October 4, 1999 Anthropology brings major documentary film festival to Santa Cruz By Jennifer McNulty If you loved the movie Buena Vista Social Club, mark your calendar for October 15, when local audiences will have a chance to enjoy the poignant film Black Tears, a musical portrait of the octogenarian Cuban quintet La Vieja Trova Santiaguera (The Old Troubadours). The Bathhouse (Pirtis), is a Lithuanian documentary about the oldest and last active public bathhouse in Vilnius. The 75-minute film by Dutch director Sonia Herman Dolz captures the group performing to sellout crowds during a six-month European tour and features moving interviews with the musicians as they reminisce about the music, dance, and love that has inspired them throughout the years. Beautifully shot, the film also documents one-of-a-kind musical moments. Black Tears will be screened as part of the first-ever Santa Cruz Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, which will be held October 13-24 at Louden Nelson Community Center and at the Theater Arts Center at UCSC. The festival is being presented by the UCSC Anthropology Department, the Santa Cruz City Museum of Natural History, and the American Museum of Natural History. "This festival gives us the opportunity to see new international documentary films that otherwise wouldn't make it to campus or the community," said Hugh Raffles, assistant professor of anthropology and one of the organizers of the event. The festival offers 17 of the most outstanding entries from the prestigious Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, which is presented annually in New York by the American Museum of Natural History. This year's inaugural Santa Cruz festival will include films from Taiwan, Cuba, Poland, Russia, Australia, Lithuania, Congo, Belgium, Canada, and the United States. The documentary films cover topics as diverse as taxidermy, abortion, menstruation, the transformation of traditional Aborigine dreaming stories into animated films, and the razing of a rural village in Taiwan to make way for a major highway. The schedule also includes the Santa Cruz premiere of Pepino Mango Nance, a film by UCSC graduate student Gillian Goslinga that tells the story of a young Chicano composer. The films are offered in six programs that revolve around the themes of relocation, border crossing, resistance, loneliness, women and taboo, and Australian indigenous media. The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival in New York is the largest showcase for international documentaries in the United States. Founded in 1977, the festival honors pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead, who was one of the first anthropologists to recognize the significance of film for fieldwork. Screenings during the first three days of the festival, October 13-15, will take place at the Louden Nelson Community Center at 301 Center Street in Santa Cruz. The second half of the festival, October 22-24, will take place in the Media Theater at the Theater Arts Center at UCSC. Tickets will be available in advance at the Civic Auditorium at 307 Church Street, the UCSC Ticket Office in the Theater Arts Center, and the Santa Cruz City Museum of Natural History at 1305 East Cliff Drive. Admission is $2.50. Please note: The presenters advise discretion in bringing children under age 12 to the screenings. All shows start at 7 p.m. except for the matinee show on Sunday, October 24, which starts at 2 p.m. Complete program and schedule information is available on the Web at www.meadfilmfest.org. For more information, call (831) 420-6115 or send e-mail to meadfest@cruzio.com. Return to Front Page