Framing The Other

9.5 10
2012
24min

English

Spanish Catalan Dutch

Country: Netherlands Ethiopia

Original Title: Framing the Other (2012)

Framing the Other is a documentary about a tourist whose comfortable ideas about taking photos of exotic tribal people in Ethiopia are shaken by her encounter with a Mursi woman.

English
Spanish Catalan Dutch
Country: Netherlands Ethiopia
Original Title: Framing the Other (2012)

OFFICIAL SELECTIONS: FIBGYOR International Film Festival Kerala/ ZAGREBDOX/ MECAL Intl. Short Film Festival Barcelona/ Human Rights FF San Sebastian/ Human Rights FF Barcelona and Paris/ CINE MIGRATORIO/ Human Rights Dignity Intl. FF Yangon/ The Heart of Slavonia Intl. FF/ PÄRNU Intl. Documentary and Anthropology FF / THREE ELEMENTS Travelers & World FF/ Intl. Festival of Ethnographic Film Belgrade/ TERRA DI TUTTI Film Festival Bologna/ MARGARET MEAD Film Festival New York/ UNAFF United Nations Association FF San Francisco/ AD HOC Inconvenient Films Vilnius/ Prvi Dakar Intl. Festival of Documentary and Short Film/ INTIMATE LENS Ethnographic FF Caserta/ SVA Film, Video and Interactive Media Festival/ ETHNOFEST Athens Ethnographic Film Festival/ FARGO Film Festival/ DAYS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM festival Ljubljiana/ ETHNOGRAPFILM Festival Paris/ ETNOFILM Festival Rovinj/ ETHNOCINECA Ethnographic and Documentary Filmfest/ NIIFF Nepal Intl. Indigenous Film Festival Kathmandu/ ADDIS Addis Intl. Documentary Film Festival/ GRISGRIS CODA Museum Apeldoorn

"Framing the other" The footprint of tourism in an indigenous community

The women of the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia are known for placing large plates in their lower lips and wearing enormous, fully decorated earrings.

Hundreds of Western tourists come to see the unusually adorned natives, so posing for camera-toting visitors has become the main source of income for the Mursi. To make more money, they embellish their "costumes" and finery in such a manner that less of their original authentic culture remains.

The film contrasts the views of Mursi women and those of Dutch tourists preparing for a meeting. This humorous and at the same time chilling film shows the destructive impact tourism has on traditional communities.