10th RAI INTERNATIONAL
FESTIVAL OF
ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM
27 JUNE - 2 JULY 2007
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
INCORPORATING A MAJOR CONFERENCE:
BEYOND TEXT: SYNAESTHETIC & SENSORY
PRACTICES IN ANTHROPOLOGY
CENTRE FOR SCREEN STUDIES
SCHOOL OF ARTS, HISTORIES AND CULTURES
GRANADA CENTRE FOR
VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS 1987 - 2007
© Antony Gormley's Waste Man commissioned by Artangel for Penny Woolcock's feature film Exodus
SHADE SEEKERS AND THE MIXER (171)
10:00, Friday 29th June, Bragg
Director: Richard Werbner (UK)
Year: 2006
Run time: 56'
Location/Ethnic group: Botswana, Moremi Village/ Gaborone, Tswapong
Language: In English and Tswapong with English subtitles
Production/Distribution: Richard Werbner, International Centre for Contemporary Cultural Reseach, University of Manchester
Set in Botswana` s Maremi village within the awesome Tswapong Hills, the film reveals conflicting views of dignity and ancestrality in a local context of religious pluralism (including séances, Christian prayer and hymns singing, a funeral, a wedding, and at a regional oracular shrine, a sacrifice). The focus is on a controversy over a popular, maverick healer, Rantii. This is disclosed while Njebe (a former patient, now the anthropologist film-maker’s assistant), and four critical elders watch an earlier séance film. Mixing local and exotic healing cults and divination with Christianity, Rantii is suspected – of witchcraft, of polluting the earth, of wasting his powers – but he defends his claim to a God-given, original mission, to seriti, shade, powerful dignity, even charisma. The film is the second in a planned trilogy.
