Distribute: online round table discussion

The Vienna node of the #Distribute2020 conference (May 7-8-9, 2020) is an online round table discussion organized in collaboration with ethnocineca International Documentary Film Festival Vienna (May 8-14, 2020). Guided by the conference theme “distribute”, six anthropologists discuss the enduring as well as changing role of ethnographic films and film festivals in the distribution of anthropological knowledge.

Ethnographic film festivals have long been important venues for the screening of films produced by anthropologists, and for organizing discussions between anthropologists and wider audiences. With new media, digital networks, and anthropology at home, as well as COVID-19 realities of closed theaters and a shift to online events, the ways in which anthropologists interact with audiences are changing. The round table participants consider these changes to discuss: How does anthropological knowledge reach audiences? And what is the enduring as well as changing role of film festivals in this process?

Round table participants:
Marie-Christine Hartig (ethnocineca, Kaleidoskop, SOHO in Ottakring)
Andy Lawrence (University of Manchester)
Viktoria Paar (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna)
Katja Seidel (ethnocineca, Maynooth University)
Christos Varvantakis (Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, researcher at Goldsmiths)
Sanderien Verstappen (University of Vienna)
Werner Zips (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna)

For more information about the Distribute event, see the article “Corona: distributing anthropological films during the pandemic“ in AllegraLab (October 2020).

For further discussions about the online future of anthropological films, see the RAI Film Festival Conference panel “Rethinking anthropological film distribution: radical sharing beyond the crisis” (March 2021).