Visitors Of The Night

Original Title|Visitors Of The Night

34" | 1998 (Draft)

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The failures of the ethnographic endeavor to discover reality are revealed in this expository and experimental film. The narrator-ethnographer embarks on an expedition to encounter the Mosou, an isolated and matrilinear tribe in the mountains of South West China.

synopsis

The failures of the ethnographic endeavor to discover reality are revealed in this expository and experimental film. The narrator-ethnographer embarks on an expedition to encounter the Mosou, an isolated and matrilinear tribe in the mountains of South West China. Their society is built on the principle of the axia-relationship, ties between visitors of the night. This means that a man only stays in his wife¬πs house at night and during the day he works for the benefit of his grandmother. Since men and women do not have economical obligations, their unique, polyandric relationships are based on love only. Recently due to funding by the Han government, The Lugo region has turned into a major touristic area, where tradition and modernity clash - particularly when the polyandry of the Mosuo is seen as prostitution by outsiders. Van Dienderen playfully reveals the distance between textual knowledge and the experience of a cinematographic journey in a thoughtful and fascinating documentary.

Credits

Music
Etnic Mosuo Music

Format

Creation details

Type
Film
Category
Doc
Genre
Year of production

1998
Production status
Draft
Original title
Visitors Of The Night
Original language
Dutch, Chinese

Technical specs

Running time
34"
Available formats
Analog Betacam
Colour
Colour

Contact & sales

Contact

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1000 Brussel
Belgium

T +32 2 226 06 30
flandersimage@vaf.be

www.flandersimage.com

Festivals & awards

Festivals

2011: Exhibition 'Poetics of Observation, SIC' - Netwerk Aalst (BE)
2008: Elles tournent! Festival Brussels (BE); B-Docs (BE); Extrapool Nijmegen (NL)
2007: Documentary reframed - Paved Arts - curator Maureen Latta (CA)
2001: Cinema Nova Brussels (BE)
2000: S.M.A.K. Ghent (BE); Rio de Ja