The CSCS Seminar on 'Cinema Studies and the Disciplines' hosts eminent filmmaker David MacDougall as the concluding session on the module on Anthropology and Film.

Schedule:
Tuesday, 7th September, 5 pm:
"Photo Wallahs" (60 mins), "Tempus de Baristas" (100 mins).
Saturday, 11th September, 4 pm:
"With Morning Hearts" (110 mins)
Saturday, 11th September, 5.30 pm:
Two-hour session with David MacDougall.

Film Synopses:

PHOTO WALLAHS
60 minutes. 1991
"Photo Wallahs" is a film about the varied meanings of photography. It is set in Mussoorie, a famous hill station in northern India, which has attracted tourists since the 19th century. In this setting photography has thrived. Without spoken commentary, the film discovers its subject in the streets, bazaars, shops, photographic studios and private homes of Mussoorie. In the process it compares the diverse work and attitudes of the local photographers -- Mussoorie's "photo wallahs." Although photography has developed certain culturally distinctive features in India, its many forms and uses there tell us much about the nature and significance of photography throughout the world.

TEMPUS DE BARISTAS
100 minutes. 1993
"Tempus de Baristas" explores the character and prospects of three mountain shepherds of eastern Sardinia. Pietro is seventeen. He loyally helps his father, Franchiscu, herding and milking their goats, but like other Sardinian youths he also goes to school, wears jeans and T-shirts and meets other teenagers at night in the village square. Their friend, Miminu, now in his forties, tends his family's large herd of goats virtually alone. He faces an uncertain future as commercial cheese-making and modern marketing increasingly displace traditional modes of pastoralism. Although born only about 20 years apart, each of these shepherds has grown up in a different world. For Pietro the lives of his father and Miminu are reference points against which to measure himself and consider his future. Filmed in an intimate style during the summer and autumn of 1992, this film by award-winning filmmaker David MacDougall offers some of the complexity of a contemporary novel - a quality rarely seen in today's documentaries. Winner of the 1995 Earthwatch Film Award

WITH MORNING HEARTS
2001. 110 minutes
A study of a group of 12-year-old boys during their first year at The Doon School, India's most famous boarding school. "With Morning Hearts" continues MacDougall's long-term study of an elite boys' boarding school in northern India. This film focuses on a group of twelve-year-olds during their first year in one of the "houses" for new boys. The film concerns their attachment to the house but, more importantly, their attachment to one another in a communal life. It follows, in particular, the experiences of one boy and several of his close associates, from their initial homesickness, to their life as members of the group, to their separation from the house at the end of the year. The title is taken from a school prayer:

Call us up with morning faces
And with morning hearts,
Eager to labour, eager to be happy
If happiness shall be our portion,
And if the day be marked for sorrow,
Strong to endure it

"Brings the viewer into the intimate world of adolescent boys from a variety of backgrounds, discovering and constructing themselves as they are being trained to become the future leaders of India. This is an extraordinary film for understanding how young men are being formed in everyday cultural practices and social aesthetics that reflect contemporary India as well as its colonial past. Made with extraordinary insight, sensitivity, and understated humour, this exquisitely made film - created by one of the leading figures in ethnographic documentary - is of great value for those hoping to communicate everyday realities about India, about education, about masculinity, and about film itself." Faye Ginsburg, Director of the Center for Media, Culture, and History, New York University.

Contact: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture & Society, 466 9th Cross Madhavan Park, 1st Block Jayanagar, Bangalore 560011. Telephone: 91-80-2-656-2986. email: ashish AT cscsban.org