Casting in Anthropological Filmmaking

Casting in documentary filmmaking is not much discussed. For anthropological filmmaking inspired by observational cinema, this is even less of a theme. However, during the period of fieldwork and filming, we do look for protagonists who can help us to tell a story we think will be of interest to our audiences.

Based on our collaborating projects in Nepal and in India, in this presentation, we will reflect on how we chose our protagonists and how these choices influenced the process of making the films and the stories we told. Our common background is anthropology and film making which guided how we tried to grasp what was going on when we did fieldwork and filming. As Nepalese, Dipesh was an ‘insider’ to the field, while Frode was an ‘outsider’. In these projects, we worked with anthropologists who had done fieldwork over a long period and thus could be seen as having insights as ‘insiders’ as well as ‘outsiders.’

When he defined guidelines for observational cinema, Colin Young’s idea was to move the power away from the people behind the camera to the people in front of the lens. Bringing the perspectives of ‘insiders’ as well as ‘outsiders’ to the filming processes, we tried to strengthen our awareness of whose voices are coming through the screen.