Cinema Shamans of the Blind Country

It is with great pleasure that we announce the screening of the film “Shamans of the Blind Country” (223’, 1981) by Michael Oppitz. The film is going to be screened for the first time in Greece as part of the 12th Ethnofest – Athens Ethnographic Film Festival in collaboration with Goethe Institut- Athen. The film is significant for its ethnographic and anthropological approach, as well as its visual and artistic dimension. The director Michael Oppitz is going to attend the screening.

Cultural anthropologist Michael Oppitz travelled to the Magar in Nepal in the late 1970s in order to research their life and healing practices. Accompanied by a small film team, he discovered the camera was an excellent companion for ethnographic field research. The resultant 35 hours of material were later edited down into an almost four-hour film called by the director ‘ethnography in the darkroom’. We are very happy to present the restored digital version 40 years after its initial screening. We are even more pleased and honored to have the director, Michael Oppitz, with us, who will give a short introduction before and discuss with the audience after the screening.