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Romantic Realism Film Lounge Programme

Agnès Varda, Salut les Cubains, (Hi there Cubans) 1963, 28 minutes (courtesy of
8 Nov 2010 (All day) - 23 Jan 2011 (All day)
Slide show: 
Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina Agarrando Pueblo (The Vampires of Poverty), 1978,
Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina Agarrando Pueblo (The Vampires of Poverty), 1978,
Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina Agarrando Pueblo (The Vampires of Poverty), 1978,
Agnès Varda, Salut les Cubains, (Hi there Cubans) 1963, 28 minutes (courtesy of
Agnès Varda, Salut les Cubains, (Hi there Cubans) 1963, 28 minutes (courtesy of
Paul Robello and Bobbie Mann St Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle, 1923/1928
Paul Robello and Bobbie Mann St Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle, 1923/1928
Paul Robello and Bobbie Mann St Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle, 1923/1928

The romantic impulse in ethnographic films is examined in the new Film Lounge programme. Moving image has long been used as part of the scientific description of individual peoples and cultures, recording rituals and relationships together with the spaces and practices of everyday life.

These historical films move from Agnès Varda's celebration of Socialist ideals in 1960s Cuba in which she captures the optimism of local communities four years after the revolution to an early tourist's-eye-view of the remote island of St Kilda. The problematics of the ethnographic approach to documentation are made more explicit in Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo's The Vampires of Poverty, a film which directly challenges the practices of what they call 'porno-miseria' or 'poverty porn'. Whether embracing or critiquing a romantic perspective, each of these films reveal the extent to which it is embedded in documentary modes.

FILM LOUNGE PROGRAMME

Carlos Mayolo & Luis Ospina   Agarrando Pueblo (The Vampires of Poverty),1978, 28'
Paul Robello & Bobbie Mann   St Kilda, Britains Loneliest Isle, 1926/28, 18'
Agnés Varda   Salut les Cubains (Hi there Cubans), 1963, 28'
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