On 17 September, CELEP member organisations Agrecol (Association for AgriCulture and Ecology), DITSL (German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture) and VSF (Vétérinaires Sans Frontières) Belgium presented the Perspectives on Pastoralism Film Festival as part of the Tropentag 2019 conference organised by the Universities of Kassel and Göttingen at the University of Kassel.
The film festival aims to deepen understanding of how diverse peoples across the world gain their livelihoods from extensive livestock production. The relationships of pastoralist people and animals and their food production systems reflect an intimate intertwining of culture, economy and ecology in harsh environments such as drylands and mountains. In such environments, livestock mobility plays a key role.
Pastoralism is a rational and economically viable landuse system that can generate significant returns in dryland and mountainous regions, but widespread misunderstanding about pastoralism has often left it underprotected, undervalued and a victim of uninformed policies. However, this livelihood system is ideally suited to the climatic and economic uncertainties of our turbulent century. The film festival showcases visual media that will spark dialogue, inspire debate and complement the presentation of research at the Tropentag conference. Films of different genres – documentary, narrative and animated, made by pastoralists (participatory video) and/or about pastoralists – offer insights into issues important to them.
Venue: Amphitheatre (near Hollaendischer Platz), University of Kassel, Germany
Programme:
19h15: Welcoming remarks
19h30: Short films from Niger, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, India, France, Spain, Ireland & Mongolia
21h45: Feature film: Shepherdess of the Glaciers (India, 2015, 1 hour 13 minutes) by Stanzin Dorjai & Christiana Mordelet
