- This event has passed.
Session V: Healing Thing(s)
October 15, 2022 , 19:00 – 20:30
Moderated by Lydia Gauss
It is not just the planet that is in need of healing, the individuals inhabiting Earth are also looking for cures. There are various methods to deal with physical and mental pain, and these three films emerge from different practices, making invisible things visible. In doing so they question the boundaries between nature and culture: are the two entities actually homogenous and in a constant dialogue with each other?
Alla Bua (30 min)
Switzerland / Italy, 2021, Italian / Swiss German / English sub.
Directed by Zoë Beer
In this ethnographic documentary, Maria, Lele and Flavia share their personal stories of healing, all of them connected to a historical-religious phenomena: “Tarantism” in Southern Italy. Since the 14th century the Pizzica has been played and danced to cure people from a spider’s bite. Today, as Flavia, Maria and Lele tell us, it can be a cure for any physical or psychological pain, a cure even for the troubles of a fast-paced world. To them, the Pizzica is more than a music or dance form, and by listening, dancing or playing they experience “alla bua”, a different cure, which is connected to trance states, visions, the invisible and holy.
Zoë Beer is about to complete her BA in Social Anthropology and Interreligious Studies at the University of Berne. During her studies she has discovered her interest in ethnographic filmmaking and produced two films.
La Dieta (21 min)
Switzerland / Peru, 2021, English / German / Spanish / English sub.
Directed by Miriam Eigenheer
This anthropological short film is based on research conducted in the Peruvian Amazon with a curandero, a practicing healer, and his European patients. The curanderos administer medicines made of barks, roots and leaves from local plants and trees to treat patients with physical, emotional, or spiritual ailments within the framework of a dieta (diet). To purify the body, a dieta encompasses eating grilled fish and cooked plantains or manioc. During the time that a patient stays in the camp, for between 10 days and three months, they live in a hut with reduced social inputs and go through a holistic process of healing. Based on the Amazonian mestizo cosmology, individuals are treated and taught by the espiritu curanderos (spirit healers of the plants), which they contact by taking the medicines. This portrait offers a sensory journey into this setting of healing and embeds the practice of la dieta cosmologically.
Miriam Eigenheer studied Social Anthropology at the University of Berne and completed her MA at the Freie Universität in Berlin. Her second film La Dieta is part of her Master’s thesis.
Ngen (23 min)
Chile, 2022, Other, Spanish / English sub.
Directed by Jaime Bernardo Díaz Díaz
Through a contemplative and dreamlike journey, this documentary shows us the world of Rosa, a Mapuche machi from the town of Fin Fin Boroa, Araucanía Region. Watching her story and observing her environment brings us closer to the deep relationship that exists between herself, medicine and non-human beings called Ngen, owners of nature. Alongside this narrative, the short film also addresses the life/destruction dichotomy, a constant in the capital/life conflict, showing us another side of the consequences of the impact of the forestry industry in the territory of the Wallmapu that is affecting the Mapuche communities – not only in the ecological dimension, but also culturally and ontologically.
«How would we move in our environment if we knew that every tiniest pebble, every plant, every object is alive and idiosyncratic? Ngen approaches the Chilean Mapuche’s world view, in which human and non-human existences form a common entity. Director Jaime Bernardo Díaz Díaz works with long shots that give the audience time to process impressions. The carefully produced soundscape brings out further facets of nature and makes it a multi-sensory experience. Ngen deals with interesting anthropological topics such as medicine and healing, and the clash of different world views. At the same time, it is an aesthetic experience that appeals to the senses and stimulates reflection.»
— Paula Hsu on Ngen
Jaime Bernardo Díaz Díaz is the director, producer and editor of documentaries. He holds a degree in Ethnology from the National School of Anthropology and History, and an MA in Documentary Film from the University of Chile.
