Maasai Speak Back
Tanzania/The Netherlands, August 2020; documentary; 106′; AVCHD; 16/9; color; dolby digital; Maa, Swahili Dutch and English; English subtitles.
The (mis)adventures of five tourist groups in a dry and poor area of Tanzania are explained and commented on by both the Dutch tourists and the Maasai villagers involved, revealing and destroying not only the widespread Maasai stereotype, but also the imagery Maasai have of ‘whites’.
Both hosts and guests discover what the ‘others’ were actually saying and thinking at the time they met, gaining insight in each others’ and their own life situations and attitudes. As they send each other video messages, their surprised, emotional and ashamed reactions culminate in revealing, regretful and sincere dialogues, facilitated by the camera. The painful and funny situations open layer upon layer of self-reflection, shifting visions on what it means to be honest and to thrive, and exploring novel potential for relationships across difference. Sometimes hesitantly, sometimes eagerly, eyes and hearts open up, and Maasai and Dutch who were once face-to-face, come to experience an increased connection with each other, although they are now thousands of kilometres apart.
Even if the huge international inequality and local cultural constellations often make it hard for Maasai women to be heard, when they speak their mind here, their strength, empathy, wisdom and authority draws one into a worldview that questions and provides alternatives for the expanding capitalist and individualist rationales. The story line and cinematography playfully address the entanglements of contrast and continuities between the two worlds, or is it only one?
Winner Best Documentary
Indo Global International Film Festival, 24.05.2022, Mumbai, India.
Winner Best Documentary
Pan African Youths Film & Arts Festival, 05.06.2021, Lagos, Nigeria.
Winner Storytelling Award
A Show For A Change Film Festival, 06.06.2021, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, United States.
Exceptional Merit Award
WRPN Women’s International Film Festival, 25.04.2021, Nassau, Delaware, United States.
Semi-Finalist Best Documentary
Serbest International Film Festival (SIFF), 05-11.09.2022, Kishinev, Republic of Moldova.
Official selection, International Festival of Ethnological Film, 26-28.09.2024, Kratovo, North Macedonia.
Official selection, Cannes World Art Festival, 05.02.2024, Online.
Official selection, Conference of the German Anthropological Association (GAA) Contested Knowledge: Perspectives in Social and Cultural Anthropology, 25-28.07.2023, München, Germany.
Official selection, Essex DocFest, 03-07.11.2021, Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom.
Official Selection VizAntrop Engaged Ethnographic Film Festival, Visual Anthropology Centre, 20-23.10.2021, Belgrade, Serbia.
Official selection, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) Congress, Indigenous and Ethnographic Film Exhibition, 09-13.10.2021, Yucatán, Mexico.
Official selection, 40th Nordic International Ethnographic Film Festival, Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA), 29.09-02.10.2021, Lisbon, Portugal.
Official selection, International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), 19-24.06.2021, Helsinki, Finland.
Official selection, Mumbai International Film Awards, 26-27.04.2021, Mumbai, India.
Official selection Ethnografilm, screened during Ethnografilm 2022, Théâtre Lepic, 19-23.04.2022, Paris, France.
Selected universities using the film in teaching:
- University of California
- University of Amsterdam
- University of Leiden
- University of Regina
- University of Johannesburg
- Leuphana University
- Chur University of Applied Sciences
- NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences
Goat Breakfast: Becoming-with God, volcanoes, livestock and trees
Co-directed with Paulo Ngulupa. Tanzania, January 2021; documentary; 30′; AVCHD; 16/9; color; dolby digital; Maa; English subtitles.
Due to climate change, the lands in the rain shadow of Tanzanian volcano Meru are increasingly affected by drought. Young Maasai Paulo must find creative ways to feed his firstborn son, who just learned to walk. As his goats lack milk, even for their own babies, he sets out into the dust every morning in search of breakfast.
This hopeful, tender film highlights the interspecies relationality and more-than-human entanglements involved, providing an entry into multisensual, multilingual and multispecies ways of knowing. It illustrates the agencies and co-becomings of geological formations, Spirit, fauna and flora in an audiovisual geopoetics of Maasailand.
Winner Best Cinematographer
Mumbai International Film Awards, 26-27.04.2021, Mumbai, India.
Semi-Finalist Best German Film
Filmhaus Berlin, 30.10.24, Berlin, Germany.
Semi-Finalist Best Short Documentary
Africa Film For Impact Festival, 05.11.2021, Abuja, Nigeria.
Official Selection, 10th Riga Pasaules Film Festival, 27-30.4.2023, Riga, Latvia.
Official Selection, 41th Nordic International Ethnographic Film Festival, Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA), 07-11.09.2022, Cehețel, Romania.
Official Selection, Perspectives on Pastoralism Film Festival, including screenings at the Tropentag 15.09.2022, Prague, Czech Republic.
Official Selection, International Tourism Film Festival Africa (ITFFA) 2022, Cape Town, South Africa.
Official Selection Golden Tree International Documentary Film Festival (GTIDFF), Roots of Culture: Nature Tells Us, 04.11.2021, Frankfurt, Germany.
Official Selection International Festival of Ethnological Film Kratovo, 10th edition, Macedonian Ethnological Society, 01-03.10.2021, Kratovo, Macedonia.
Official Selection, International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology (SHE) ‘The role of Human Ecology in the 21st Century’, Area: Human Ecology and its Different Perspectives, 17-23.10.2021, Brazil and virtual.
Official selection, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) Congress, Indigenous and Ethnographic Film Exhibition, 9-13.10.2021, Yucatán, Mexico.
Official Selection, 30th International Festival of Ethnological Film (IFEF), 4-8.10.2021, Belgrade, Serbia.
Official Selection, Film Geographies AAG Shorts, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, 07-11.04.2021, Seattle, United States and virtual.
Official Selection, Film in Focus, 23.04.2021, Bucharest, Romania.
TransitionHaus, Tag des Guten Lebens, 23.07.2022, Bayreuth, Germany
Eliamani’s Homestead
Tanzania, October 2014; documentary; 20′; AVCHD; 16/9; color; dolby digital; Maa, Swahili, Dutch and English; English subtitles.
In this single-shot documentary, home in Tanzania. The rough camera movements give the feeling of ‘being there’ as a tourist, while access to all languages spoken makes the mistrust and embarrassment on both sides tangible. When Eliamani looks straight into the camera to complain about being filmed, filmmaker and viewer become part of the problem of cultural tourism too. Nevertheless, both sides turn out not just to be concerned about their selfish material interests, but more about how they might look in the eyes of ‘the other’. For more information, read a review here.
Winner Best Documentary Short Film
Lisbon International Film Festival, 22.06.2017, Lisbon, Portugal.
Official Selection VizAntrop Engaged Ethnographic Film Festival, Visual Anthropology Centre, 14.06.2019, Belgrade, Serbia.
Official Selection International Festival of Ethnological Film Kratovo, 7th edition, Macedonian Ethnological Society, 06.10.2018, Kratovo, Macedonia.
Official Selection Tribal Film Festival, 01.09.2017, Tulsa, United States.
Official selection Freiburger Filmforum, Student’s Filmforum, 13.05.2015, Freiburg, Germany.
Exhibition at Frontiers of Tourism, 08.09.2017, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, France.
Chur University of Applied Sciences, “Societal and environmental change in tourism” for the MA Tourism and Change, 01.10.2020, Chur, Switzerland.
University of Johannesburg, “Eliamani’s Homestead: Screening and discussion of a film on Maasai cultural tourism”, School of Communication seminar series, 31.05.2018, Johannesburg, South Africa.
TribalTV, online screening on digital channel worldwide, 01.09.2017-01.10.2017 http://tribal.tv
Universidad Nacional de Loja, “Eliamani´s Homestead as a Research Project”, 05.05.2016, Loja, Ecuador.
Namgis Kwakiutl Congres, Macht en Sociale Verandering, Kring Amsterdams Netwerk Cultureel Antropologen, 15.04.2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Mkuru’s Church: Life with God in Tanzanian Maasailand
Tanzania, August 2014; documentary; 22′; AVCHD; 16/9; color; dolby digital; Maa and English; English and German subtitles.
More than 15 years ago, three Maasai started prayers under a tree in their village in Northern Tanzania. The community tells how they have experienced that the word of God is the only effective solution to anything from ethnic strife, marital conflicts, illiteracy and drug abuse to discrimination, criminality and poverty. With a vision of the good life as promised in the Gospel, the larger part of the village now comes together to celebrate God’s blessings with increasing courage. Seeing the transformations of hearts and circumstances that are taking place, they dare to invest the little they have into God’s Kingdom, even when hunger and thirst continue to regularly strike them.
Nomination Best Religious/Spiritual Film
Cutting Edge Film Festival, 19-30.11.2015, United States and worldwide online.
Finalist in Category Religion
7th Viva International Film Festival, 22-26.09.2021, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Finalist Best Documentary Short
Cross Docs, The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival (GLCFF), 01.05.2021, Buffalo, New York, United States.
Official selection Tribal Film Festival, 01.09.2017, Tulsa, United States.
Official selection Ananse, Festival de Cine y Video Afro, 04.02.2017, Santiago de Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia.
University of Jos, Conference The Politics of Religion in Africa, 31.102022-04.11.2022, Jos, Nigeria.
NG Quellerina, 12.06.2018, Johannesburg, South Africa.
NG Quellerina, “Big Moments”, 18.02.2018, Johannesburg, South Africa.
TribalTV, online screening on digital channel worldwide, 01.09.2017-01.10.2017 http://tribal.tv
Freie Christengemeinde, “Jung und Alt”, 29.10.15, Bayreuth, Germany.
Evangelische Studentengemeinde, “Die Massai: Chirstsein im afrikanischen Kontext”, in cooperation with Dr. Moritz Fischer, 23.04.15, Bayreuth, Germany.
Freie Christengemeinde, “Afrika-abend” with African Gospel Choir, 08.03.15, Bayreuth, Germany.
Evangelische Studentengemeinde, “Afrikanischer Abend” with Swahili Choir, 17.01.15, Bayreuth, Germany.
Jakobusscheuer, “Das gute Leben: Ueber das Wunder des Glaubens”, 21.12.14, Tübingen, Germany.
Sikukuu (Celebration day, Ein Festtag)
Tanzania, September 2015; documentary; 11′; AVCHD; 16/9; color; dolby digital; no dialogues.
Despite being guided by strict cultural rules, Maasai beadwork fashion is highly dynamic: Each new generation develops a particular style, including certain materials, color placements and symbols that unite and identify them. Approximately every fifteen years, a group of new warriors is circumcised into manhood, after which the old warriors retire as elders. In a spirit of creative competition, the girlfriends of the new warriors are determined to make ornaments that make their boyfriends and themselves outshine the previous age-set. This film shows the preparations and celebrations during a three day circumcision ceremony, combining the dancing and fun with breathtaking views of the surrounding landscapes.
Official Selection CinéTrans Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) International Film Festival, 12.09.2018-14.09.2018, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Official selection Ananse, Festival de cine y video afro, 04.02.2017, Santiago de Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia.
Official Selection CR8:BLK Short Film Competition, 17.08.2016, Washington, United States.
Official selection Tribal Film Festival, 01.09.2017, Tulsa, United States.
Official Selection ILAFF ‘I Luv Africa’ Film Festival, RWUL, 20-22.10.2016, Kampala, Uganda and New York University, New York, United States
TribalTV, online screening on digital channel worldwide, 01.09.2017-01.10.2017 http://tribal.tv
Exhibition at Frontiers of Tourism, 08.09.2017, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, France.
Special Exhibition of the Africa-Culture days ¨Der Schmuck der Massai: Europäische Perlen mit afrikanischen Geschichten, 17.06-10.07.2016, Forchheim, Germany.
Calabash making
Tanzania, 2015. Documentary; 15’; AVCHD; 16/9; color; English and German titles, Medienlabor Bayreuth University, Germany.
Special Exhibition of the Africa-Culture days ¨Der Schmuck der Massai: Europäische Perlen mit afrikanischen Geschichten, 17.06-10.07.2016, Forchheim, Germany.
Calabash cleaning and use
Tanzania, 2015. Documentary; 7’; AVCHD; 16/9; color; English and German titles, Medienlabor Bayreuth University, Germany.
Special Exhibition of the Africa-Culture days, ¨Der Schmuck der Massai: Europäische Perlen mit afrikanischen Geschichten, 17.06-10.07.2016, Forchheim, Germany.
Needle making
Tanzania, 2015. Documentary; 3’; AVCHD; 16/9; color; English and German titles, Medienlabor Bayreuth University, Germany.
Special Exhibition of the Africa-Culture days, ¨Der Schmuck der Massai: Europäische Perlen mit afrikanischen Geschichten, 17.06-10.07.2016, Forchheim, Germany.
Dreams
United Kingdom, 2011. Documentary; 6´; color; English, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, United Kingdom.
Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, 03.06.2011, University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
Website of Vanessa Wijngaarden 