People
David MacDougall
David MacDougall is an ethnographic filmmaker, scholar, and writer on cinema, the social sciences, and education. Although born in the USA of American and Canadian parents, he has lived in Australia since 1975. He was educated at the Dalton School, the Putney School, Harvard University, and the University of California at Los Angeles. His first film To Live with Herds won the Grand Prix "Venezia Genti" at the Venice Film Festival in 1972. In 1973 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which was used to make a trilogy of films on the Turkana of northwestern Kenya with his wife, Judith MacDougall. Since then he has made a number of prize-winning films in Australia, Europe and India focusing on the social experience of people in diverse situations and cultures. These include Photo Wallahs (1991), made with Judith MacDougall, on local photographers in the hill station of Mussoorie. In 1995 he won the Earthwatch Film Award. In 1997 he began a long-term study of the Doon School in northern India. This has resulted in five films, the first two being Doon School Chronicles (2000) and With Morning Hearts (2001). Retrospectives of MacDougall's work have been held in New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Freiburg, and Tokyo. His publications include a book, Transcultural Cinema and such journal articles as 'Beyond Observational Cinema', "'Ethnographic Film: Failure and Promise', "'Photo Hierarchicus: Signs and Mirrors in Indian Photography' , and "'Social Aesthetics and The Doon School'". A new book of essays is due to be published in 2004. In 2001-02 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He is currently an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University and Director of its Program in Visual Research.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
David MacDougall completed his Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg) in July, having spent a year working on a book on visual anthropology. During the year he also gave papers and other presentations in London, Paris, Rome, Munich, Heidelberg, Tunis, Rome, Sydney and New Delhi. In August he completed an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship and took up a new ARC Australian Professorial Fellowship at the CCR, where he will work on a research project on social aesthetics funded by an ARC Discovery grant. In March and October he made field trips to India to further his work on the Doon School Project and survey sites for a new ethnographic film project to begin in 2003. In October he concluded the first stage of a collaborative project funded by an ANU Faculty Research grant to explore intentionality in ethnographic filmmaking with Gary Kildea, Director of the Ethnographic Film Unit at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Toward the end of the year he completed the fourth film in the Doon project, The New Boys, and edited the final film in the series, The Age of Reason.
PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
1994-2000
Member, Rhetoric Culture Project, Mainz University (Germany);
Australian Delegate, International Commission on Visual Anthropology, ICAES (International Commission on Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences);
Advisory Committee, Margaret Mead Film Festival, American Museum of Natural History, New York; Co-organiser,; Juror, ethnographic film festivals at Paris, Göttingen, Sibiu (Romania), Nuoro (Italy).
EDITORIAL BOARDS:
Associate Editor, Visual Anthropology;
Editorial Consultants Board, Visual Anthropology Review;
Editorial Advisory Board, Humanities Research
TEACHING & SUPERVISION
1997- Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and Convenor, Program in Visual Research, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University
1996 Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, New York University
1994 Simon Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Manchester
1993 Visiting Lecturer, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University
1993 Regents' Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
1991 Visiting Professor, Institute of Social Science, University of Tromsø, Norway
1983 Visiting Lecturer, Queens University, Canada
1980 Filmmaker-in-Residence, National Film and Television School, Great Britain
1970-75 Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and Co-Director, Rice University Media Center, Houston
1967-69 Teaching Assistant, Motion Picture Division, Department of Theatre Arts, University of California at Los Angeles (part time)
1962-64 Volunteer Teacher, US Peace Corps, Malawi
SUPERVISION
Current
Silke Andris, PhD Candidate, CCR, ANU
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
2001 Retrospective of films, Freiburg Film Festival
1998 Award for Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology
1997 Retrospective of films, Beeld voor Beeld Festival, Amsterdam
1995 Earthwatch Film Award
1994 Golden Plaque Award, Chicago Film Festival
Film Commendation, Royal Anthropological Institute
Ökomedia Film Award, Freiburg
Award for Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology
Retrospective of films, Münchener Stadtmuseum
1992 Rockefeller Foundation Intercultural Film/Video Fellowship
Honorary Mention, Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco Film Festival
Film Commendation, Royal Anthropological Institute
1987 Documentary Fellowship, Australian Film Commission (taken up 1988)
1985 Finalist, Best Documentary, Australian Film Awards
1984 Retrospective of films, Münchener Stadmuseum
1984 Retrospective of films, Berlin Film Festival
1983 Finalist, Greater Union Awards, Sydney Film Festival
1981 Retrospective of films, Nippon Audio Visual Hall, Tokyo
1980 Film Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Retrospective of films, Conference on Visual Anthropology, Philadelphia
Retrospective of films, Media/Study Buffalo, New York
Honoured Filmmaker, 1980 Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York
1979 First Prize of Cinéma du Réel Festival, Paris
1973 National Endowment for the Humanities (USA) film grant
1972 Grand Prix "Venezia Genti", Venice Film Festival
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
1969 Louis B. Mayer Foundation Fellowship
1968 Ford Foundation International and Comparative Studies film grant
1967 Carl Foreman Film Fellowship
FILMS & PUBLICATIONS
FILMS
1997/2001 With Morning Hearts, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University. 110 minutes.
Karam in Jaipur, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University, 56 minutes.
1997/2000 Doon School Chronicles, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University. 143 minutes (Director/Camera)
1992/93 Tempus de Baristas (Time of the Barmen). Instituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico/Fieldwork Films & BBC Televison. 100 minutes (Director/Camera)
1988/91 Photo Wallahs. Fieldwork Films/Australian Film Commission/Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 60 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1986/87 Link-Up Diary. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 86 minutes. (Director/Writer/Camera)
1982/86 Sunny and the Dark Horse. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 85 minutes. CoDirector/Camera)
A Transfer of Power. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 22 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1982/84 Stockman's Strategy. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 54 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
Collum Calling Canberra. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 58 minutes. (Co-Director/ Camera)
1978/82 Three Horsemen. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 54 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera
1974/81 A Wife Among Wives. 75 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1978/80 Takeover. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 90 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1977/80 Familiar Places. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 53 minutes. (Director/Camera)
1977/78 To Get That Country. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 70 minutes. (Director/Camera)
1975/77 Good-bye Old Man. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 70 minutes. (Director/Camera)
1974/79 Lorang's Way. 70 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1974/77 The Wedding Camels. 108 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1972/74 Kenya Boran. American Universities Field Staff. 66 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)
1970 Man Looks at the Moon. Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films. 25 minutes. (Writer/Director)
1968/74 Under the Men's Tree. 15 minutes. (Director/Camera)
1968/72 To Live With Herds. 70 minutes. (Director/Camera)
1968/70 Nawi. 20 minutes. (Director/Camera)
1968/89 Imbalu: Ritual of Manhood of the Gisu of Uganda, Richard Hawkins and Suzette Heald. 75 minutes. (Camera)
1967 J. Lee Thompson: Director. Columbia Pictures. 15 minutes. (Director/Camera).
BOOKS
1998 Transcultural Cinema. Selected essays, edited by Lucien Taylor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
JOURNAL ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS
2001 'Renewing Ethnographic Film', Anthropology Today. Royal Anthropological Institute, 17 (3): 3-9.
'Blind Ducks in Borneo', In Displaced Objects, Karl-Heinz Kohl (ed.) Frankfurt: Frobenius Institute - Frankfurter Kunstverein.
'Radically Empirical Documentary: An Interview with David and Judith MacDougall' Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor (eds.) Film Quarterly, 54 (2), 2-14.
1999 'Social Aesthetics and The Doon School' Visual Anthropology Review, 15 (1): 3-20.
'When Less is Less', Film Quarterly, 1992, 46 (2): 36-45. Reprinted in Film Quarterly: Forty Years—A Selection, University of California Press, 1999, 290-306.
1997 'The Visual in Anthropology', In Rethinking Visual Anthropology, Banks, Marcus and Howard Morphy (eds.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
'Visual Anthropology and the Ways of Knowing', In Visual Anthropology at the Crossroads, Jay Ruby & Paul Stoller (eds) Santa Fe: School of American Research.
1995 'The Subjective Voice in Ethnographic Film' In Fields of Vision, L. Devereaux & R. Hillman (eds) Berkeley: University of California Press.
'Subtitling Ethnographic Films: Archetypes into Individualities', Visual Anthropology Review, 11 (1): 83-91.
1992 'Photo Wallahs: An Encounter with Photography'Visual Anthropology Review, 8 (2): 96-100.
'Films de Mémoire' Le Journal des Anthropologues, Special Issue, No. 47-48, Spring 1992: 67-86. (Also printed (in English) as: 'Films of Memory' Visual Anthropology Review, 1992, 8 (1): 29-37. Reprinted: Visualizing Theory, L.Taylor (ed.), New York: Routledge, 1994: 260-70.)
"Mais, au fait, l'anthropologie visuelle existe-t-elle vraiment?" In Demain, le cinéma ethnographique?. Special issue of CinémaAction, J-P. Colleyn & C. De Clippel (eds), 1992, 64: 51-57. (Reprinted (in Portuguese): II Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnografico, P. Monte-Mór & C. Peixoto (eds) Rio de Janeiro, 1994: 71-75.)
1992 'Whose Story Is It?' Visual Anthropology Review, 1991, 7 (2): 2-10. (Reprinted: Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions, P. I. Crawford & J. K. Simonsen (eds) Aarhus: Intervention Press, 1992: 25-42. Reprinted: Visualizing Theory, L. Taylor (ed.) New York: Routledge, 1994: 27-36.)
'Complicities of Style', In Film as Ethnography., Peter I. Crawford & David Turton (eds), Manchester University Press, : 90-99.
'Photo Hierarchicus: Signs and Mirrors in Indian Photography' Visual Anthropology, 5 (2): 103-29.
1988 'Versuche mit dem inneren Kommentar' Flahertys Erben, Trickster Verlag, 16: 46-61.
1987 'Media Friend, Media Foe?' Visual Anthropology, 1 (1): 54-58.
1986 'Film Teaching and the State of Documentary' CILECT Review, Centre Internationale de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinema et Television, 2 (1): 105-10.
1978 'Ethnographic Film: Failure and Promise' Annual Review of Anthropology 7, pp 405-25.
1975 'Beyond Observational Cinema', In Principles of Visual Anthropology, Paul Hockings (ed.) The Hague: Mouton,109-24. (Reprinted in Movies and Methods, Vol. 2, Bill Nichols (ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985: 274-87. Reprinted (in French): Pour une anthropologie visual, C. de France, ed. Paris: Mouton Editeur, 1979: 89-104. Reprinted (in German): Kinemathek 60: Film und Ethnographie, 1982: 14-27. Reprinted (in Italian): Figure dell'uomo: antropologia e cinema, Rita Cedrini (ed.) Palermo: Sellerio editore, 1990: 87-97.)
1969-70 'Prospects of the Ethnographic Film' Film Quarterly Winter 23 (2): 16-30. (Reprinted: Movies and Methods, Vol. 1, Bill Nichols (ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976: 135-50.)
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
2000 'Filmare I Bambini', In Bambini-Children-Pizzinos, P. Piquerredu (ed.) Nuoro: Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico.
1996 'Reframing Ethnographic Film: A 'Conversation' with David MacDougall and Judith MacDougall" Ilisha Barbash and Lucien Taylor, eds. American Anthropologist 98 (2): 371-387.
1995 Conversations with Anthropological Film-Makers: David MacDougall. Anna Grimshaw and Nikos Papastergiadis, (eds) Cambridge: Prickly Pear Press.
'A Silence in Stockholm' CVA Newsletter, Commission on Visual Anthropology 1/95.
1994 'Films and Rivers', In L'Uomo e il Fiume, P. Piquereddu, (ed.) Nuoro: Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico, 23-26.
1992 'Reflections on Visual Anthropology in the Mountains' In Montagne, P Piquereddu (ed.) Nuoro: Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico, pp 23-27.
'Reflections on Events at the Humanities Research Centre', CVA Review, Fall : 42-44.
'Documentary Film Festival', SVA Newsletter, 5 (2): 27-30.
1982 'Unprivileged Camera Style', RAIN (Royal Anthropological Institute Newsletter), No. 50, June : 8-10. (Reprinted (in German): Die Fremden Sehen, M. Friedrich et al. eds, Munich: Trickster Verlag, 1984: 73-83.)
1981 'A Need for Common Terms" SAVICOM Newsletter', Society for the Anthropology of Visual Communication 9 (1): 5-6.
'The Ethnographic Film as Inquiry: An Interview with David MacDougall' University of California Extension Media Center, Berkeley. Lifelong Learning, No. 1: 2-3,5. (Reprinted (in German): Die Fremden Sehen, M. Friedrich et al. eds, Munich: Trickster Verlag, 1984: 109-19.)
1980 'Notes on the Making of Lorang's Way" A Retrospective of the Ethnographic Films of David and Judith MacDougall', Gerald O'Grady (ed.) Buffalo: Media Study/Buffalo: 8.
1981 'Ethnographic Filming in Uganda', P.I.E.F. Newsletter (March) 2 (4): 2-5.
'A New Age of Scribes?', Institute for the Arts Newsletter, Rice University, Houston (Spring): 1.
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"The MacDougalls are developing a post-Warholian behavioral cinema." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, NY.
"The films of David and Judith MacDougall evince a special brand of casual elegance. ... These artists are among the world's finest anthropological filmmakers." - Film Forum, NY.
"Documentary does not stand still. ... Objectivity is not claimed, and in the work of the MacDougalls and Rouch, is replaced by the close attention to detail and the structure of the observed event. This produces a new form of narrative close to the work of Renoir, Rohmer, Olmi or Loach. It is in ethnographic film that this is seen at its clearest. ... The MacDougalls [are] the best of the observational film-makers." - Colin Young, Edinburgh International Film Festival.
"David and Judith MacDougall are the most prolific and important ethnographic filmmakers in the anglophone world today." - Lucien Taylor, American Anthropologist.
"The MacDougalls' films accomplish the very goal of cultural translation to which the finest ethnography aspires." - Fred Myers, Cultural Anthropology.
"David MacDougall is one of the leading anthropological film-makers of the generation following Rouch's. ... The twenty or so films that he has both shot and directed have been highly influential in establishing a model of good practice in ethnographic film-making. MacDougall also has the ability to write elegantly and reflectively about what he does." - Paul Henley, London Review of Books.
"MacDougall stands as one of the great creators of, and commentators on, film working today." - Bill Nichols, San Francisco State University.
"The MacDougalls' films have set a standard of professional quality and integrity which may well mark out guidelines for this type of ethnographic film-making for many years to come." - James Woodburn, Royal Anthropological Institute.
"For those familiar with the field of Visual Anthropology, the name MacDougall appears with welcome regularity. ... This volume [Transcultural Cinema] shows that David MacDougall's theoretical insights equal his outstanding contribution to the practice of ethnographic film-making." - T. Wright, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
"David MacDougall, without doubt one of the most interesting contemporary director-ethnologists, has the relatively rare merit of uniting cinematographic practice to theoretical reflection, so much so that we can unreservedly assign him a foremost role in the 'renewal' of visual anthropology." - Paolo Chiozzi, Visual Anthropology.
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THE WEDDING CAMELS
"Though modest in tone, 'The Wedding Camels' demonstrates a structural sophistication well beyond that of almost any other documentary film work today." - Bill Nichols, Film Quarterly.
"[The Wedding Camels is] the freshest and most engaging film of its kind since the early days of Jean Rouch." - Charles Spelvin, Soho News, NY.
"The MacDougalls' beautiful new anthropological feature on the Turkana people of Kenya is an extraordinary film; a breakthrough in generic terms. ... The Wedding Camels relies strongly on the translation of spoken language to convey complex relationships and in larger, more cinematic terms to create a highly expressive, often comical study of human nature." - Film Forum, NY.
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LORANG'S WAY
"[Lorang's Way] is a sort of laidback Citizen Kane." - The Village Voice, NY.
"Lorang's Way focuses upon a Turkana elder who serves not only as the subject of a beautifully observed portrait but also in many ways as a spokesman for the Turkana. ... The film could be described as a 'philosophical essay' which resists written description, so rich and detailed are its images and statements." - James Woodburn, Royal Anthropological Institute.
"The first Turkana film ... got through to me on a very personal level-and I don't mean just because it managed to do everything one has been prevented from doing in TV for years. Fatuous as it may sound, the comparison which sprang to mind was Virginia Woolf: something to do with the tone created by the particular blend of classicism, detail and faultless timing." - Dai Vaughan.
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TO LIVE WITH HERDS
"To Live with Herds was to influence a generation of film-makers who were seeking a documentary style which got closer to people of non-literate cultures." - Peter Loizos, Innovation in Ethnographic Film.
"MacDougall's early film, To Live with Herds (1971), is often cited as a classic example of observational cinema, while much of his subsequent work (the Turkana trilogy and the collaborations with Australian Aboriginal communities) is acknowledged to constitute an important critique of the genre." - Anna Grimshaw, Visual Anthropology Review.
The MacDougalls' considerable achievement with the East African films was to follow Rouch's lead in working for a more 'direct' documentary style, but to add to it an ability to allow events to unfold, and subjects to comment at a more leisurely pace. To Live with Herds was the most important ethnographic film to have been made since Chronique d'un été and it was intellectually a much more complex film text than the Rouch-Morin film. - Peter Loizos, Innovation in Ethnographic Film.
"[To Live with Herds is] one of those rare documentaries that seem to have a life of their own... Mr. MacDougall's camera is quietly there, observing all, missing nothing in this moving, penetrating, anthropological picture. No wonder it was cited at last year's Venice Film Festival." - Howard Thompson, The New York Times.
"[To Live with Herds] offers an admirable harmony of photographic and editorial styles. In few other films do tribal people speak so naturally and informally about themselves." - Roger Sandall, Sight and Sound.
"[To Live with Herds is] one of the most humorous, touching, informative, and (in both spirit and aesthetics) beautiful anthropological films I have ever seen." - Karen Cooper, Film Forum, NY.
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DOON SCHOOL SERIES
"The Doon School films are landmark visual essays into the cultures of middle class modernity in India. They will prove important tools towards an understanding of the institutional sites and cultures of the self that constitute postcolonized life." - Prof. Sanjay Srivastava, Deakin University.
Filmography
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NEW BOYS, THE »PART 4 OF THE DOON SCHOOL QUINTET The fourth film in David MacDougall's Doon School Quintet, THE NEW BOYS provides a comparison to the group viewed in With Morning Hearts, for these boys appear more divided and class-conscious... |
TURKANA CONVERSATIONS »Three films by David and Judith MacDougall. Purchase all 3 films as TURKANA CONVERSATIONS or buy individual titles via following links: * LORANG'S WAY * http://www... |
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WITH MORNING HEARTS »With Morning Hearts continues David 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... |
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WEDDING CAMELS, THE »A girl of the homestead, Akai, is to marry Kongu, an old friend and age-mate of her father, Lorang. Because of the close ties between Lorang and Kongu, everything should go smoothly, but the pressures within the two families are such that the wedding negotiations become increasingly tense and almost break down altogether... |
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WIFE AMONG WIVES, A »We hear the testimony of three remarkable sisters (one of them being Arwoto, the senior wife of Lorang, who figures so prominently in the other films)... |
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TO LIVE WITH HERDS »A classic of ethnographic cinema, at last readily available in Australia. TO LIVE WITH HERDS is a film about the Jie, a predominantly pastoral people of northeastern Uganda... |
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PHOTO WALLAHS »PHOTO WALLAHS is set in Mussoorie, a famous hill station in northern India which has attracted tourists since the 19th century... |
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DOON SCHOOL CHRONICLES »PART 1 OF THE DOON SCHOOL QUINTET Filmed over a two-year period by David MacDougall, this film looks at the life of Indian middle-class boys as they experience the effects of institutional, national, and global pressures during the transitional years from childhood to adulthood... |
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KARAM IN JAIPUR »PART 3 OF THE DOON SCHOOL QUINTET This third film in David MacDougall's Doon School Quintet follows the main protagonist of With Morning Hearts into the next phase of his life in Jaipur House, one of the five main houses of the school... |
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LORANG'S WAY »Because they are relatively isolated and self-sufficient, most Turkana (including Lorang's own son) see their way of life continuing unchanged into the future... |
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SOME ALIEN CREATURES »In this film about a progressive co-educational boarding school in South India, young boys and girls jokingly accuse each other of being like "alien creatures... |
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AGE OF REASON, THE »In this fifth and final film in his Doon School Quintet, filmmaker David MacDougall focuses on the life of one student at Doon school, an all-boys academically selective boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India... |
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TEMPUS DE BARISTAS »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... |
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SCHOOLSCAPES »Since completing the Doon School Quintet, his series of films about an elite boys’ boarding school in North India, MacDougall has turned his attention to other institutions for children in India... |
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GANDHI'S CHILDREN »GANDHI'S CHILDREN is about children building a society of their own within an institutional environment. The Prayas Children's Home for Boys is located in one of the poorer quarters of New Delhi... |
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COLLUM CALLING CANBERRA [from the AIATSIS Collection] »Gordon Smith, head of the Collum Collum Aboriginal Co-operative which operates a cattle station in northern New South Wales, and Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, are negotiating with the Aboriginal Development Corporation in Canberra for a loan... |
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STOCKMAN'S STRATEGY [from the AIATSIS Collection] »Constructed as a series of vignettes of station life, the film focuses particularly on the relationship between Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, and a 16-year-old trainee, Shane Gordon... |
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SUNNY AND THE DARK HORSE [from the AIATSIS Collection] »Country folk know of pleasures that townsfolk never know ... The story of an Aboriginal stockman and his family and their growing passion for “picnic racing” on bush tracks in New South Wales... |
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TRANSFER OF POWER, A [from the AIATSIS Collection] »This observational documentary follows an episode in the routine life on Collum Collum cattle-station in northern New South Wales... |
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FAMILIAR PLACES [from the AIATSIS Collection] »Narrated by the linguist and anthropologist Peter Sutton, this documentary observes his work with a family in far north Queensland, outside Aurukun, to map their hereditary “clan country”... |
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GOOD-BYE OLD MAN [from the AIATSIS Collection] »At the request of a dying Tiwi man and his family on Melville Island, this film was made of the pukumani (bereavement) ceremony to follow his death... |
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TO GET THAT COUNTRY [from the AIATSIS Collection] »Without narration, and without identification of individual speakers, the film provides an invaluable record of two events which occurred in the final week of January 1977, and which marked “a turning point in legal recognition of Aboriginal rights to land”... |
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LINK-UP DIARY [from the AIATSIS Collection] »LINK-UP DIARY explores the consequences of the New South Wales government’s long-term practice of taking Aboriginal children away from their parents and raising them in “white” environments... |
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TAKEOVER [from the AIATSIS Collection] »DIGITALLY RE-MASTERED FROM ORIGINAL FILM MATERIALS! One of the major works produced by the AIAS Film Unit, this documentary observes the profound effect on an Aboriginal community of political and bureaucratic decisions made far away... |
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THREE HORSEMEN [from the AIATSIS Collection] »THREE HORSEMEN is one of several films that the MacDougalls made in and around Aurukun in the far north of Queensland. It is a deeply moving portrait of three generations of Aboriginal stockmen at Ti-Tree station, 80km south of Aurukun, a former cattle out-station of Aurukun Mission and now a settlement for people who regard Ti-Tree as their home... |
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ARNAV AT SIX »Filmed as a collaborative project between ethnographic filmmaker, David MacDougall, and the six-year old Arnav Koshy, this film explores Arnav’s keenly observant view of the complex world around him... |
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UNDER THE PALACE WALL »From the 16th century the Indian village of Delwara in southern Rajasthan was ruled as a principality of the kingdom of Mewar... |
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AWARENESS »Filmed in South India at the progressive Rishi Valley School, founded by the 20th Century Indian thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti, Awareness explores the sensibilities of two groups of young Indian teenagers - a group of girls in their dormitory, and a group of boys in theirs - as they live out their daily experiences at the co-educational school... |
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CHILD'S EYE, THE »AVAILABLE ONLY ON DVD! Through a series of workshops across India, documentary filmmaker David MacDougall sought to empower young filmmakers to engage directly with the world around them, using cameras to interrogate and explore what they saw, from their own unique child’s perspective... |