Astra Film

DAVID MacDOUGALL ASTRA FILM FEST 2000 celebrates the work of famous documentarist David MacDougall. The MacDougalls experimented boldly with the new technology, but gave it their own distinctive political-humanistic interpretation. The films they made in Kenya and Uganda among the Jie and Turkana pastoral peoples were a major attempt to reduce the distance between film-makers and their subjects, to make the process of filming less distant, colonial, patronising, more open to allowing the subjects their own voices, and their reservations and reactions about the filming process to take an honest place in the films made. David wanted to call this a more "participatory" cinema, employing an "unprivileged" camera style. At the same time, the notion of an authoritative, didactic commentary telling the audience what to think was expelled.

Most recently, David and Judith have made PHOTO WALLAHS, a film which illuminates North Indian working photographers, their sense of craft and aesthetics. David was then invited to Sardinia, by the Sardinian Institute of Ethnography, where he made a major documentary on the dilemmas of change as they impacted on two generations of shepherds, and this film was cut by the distinguished British editor Dai Vaughan. It succeeds in creating sympathy for men who have too often been treated by writers as uncouth and inarticulate. It is a study in gentleness and understatement, which can stand in eloquent contrast to portrayals of rural Mediterranean men as combative and loudly assertive patriarchs. It is the ideal film to set against Michael Herzfeld's monograph about Cretan shepherds The Poetics of Manhood.

The MacDougalls experimented boldly with the new technology, but gave it their own distinctive political-humanistic interpretation. The films they made in Kenya and Uganda among the Jie and Turkana pastoral peoples were a major attempt to reduce the distance between film-makers and their subjects, to make the process of filming less distant, colonial, patronising, more open to allowing the subjects their own voices, and their reservations and reactions about the filming process to take an honest place in the films made. David wanted to call this a more "participatory" cinema, employing an "unprivileged" camera style. At the same time, the notion of an authoritative, didactic commentary telling the audience what to think was expelled.

Filmography
Film dates indicate year of production/year of release

1967 J. Lee Thompson: Director. Columbia Pictures.15 min. (Director/Camera)
1968/89 Imbalu: Ritual of Manhood of the Gisu of Uganda, Richard Hawkins and Suzette Heald. 75 min. Commendation, RAI Film Festival, 1990. (Camera)
1968/70 Nawi 20 min. (Director/Camera)
1968/72 To Live With Herds. 70 min. Grand Prix "Venezia Genti", Venice Film Festival, 1972. (Director/Camera)
1968/74 Under the Men's Tree. 15 min. (Director/Camera)

1970 Man Looks at the Moon. Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films. 25 min. (Writer/Director)
1972/74 Kenya Boran. American Universities Field Staff. 66 min. (Co-Director/Camera)
1974/77 The Wedding Camels. 108 min. RAI Film Prize, 1980. (Co-Director/Camera)
1974/79 Lorang's Way. 70 min. First Prize, Cinéma du Réel, 1979 (Co-Director/Camera)
1975/77 Good-bye Old Man Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 70 min. (Director/Camera)
1977/78 To Get That Country Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 70 min. (Director/Camera)
1977/80 Familiar Places. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 53 min. (Director/Camera)
1978/80 Takeover Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 90 min. (Co-Director/Camera)
1974/81 A Wife Among Wives. 75 min. (Co-Director/Camera)
1978/82 Three Horsemen. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 54 min. Finalist, Greater Union Awards, Sydney Film Festival, 1983. (Co-Director/Camera)
1982/84 Stockman's Strategy Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 54 min. (Co-Director/Camera)
1982/84 Collum Calling Canberra. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 58 minutes Finalist, Best Documentary, Australian Film Awards, 1985. (Co-Director/ Camera)
1982/86 Sunny and the Dark Horse. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 85 min. (Co-Director/Camera)
1982/86 A Transfer of Power. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 22 min. (Co-Director/Camera)
1986/87 Link-Up Diary. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 86 min. (Director/Writer/Camera)
1988/91 Photo Wallahs Fieldwork Films/Australian Film Commission/Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 60 min. Award for Excellence, 1994 SVA/AAA Film Festival; Commendation, 1992 RAI Film Festival; Honorary Mention, 1992 Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco Film Festival. (Co-Director/Camera)
1992/93 Tempus de Baristas ("Time of the Barmen"). Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico/Fieldwork Films & BBC Televison. 100 min. 1995 Earthwatch Film Award; Golden Plaque, 1994 Chicago Film Festival; Commendation, 1994 RAI Film Festival; 1994 Ökomedia Award (Freiburg); Award for Excellence, 1998 SVA/AAA Film Festival. (Director/Camera)
1997/00 Doon School Chronicles, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University. 143 min. (Director/Camera)

We have the occasion to know this lifetime engagement rich in so colorful experiences by watching some of his films followed by discussions introduced and moderated by Peter Loizos. The films are as follows:

Photo Wallahs Director: David & Judith MacDougall Country: Australia Year: 1991 Length: 60

Filmed 1988-89, released 1991. Co-directed by David & Judith MacDougall.  An encounter with photography and local Indian photographers in Mussoorie, a hill station in the foothills of the Himalayas. A profound and penetrating documentary that explores the many meanings of photography, focusing on the photographers of Mussoorie, a hill station in the Himalayan foothills of northern India whose fame has attracted tourists since the 19th century. Through a rich mixture of scenes that includes the photographers at work, their clients, and both old and new photographs, this extraordinary film examines photography as art and as social artifact -- a medium of reality, fantasy, memory, and desire.

The Wedding Camels Director: David & Judith MacDougall Country: Australia Year: 1977 Length: 108

Filmed 1974, released 1977. Co-directed by David & Judith MacDougall. A narrative documentary about a wedding among the pastoral Turkana of northwestern Kenya. One of Lorang's daughters, Akai, is going to marry one of his friends and age-mates, Kongu. Because of the close ties between the two men everything should go smoothly, but the pressures within the two families are such that the wedding negotiations over the bridewealth become increasingly tense. Arranging the number and type of animals to be given as bridewealth demands an intricate balance between psychology and economics: Kongu must offer enough animals to please Lorang and his relatives, but not so many that he appears weak or foolish, or depletes his own family's herds. Negotiations drag on for several days, then threaten to break down altogether. The outcome depends not only on traditional patterns of behavior, but also on the influence exerted by Lorang's wives and the manner in which Lorang chooses to resolve the dilemma that confronts him.

Under the Men's Tree Director: David MacDougall Country: Australia Year: 1974 Length: 15

Filmed 1968, released 1974. At Jie cattle camps in Uganda men often gather under a special tree to make leather and wooden goods and talk, relax, and sleep. This brilliant ethnographic documentary by renowned filmmakers David and Judith MacDougall captures one particularly riveting discussion one afternoon under the men's tree. The conversation on this particular afternoon becomes a kind of reverse ethnography, centering on the European's most noticeable possession, the motor vehicle. This is a uniquely delicate and intimate film, filled with the humor of the Jie and, implicitly, the ironic wit of the filmmakers.

To Live with Herds Director: David MacDougall Country: Australia Year: 1972 Length: 70

To Live With Herds s a film about the Jie, a predominantly pastoral people of northeastern Uganda. Following a period of relative isolation under the British Protectorate government, the Jie are now under increasing pressure to exchange their traditional culture and subsistence economy for a cash economy and participation in a modern nation-state. The film examines this predicament in the light of Jie values. The question is not whether change is avoidable, but whether forms of change can be found that extend rather than attack the foundations of Jie life.

Tempus de Baristas Director: David MacDougall Country: Australia Year: 1993 Length: 100

"Time of the Barmen" is one of the most acclaimed works of renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall. It profiles three goatherders in the mountains of eastern Sardinia and, with extraordinary insight and nuance, explores a traditional way of life that is rapidly disappearing as commercial farming displaces herding and young people drift to the coast for the higher pay and glamour of the tourism industry. Pietro, a boy of 17, loyally helps his father in the herding and milking of their goats. His father Franchiscu, 62, would like his son to stay in the mountains but knows he will probably have to leave to further his education and his prospects. Their friend Miminu, in his 40s and still unmarried, knows all his goats by name but faces a future of increasing poverty and isolation. For Pietro, the lives of his father and Miminu provide reference points against which to measure himself and consider his future in a changing world.