Snow River film project  Â
Stephanie Spray Climber-Scientist Small Grant Recipient Filmmaker and PhD candidate Anthropology Department Harvard University sspray@fas.harvard.edu
Background:
- Relationship between anthropology and filmmaking - Sensory Ethnography Lab, Harvard University
Approaches to filmmaking Mainstream documentaries: -‐ a tendency to either present an event or topic as holis2cally as possible -‐ frequently there is the inherent presump2on that it is a “document” of something past, as the name indicates -‐ quick edits of brief shots (some2mes less than a second) -‐ priori2zing narra2ve threads -‐ lack of confidence in the intelligence or pa2ence of the audience -‐ documentary as “entertainment” Alterna2ve approaches: -‐ to not presume to show or unveil a complete story, total truth or whole culture, and to undercut any such presump2on within the film -‐ remain as much in the present -‐ using shoo2ng techniques and edi2ng that allow 2me to unfold within shots, to convey a sense of how 2me passes in a par2cular place
Snow River Initial question: How to bridge human experience and the trauma of natural disaster survivors (not abstractions about the “social”) with hard facts about the physical environment through film or video, but without resorting to the clichéd approaches of most conventional documentaries? The event: May 5, 2012 flood of the Seti River My goal: To convey hard facts about the physical environment at the origin of the May 5, 2012 flood event, through the lens of the scientists, geographers, geomorphologists and hydrologists researching the event, and, through a slow unfolding of sequences, to connect this to the intimate human stories of individuals who must live and work along the river that took away the lives and livelihoods of their families and friends.
Kharapani Bazaar, Nepal
Tatopani, Nepal - Hot Springs - Picnic site - Popular film and video location
Kharapani, Nepal May 5, 2012
“A few days before the flood, the river stopped flowing, and then it flowed white, the next day it was yellow, and then it stopped. We presumed they were building a bridge somewhere.� - Phul Maya Tamang
The Se2 River flood event May 5, 2012 -‐ no early warning system in place -‐ the role of mobile phones in aler2ng villagers and documenta2on -‐ amateur videos of event widely available on YouTube -‐ received extensive na2onal and some interna2onal aEen2on
Upper Se2 River Basin Research Trip April 2013 Key mystery: the source of water, and the means of storing it, responsible for the deadly May 5, 2012 flood disaster along the Se2 River in Nepal. Ini2al and widespread assump2on: glacial lake outburst flood (“GLOF”) responsible -‐ later ruled out, since there is no glacial lake in the basin
Upper Se2 River Basin Research Trip April 2013 Using satellite observa2ons before and aWer the flood of May 5, 2012, and based on a helicopter-‐borne field reconnaissance a couple weeks aWer the disaster, Dr. Jeffrey Kargel, along with Dr. Dhananjay Regmi, establish a working hypothesis for the flood: -‐ rockfall (perhaps con2nuous) into a deep gorge and filling of the gorge during the couple weeks prior to the disaster -‐ the sudden unleashing of the naturally dammed reservoir due to a large rock and glacier ice avalanche on the morning just minutes before the flood
Hypothesis substan2ated by “Max’s dust cloud,” May 5, 2012
There is a deep gorge up the Se2 River valley, so deep and steep and treacherous that “it is likely no one had ever gone by ground up the river to its source in all of human history” -‐-‐Dr. Jeffery Kargel, University of Arizona
Kharapani, Nepal May 5, 2013
A few guiding ques2ons for me in Snow River: (1) What are the ethics of portraying natural disasters, human suffering and of image-‐making more broadly? (2) How to deal with an “event” or the past in a present-‐ centric orienta2on in filmmaking? (3) How to bridge the par2culars of an individual’s experiences with the universal concerns about climate change?
In Gratitude to High Mountain Glacial Watershed Project Climber-Scientist Small Grants Program & USAID Dr. Alton Byers Dr. Jefferey Kargel Dr. Daene McKinney Dr. Greg Leonard Lana Lightle Keshari Pun Dr. Dhananjay Regmi Phul Maya Tamang Sensory Ethnography Lab Film Study Center at Harvard University