The Professional Foreigner: Asen Balikci and Visual Ethnography
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by Rolf Husmann and Manfred Krüger
color, 60 min, 2009
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Asen Balikci has been a leading figure in making ethnographic films for many decades. In a series of talks between Balikci and filmmaker Rolf Husmann in different locations, the life and work of Asen Balikci are shown and discussed: the film takes us from Asen's youth in Istanbul to his career in Canada where he became famous for making the Netsilik Eskimo Series, to filming in Afghanistan and then turning to two other activities of his: as a networker for the Commission on Visual Anthropology (CVA) and as a teacher of Summer Schools in Siberia and Bulgaria. His film work among the Bulgarian Pomak and his still ongoing work in Sikkim (India) conclude the film which is not only the portrait of a famous expert in Visual Ethnography, but also more generally touches upon vital issues of ethnographic filmmaking.
Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards
Worldfilm 2009, Tartu Festival of Visual Culture, Estonia, 2009
Days of Ethnographic Film, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2009
Freiburg Film Forum, Germany, 2009
Royal Anthropological Institute International Festival of Ethnographic Film, UK, 2009
ICAES World Forum, Kunming, China, 2009
University of British Columbia Ethnographic Film Festival, Canada, 2009
AAA/SVA Film, Video and Multimedia Festival, Philadelphia, PA, 2009
International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia, 2009
International Ethnographic Film Festival of Quebec (FIFEQ), Canada, 2010
Related Films:
A Month In The Life of Epthim D.
Netsilik Eskimo Series
Sons of Haji Omar
Through These Eyes