Projection de films : Piblokto et Okmulgee Invitational

As part of the International Festival of Ethnographic Films of Quebec, City of Montreal (FIFEQ-MTL), attend the films screening of Piblokto, by Anastasia Shubina and Timofey, and Okmulgee Invitational by Adam James Smith.

The screenings will be followed by a discussion, in English, with the filmmaker Adam James Smith and Danya Leal, Master’s student in visual anthropology FLACSO-Ecuador and logistics and volunteer team coordinator at FIFEQ-Montreal.

Piblokto

Canadian premiere

Piblokto takes us to the Arctic Ocean Coast of Chukotka where marine hunters live and upkeep one of the last remaining fur farms in the region. The film attempts to depart from the typical rhythmic structure of cinema to instead imitate the form of a shamanic ritual. While claiming to call into question assumptions about Indigenous behavior, the film itself offers palpably outsider’s representation of these Arctic people.

Piblokto, 2023, 37 minutes, United States and Russia, Anastasia Shubina and Timofey Glinin. Original version in English and Russian with French subtitles.

Okmulgee Invitational

Quebec premiere

Filmmaker and visual anthropologist Adam James Smith takes his perspective and camera to the Okmulgee Invitational, one of the largest and oldest rodeo events organized by African Americans in the United States. During the course of a particularly festive and rich evening, the camera becomes almost omniscient, attempting to capture the ordinary life of this spectacular and singular event.

Okmulgee Invitational, 2023, 45 minutes, United Kingdom and United States, Adam James Smith. Original version in English with English subtitles.

About Adam James Smith

Adam James Smith is a British filmmaker based in New York. His filmmaking practice spans rural and urban environments across China, Japan, and the United States. His first feature film, The Land of Many Palaces, on the Chinese “ghost city” of Ordos, participated in the Sundance Institute workshop and premiered at the 2015 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The film then went on to screen at festivals around the world, picking up awards in Moscow, Rome, and Kyoto. His follow-up film, Americaville, on the Chinese replica of Jackson Hole, Wyoming was sponsored by the Whicker’s Foundation and the Asian Cinema Fund.

Adam is currently working on a series of films documenting the diversity of the rural experience throughout the American Heartland, including the country’s oldest Black rodeo in Okmulgee Invitational and the oil boom awakening the abandoned homesteads of North Dakota in Frontier Phantom. Adam was educated in film at Stanford University and anthropology at Cambridge University, the latter of which he is currently an Affiliated Filmmaker at the university’s Visual Anthropology Lab.

Informations

• Free activity, in English, presented on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, at 7 p.m.
  Q&A with the public in English.
• Duration : 2 h
• Location: J. Armand Bombardier Theater
• Space is limited, no reservation required.

FIFEQ-MTL

The International Festival of Ethnographic Films of Quebec, City of Montreal (FIFEQ-MTL) was founded in 2003 by visual anthropology students at Université de Montréal. A free and unique festival, it is one of the rare platforms to screen and promote ethnographic cinema in Canada.

Thanks to the generous involvement of hundreds of students from Concordia University, McGill University and Université de Montréal and of non-student professionals, the Festival has brought together thousands of viewers, all passionate about cinema and visual anthropology or simply curious about discovering hidden gems of the ethnographic repertoire.