ROOM 11, ETHIOPIA HOTEL

This film aims to capture a sense of the life of children living on the street in Gondar by witnessing the interaction between two children and the film-maker. Although it is about the children's life on the streets, the entire film was shot in the film-maker's room in the Ethiopia Hotel. This limited space allows the film to focus on communication between subjects and film-maker and to reveal some of the ideas that enable them to endure and survive on the streets. This film is more a sensitive testimony than a scientific documentary. Through its hybrid approach, the film-maker aims to explore new trends in visual anthropology touching upon intimacy and subjectivity.

About the filmmaker:
Itsushi Kawase is a filmmaker, anthropologist, and Buddhist monk currently living in Kyoto, Japan. He was born as the fifteenth heir of the successive Shin Buddhist temple in the village of Gifu in 1977. He studied anthropology at Ritsumeikan University and the University of British Columbia. He has been exploring the possibility of conveying the anthropological knowledge through an active on-screen engagement in a documentary on the phenomenal field by communicating, and occasionally arguing, with the people in the film. His films were screened in numerous university lectures and international film festivals inside and outside Japan

Further program on the 21. 05. 2008:

19:00 Luc de Heusch - Wild Thinking

20:00 SchoolScapes