Open call for fifth edition of the Vizantrop festival is open until 15th of august 2023.

“VIZANTROP” – engaged ethnographic film festival in Belgrade (Serbia), is pleased to announce the opening entries for the 5th edition of the festival. Submissions are free of charge and open to films with innovative and analytic approaches to cultures and societies.

Festival Dates: 09-12. November 2023.
Belgrade (Serbia)

Authors may submit their films for a duration of no more than 4 years for the following categories:

Community and Equality (competition program) – Films on communities in general, films on different forms of human cultures, films on alternative economies of social groups, political transformations and movements worldwide. Films on the engagement of researchers and their teams to help marginalised and endangered communities overcome problems. Autoethnographic films and all kinds of experimental ethnographic forms that challenge the human and its sensory perception for a better understanding.

Ecological and social movements (informative program) – Films produced by environmental activists around the world or filmmakers/social researchers who have followed the riots and social movements that have defended the endangering of nature. We seek films or visual essays that use social intervention as a method in “revealing the hidden”, those who want to express the voices and concerns of those who are generally “invisible” and at risk of threats from governmental and police structures.

Women’s film (informative program) is a new category of films on the 4th edition of the festival “VIZANTROP” in which women are opposite or behind the camera. This category is designed for ethnographic and documentary films on women, their activism and their daily role in communities; on maternity in war conflict zones, migration, workers’ position, maternity on the fringes of neoliberal capitalism, women’s writing, women’s activism; on women’s collectives that reinforce the greatest participation from a feminist point of view in cinema, and on political initiatives for gender equality.

Student film (competition program) – films produced by students as young authors in their universities; films from visual anthropology workshops across the globe.

The Mission of the Festival is to encourage research and creative approaches to engaged ethnographic film, to educate audience about ways to perceive and accept the diversity of local cultural traditions and to point out the importance of cultural specificities and the importance of preserving cultural heritage. We want to broaden the voice of fighters, activists and associations that philanthropically want to make the world a safer place than it is.

Anthropologists are increasingly recognizing the need to expand their methodology and analytical expression. Traditional academic representations in the form of written articles or monographies are distinguished by their ability to provide insight into cultural practices, norms, rules and institutions that govern people’s lives. However, in order to fully grasp the complexity of social life, anthropology requires alternative academic approaches that enable researchers to explore the role of perception, imagination and emotions in human interaction. New social media and audiovisual technologies offer unique opportunities for the activation of almost all human senses and stimulation of imaginative capacities. Public institutions, (non)governmental organizations and academia are increasingly demanding audiovisual methods that can facilitate transcultural analysis and dialogue.