Ethnographic film

The history of ethnographic cinema coincides with the emergence of social anthropology and the advent of cinema at the end of the nineteenth century.

Initially, moving images were regarded merely as tools for recording “objective reality”: rituals, customs, and so-called “exotic” cultures, rather than as a medium of expression or analysis.

After the Second World War, a generation of anthropologists began to renegotiate the relationship between the researcher, the subject, and the camera. Ethnographic filmmaking moved beyond simple documentation and became a means of reflection, engagement, and understanding.

In Greece, one of the pioneering institutions in folklore studies is the Academy of Athens, through its Centre for Folklore Studies. Since the late nineteenth century, it has been assembling an archive of film recordings documenting all aspects of folk culture, both intangible and material. In 1962, the Department of Cinematic Documentation of Folk Culture was established. The archive includes approximately 8,500 metres of 16 mm film footage on folkloric subjects. From the use of video cameras in the 1980s to today’s digital cameras and even smartphones, researchers have documented, during their fieldwork, traditional rituals, agricultural practices, and practitioners of traditional crafts in the act of creation.

The Folklore Museum of Macedonia and Thrace also holds a series of video recordings of traditional craftspeople, particularly in metalworking, woodcarving, and shoemaking. The traditional art of weaving occupies a prominent place in these folkloric recordings, as do various agricultural activities, such as harvesting, threshing, the processing of chickpeas, and others.

In order for a film to be considered ethnographic, specialists have defined specific criteria, primarily relating to its scientific grounding in field research and accompanying written documentation. Ethnographic recordings must refer to a clearly defined spatial and cultural context, cover a specific period of time, and present scenes that are temporally identifiable in the film’s final form.

In this exhibition, visitors are invited to encounter aspects of traditional culture that are gradually disappearing and to experience the practice of folkloric recording and documentation through the rich material preserved by cultural institutions.