Documentary
Buy your own copy of Funeral Season on the Documentary Educational Resources website :
http://www.der.org/films/funeral-season.html
HD/DV, 87min. Documentary
Chosen for preservation by the Library and Archives of Canada, the multiple award-winning documentary feature Funeral Season has screened at various museums and universities around the world, UnionDocs in New York, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, and has been officially selected to over 40 international film festivals, including:
Sheffield Doc/Fest (one of the world’s most prominent events in the documentary film arena), FESPACO 2011 (the largest African film festival in the world and the biggest regular cultural event on the African continent), the 2012 Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, and the FIAPF accredited Montreal World Film Festival and Festival do Rio (Rio de Janeiro Int’l Film Festival).
You can see a more detailed list of previous screenings here.
To watch a two minute trailer, please go here.
READ WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE WRITING ABOUT FUNERAL SEASON:
“A snapshot of our multicultural, inter-connected world.”
— Liz Ferguson, Montreal Gazette
“A highly personal and refreshingly humorous take on the often sober subjects of African film.”
— Christopher Sykes, Montreal Mirror
“This extraordinary burial-road movie takes us into a world of ghost stories that we are only too happy to believe.”
— ETHNOCINECA Documentary and Ethnographic Filmfest Vienna
“A documentary in which ethnography is flipped on its head.”
— Jury of the Traces de Vies Rencontres du Film Documentaire (Prix du Premiere film professionnel)
“If WoodyAllen were to make an ethnographic documentary in Cameroon, the result would be something like FUNERAL SEASON.”
— Jury of the Traces de Vies - Rencontres du Film Documentaire (Prix du Premiere film professionnel)
——————————————————
Synopsis:
In this comedic ghost story, a Canadian Jew wanders through an African culture where “the dead are not dead.” Embarking on a road trip across Cameroon’s most joyous funeral celebrations, the foreigner befriends his guides and becomes increasingly haunted by memories of his own ancestors.
—————————————————
Press and Reviews:
Listen to this radio interview I did with CBC Radio while in Montreal for the Montreal World Film Festival.
Read what the Traces de Vies - Rencontres du Film Documentaire writes upon awarding Funeral Season:
French
Si Woody Allen avait envisagé de réaliser un documentaire ethnographique au Cameroun, le résultat eût sans doute pu s’approcher de Funeral Season (La Saison des funérailles) du canadien Matthew Lancit. Ici, le cinéaste se met en scène, de façon quelquefois burlesque, dans la peau de l’explorateur étranger, à la recherche, en réalité, de ses propres morts, de ses propres rites. En tapant à la culture de l’Autre, il fait résonner la sienne. C’est la démarche d’un cinéaste qui a choisi d’inventer une approche à la fois très personnelle, drôle, poétique et non conventionnelle de ce que l’ethnographie a eu coutume d’appeler l’Autre, le grand Autre à découvrir. En se mettant devant la caméra, sous les aspects de l’auto-dérision, Matthew Lancit prend le risque de s’exposer. Et c’est l’honnêteté de cette prise de risque que nous avons voulu récompenser. Un documentaire où l’ethnographie se trouve renversée, la tête en bas.
Engish Translation
If Woody Allen sought out to make an ethnographic documentary in Cameroon, the result would probably be something like Funeral Season by Canadian director Matthew Lancit. Here, the filmmaker stages himself, sometimes to the point of burlesque, in the skin of a foreign explorer seeking the remains of his own dead and his own rites. By tapping into the culture of the Other, this culture resonates within his own. This is the work of a filmmaker whose inventive approach is simultaneously very personal, funny, poetic, and unconventional in its approach to what ethnography has called the Other and the discovery of the big Other . By stepping in front of the camera with self-mockery, Matthew Lancit takes the risk of exposing himself. And it’s the honesty of this risk-taking that we wanted to reward. A documentary in which ethnography is flipped on its head.
———————————————————————————-
Read a review written about the film by University of Oxford professor David Zeitlyn in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute:
Read an article written in German about FUNERAL SEASON from the Ethnocineca Documentary and Ethnographic Film Fest - Vienna.
Traces de Vies - Prix du Premier film professionnel Prix de la Ville de Vic-le-Comte - 1500 €
♦ Funeral Season (La saison des funérailles) de Mathew Lancit
Si Woody Allen avait envisagé de réaliser un documentaire ethnographique au Cameroun, le résultat eût sans doute pu s’approcher de Funeral Season (La Saison des funérailles) du canadien Mathew Lancit. Ici, le cinéaste se met en scène, de façon
quelquefois burlesque, dans la peau de l’explorateur étranger, à la recherche, en réalité, de ses propres morts, de ses propres rites. En tapant à la culture de l’Autre, il fait résonner la sienne. C’est la démarche d’un cinéaste qui a choisi d’inventer une approche à la fois très personnelle, drôle, poétique et non conventionnelle de ce que l’ethnographie a eu coutume d’appeler l’Autre, le grand Autre à découvrir. En se mettant devant la caméra, sous les aspects de l’auto-dérision, Mathew Lancit prend le risque de s’exposer. Et c’est l’honnêteté de cette prise de risque que nous avons voulu récompenser. Un documentaire où l’ethnographie se trouve renversée, la tête en bas.
—————————————————-
UPPER WEST SIDE STORY
16mm, colour, 17min. 57sec.
This film was made just before my great aunt died. I hardly knew her, but after briefly visiting her Upper West Side apartment, I decided that I wanted to make a film about trying to make a film about her.
To watch the film, go here.
