The School as Microcosm of Society
friday june 8 | 14.30 hrs | Dutch premiere

SchoolScapes
Inspired by the cinema of Lumière and the ideas of the 20th century Indian thinker Krishnamurti, David MacDougall explores in his latest film a famous progressive school in South India, the Rishi Valley School. This is a film dedicated to the simple act of looking, in which each scene consists of a single shot. MacDougall’s films are distinguished by their humanity, intellectual subtlety, visual beauty, and eye for the telling detail. MacDougall was among the first filmmakers to introduce subtitling of indigenous speech into his films, an innovation that revolutionized visual anthropology. His films continue to break new ground, both conceptually and cinematically, as evidenced by this radically empirical film.

David MacDougall (Australia) | India | 2007 | 77 min | English subtitles

camera: David MacDougall
sound: David MacDougall
editor: David MacDougall
producer: David MacDougall

contact: David MacDougall
t: +61 261254554
e: david.macdougall@anu.edu.au
w: www.anu.edu.au/culture

In the eighties David MacDougall made a dozen films on indigenous communities in Australia. From 1991 he took a new direction on photographic practices. Since 1997 he has been conducting an extensive study of the Doon School, India’s most prestigious boys’ boarding school, sometimes called ‘the Eton of India.’ He writes regularly on documentary and ethnographic cinema. Presently he is a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University, Canberra.