We are hosting a special film screening of "A King in China", a documentary by former Cologne anthropology student Paul Harris, who donated his ethnographic film collection to our department. 

Event Details: 

Date: Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Time: 16:00-18:00
Location: Hörsaal XIb (Hauptgebäude)

Film Screening: A King in China 

The director, Paul Harris, will be present to introduce his film and discuss the film-making process. Paul studied anthropology at our institute from 1989 to 1993. After that he studied Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology in Manchester in the UK. Back in Cologne, Paul worked in production and then as a sound and camera operator to gain experience before venturing out to make his own films. He will touch on aspects of film-making such as directing, producing and rights, as well as about his experiences as a film-maker in China. Since Paul is moving to Southeast Asia, he is kindly donating his film collection to the institute, which includes documentaries on the history of documentary and anthropological film, as well as a variety of documentaries on subjects such as food, water, energy and economics. There are also a number of books on anthropological film, film theory, producing, directing and video production. The collection offers an opportunity for students to delve into numerous facets of anthropological and documentary film-making and lay the groundwork for their own film-making careers.
 

In her introduction to Principles of Visual Anthropology (Hockings 1975), Margaret Mead lamented the ‘criminal neglect’ of the use of film in anthropological research. “All over the world, on every continent and island, in the hidden recesses of every industrial city as well as in the hidden valleys that can be reached only by helicopter, precious, totally irreplaceable, and forever irreproducible behaviors are disappearing, while departments of anthropology continue to send fieldworkers out with no equipment beyond a pencil and a notebook.”

Contact (Harris Film Collection):