The anthropological documentary film The Feel of History (2017) by PhD Candidate PhD Lise Zurné, has been selected to screen at the Regard Bleu Film Festival in Zürich on 19 and 20 October. The film is a result of her research during her Master in Visual Ethnography at Leiden University in which she explored the popularity of historical re-enactment in Indonesia.
The film is a result of her research during her Master in Visual Ethnography at Leiden University in which she explored the popularity of historical re-enactment in Indonesia. The documentary follows a historical society called the Komunitas Djokjakarta 1945 that every year re-enacts one of the last battles with the Dutch colonizers of 1949 in Yogyakarta. Following their preparations, this film explores the material culture of re-enactment and shows how these men create their own spectacular and romanticized re-presentation of the past.
Regard Bleu is an ethnographic film festival that is held biennially (even) at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich. Over the years, the festival has grown into an interdisciplinary platform for ethnographic and socially relevant film from a broad range of fields and institutions. This edition will be organized in collaboration with the audio-visual commission of the Swiss Ethnological Society and the Symposium Virtual realities: Re-thinking ‘experience’ in the age of new immersive media.
Currently, Zurné is continuing her research on this topic in her PhD project at the Center for Historical Culture. In her project, she will compare historical re-enactments of sensitive pasts in Belgium, The Netherlands and Indonesia. It is part of the Erasmus Initiative 'Vital Cities and Citizens’ and focuses particularly on the dynamics of reenactments of war-related violence in urban contexts.
- More information
- For more information about the film, please visit the website of The Feel of History
- More information about Lise Zurné and her research can be found on her personal page