Documentary Films and Discussion

C I N E M A N I A A N T H R O P O I D E A presents A Series of Documentary Films and Discussion BABOON TALES (1998) Thursday, 10 April, 7 – 9 pm, Center Hall 216 Baboon Tales is the story from birth through the first year of life in the almost decade-long journey to baboon adulthood.  Olive baboons are intensely social animals, weaving a shifting web of relationships with family, friends, and enemies.  Based on the real life experiences of five infants, the film follows these characters through their triumphs and tragedies amidst East Africa’s worst drought in over a decade.  Narrated by Glenn Close, this film is based on the long-term research of UCSD Primatologist Shirley Strum, who will be present to discuss the documentary.  This evening's event also includes the screening of a 6-minute experimental two-track video installation based on documentary footage of olive baboon sexual negotiations and a human enactment of the same materials filmed in black-and-white film noir style, a project by Rachel Mayeri (Media Studies Professor at Harvey Mudd College) and Deborah Forster (Primatologist and Doctoral Candidate in Cognitive Science at UCSD). AVATARS OFFLINE (2002) Thursday, 24 April, 8 – 10 pm, Center Hall 214 ***Please note irregular time and room of only this night*** Around the world, hundreds of thousands of people spend a significant portion of their lives in front of the computer screen.  They are willing to lose friends, family and spouses in order to live a life “more real” than their own.  Avatars Offline is the first documentary to explore the origins, present, and future of virtual worlds such as Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, and the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies.  UCSD Professor of Communication Noah Wardrip-Fruin joins CINEMANIA ANTHROPOIDEA on this occasion to discuss what the film proposes to be the revolutionary medium of the 21st century.  TROBRIAND CRICKET: An Ingenious Response to Colonialism (1976) Thursday, 8 May, 7 – 9 pm, Center Hall 216 Trobriand Cricket is considered a classic ethnographic film, documenting the appropriation and modification of the British game of Cricket by Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea.  The film demonstrates how Trobrianders have transformed the game into an arena for tribal rivalry, mock warfare, community interchange, sexual innuendo, and public festivity.  UCSD anthropologist Joel Robbins will join us and offer his thoughts on the film and the phenomenon upon which it focuses, offering comparative insights based on his research elsewhere in Melanesia.  MARTHA AND ETHEL (1994) Thursday, 22 May, 7 – 9 pm, Center Hall 216 Martha and Ethel explores the lives of two nannies, now in their eighties, who come from very different backgrounds.  Made by two of their respective “daughters,” the film warmly recounts the experiences of Martha, a German woman who emigrated to the U.S. during WWII, and Ethel, an African-American woman from South Carolina who migrated north in search of work.  Both women became integral members of the well-to-do families for whom they worked.  Based on interviews with the children they raised, this documentary raises provocative questions about the meanings of motherhood and the relations between social class and socialization.  UCSD Historian Rebecca Plant – author of a book on the history of American motherhood from the 1920s to the 1960s – will join the group in order to discuss the film. LICENSED TO KILL (1997) Thursday, 5 June, 7 – 9 pm, Center Hall 216 Based on probing on-camera interviews with seven men serving time behind bars, Licensed to Kill goes behind the media headlines of anti-gay murders in order to investigate their causes.  Attacked by gay bashers in 1977, filmmaker Arthur Dong explores the thoughts and feelings of men convicted of killing gay men by facing them one-on-one in cellblock interviews and asking them directly why they did it.  As seen through the eyes of murderers, the film examines the social, political, and cultural environments of these men and poses the question as to whether homophobia in society at-large granted them a “license to kill.”  UCSD Psychologist Michael Gorman joins CINEMANIA ANTHROPOIDEA on this occasion in order to discuss the film and relevant research on homophobia and arousal in men.