Anthropology and Film in a Village of Epirus (1974–1988)

Colette Piault is Doctor in Sociology, Anthropologist, Filmmaker, Honorary Director of Research at the CNRS (Paris, France). She has lectured at the Ethnology Department of the University of Nanterre — Paris 10 (1995–1998). She has been member of the film selection committees for the Festivals of Göttingen (1993–1996) and Nuoro (1988–2000). She is Honour member of the Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA). She is the founder and director of several academic institutions, as the Société Française d'Anthropologie Visuelle (SFAV — 1985–2015) and the Regard sur les Sociétés Européennes, Internationnal Research film seminars (1983–1992). Her publications have focused on her fieldwork, conducted in West Africa, France, and mainly Greece for fifteen years (1974–1988). She is also Director of ten films, the most recent being Return to the Brouck, the Fenland, 40 years On (2010) (see www.lesfilmsduquotidien.fr)

Over a full fifteen years, I spent many months of my life in Epirus, working as an anthropologist and filmmaker. In addition to a few articles in English, French and Greek, the main output of my work has been a series of documentary films on the theme of rural out-migration. I had started out by working in Ghana, Niger and Ivory Coast in West Africa, but my situation at home made it difficult for me to work in Africa and so, I set out to find a closer base for fieldwork in Europe. When I was in Paris in the late 60s, and the Junta had come to power in Greece, I met a number of Greek political refugees. It was as a result of their influence that I decided to go and work in Greece. I knew Spanish but had no knowledge at all of Greek, not even the alphabet, so I had to start by learning the Greek language.

This is the first time I have had the opportunity to tell readers about the anthropological and cinematographic work I undertook in a village of Epirus over the span of those fifteen years.

Instead of analysing the theoretical framework on which my work is based, the content of my films or my ideas on anthropological cinema, I have decided to recount my experiences as they occurred, rather than editing out the revealing and anecdotal aspects of the story or omitting the social and political context in which I was working. This is, therefore, more a narrative than a monograph.

Prologue: Political Context and Choice of Village

I arrived in the village of Ano Ravenia in March 1974, accompanied by Maria Pantazidou who was to act as my interpreter. I had just started learning Greek. The Junta was still in power and out of its desire to emerge from isolation, the Centre for Social Science Research in Athens (EKKE) proposed to my Laboratory Director at CNRS in Paris, Henri Mendras, who was a rural sociologist,¹ that I undertake research in rural Greece. L'EKKE offered me a grant and the rental of a vehicle. My Greek friends, who had been exiled to Paris around Philippe Iliou, thought it over and considered that I should accept this proposal. They wished Greece to avoid the suffering Spain had undergone after being cut off from the rest of the world for political reasons and thought that I could serve as their messenger. I was willing to accept EKKE's offer of payment for the rental car but asked that the grant be allocated to the village itself. This sum was used by the village to repair the roof of a building used by the community. As a result, I arrived in Ano Ravenia as a 'benefactor'.² Benefactors were well known in this poor and mountainous region of Epirus where out-migration had been rampant for a long time. It was not unusual to find émigrés bequeathing large sums to their home village after having 'made a fortune' and even building schools, and this was, indeed, the case in Ano Ravenia.

Fig 1.

The village 1974...