For some time now I’ve been engaged in coastal alpine research in Laxyuup Gitxaała (Traditional Territory of Gitxaała Nation). These trips have involved harvesting mountain goat wool, experimenting with winter access, and more generally learning what one would need to do to live for extended periods in the coastal alpine. This short film takes the viewer to Gitxaała’s coastal alpine and shows us as we walk in our ancestors’ footsteps.
Update: November 23, 2020. After early two years of discussions, planning, applications, and then construction, the new purpose-built digital production space for The Ethnographic Film Unit @ UBC is now a reality. Due to the ongoing pandemic we won’t be able to physically use the new space for some time. However, things are moving forward and furniture is soon to be moving back into the rebuilt space. While the new lab was primarily envisioned as production facilities for the Film Unit, other members of the department will be able to…read more
The Ethnographic Film Unit is one of several faculty run labs based in the Department of Anthropology at UBC. These labs are focussed around individual faculty members’ research interests and often support graduate student research and, when able, the research of other faculty and students on or even off campus. The place of laboratories as units of research is more common among our colleagues in sciences, but as our long-standing history of laboratories in the Department of Anthropology shows it is not something foreign to us. The ethnographic film unit…read more
Main Screen Features. April 12, 2015. AnSo Building, rm 207. 10:15 OIL & WATER is the coming of age story of two boys as they each confront one of the world’s worst toxic disasters, the prolonged contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon by Texaco and other oil companies. Hugo comes to America to fight for the survival of his tribe, the Cofán, while David goes to Ecuador to launch the world’s first company to certify oil as “fair trade.” Can Hugo become the leader his tribe so desperately wants him to…read more
The idea of travel captures our imagination; it opens up possibilities of change, adventure, and perhaps even personal growth. But this is travel that is planned, intended, and carried on for fun. What happens when we are compelled to travel or find ourselves displaced within our own homeland? Three films in this year’s international Festival of Anthropology Films take up the question of travel and displacement. The Strangers of the Inca Trail takes us into the world of youthful trekkers – Australians, North Americans, Europeans, coming together to form a…read more
Issues of death and associate customs have been on the minds of many people who live in the University Neighbourhoods areas of UBC. The University’s longstanding attempt to bring a hospice for the near to death onto campus ran up against the cultural values and sensibilities of a group of residents living in a high rise complex called Promontory. This wasn’t, however, the first time the hospice has faced opposition from campus groups. Previously, UBC students, allied with the Wreck Beach Preservation Society, raised concerns about the first planned location…read more
The ethnographic film unit at ubc has formally been in existence since 2005 and informally since 2001! We had our start in research-based videography and have long since morphed into a full-time digital video production unit. For nine years we hosted an annual international festival of anthropological film at times co-hosted with MOA and at times co-hosted with the University Neighbours Association. Every few years we teach a course in ethnographic film production, ANTH 478.
