadcast, ERT II, Greece, 1984

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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