Zulay

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:27:00 GMT

Filmed over a span of 8 years, this film is based on dialogue between Zulay Saravino, an indigenous Otavaleña of Equador, and Mabel Prelorán, an Argentine anthropologist living in Los Angeles.

The Otavalo Indians are industrious landowners and farmers who have also transitioned somewhat to a textile-based economy, selling handwoven garments to tourists at markets in Quito.

The film shows the beautiful mountainous landscape of Zulay's home and the traditions of her people – their work, history, food, clothing, and Catholic religious practices. The educated and business-savvy Zulay shares her opinions on tourism and photography and her anger over the stereotypes imposed on indigenous people in Equador. She tells Mabel stories passed down from her elders and reflects upon the trade-offs she's had to make in leaving her home to come to Los Angeles, where her desire to learn new skills is tempered by homesickness. The film becomes a universal document on transculturation and its implications for identity, education, economic advancement, and emotional ties.

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A Zenana

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:25:00 GMT

A Zenana
Buy Now: $320.00

In India, the most secluded section of the palace was the zenana, or women's quarters. Here, until recently, palace women lived behind protective walls and brass doors firmly shut at night.

This film is an account of women's life in the Dhrangadra, in northern India, the seat of power of the Jhala Rajputs from the 11th century A.D. until 1947. The film unfolds through songs, dances, and stories of several palace women, including the Maharani (wife of the Maharaja), who is the mother of one of the filmmakers. She and others reflect upon traditional women's roles, the strictness of their former seclusion, and the ideals of women's purity and inner strength.

“Of particular interest is the Maharani's account of how she left PURDAH (seclusion) in 1967 to help her husband, H.H. Sriraj Meghrajji III, contest state election, and how she too was persuaded to run for office in 1971. One notices how in a photograph of her on that occasion the tail of her SARI passes over the left shoulder in the popular fashion, rather than over the right shoulder in the parochial manner of the Zenana...”
— Paul Hockings, American Anthropologist

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Zulay

A Zenana