DOXA program | wed may 22

OPENING NIGHT
Co-presented by Planet in Focus: Toronto International Environmental Film & Video Festival

The Great Dance
Director: Craig & Damon Foster (South Africa, 2000, 75 min, 35 mm)

"When you track an animal - you must become the animal. Tracking is like dancing, because your body is happy - you can feel it in the dance and then you know that the hunting will be good." (!Nqate Xqamxebe)

The !Xo San, often referred to as "The First People," are widely acknowledged to be the oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, with an unbroken link to their ancestors who have lived in the Kalahari region for over 30,000 years.

The film follows a group of three San hunters !Ngate, Karoha and Xlhoase, focusing on the unique relationship between the land, the animals they hunt, and their world view. The ultimate expression of this relationship is the "chasing hunt" - a run to the death. Seldom practised any more, this feat of endurance, tenacity and extraordinary skill has never before been filmed. Innovative mini-cam techniques, with cameras mounted on animals, were developed to follow both hunter and hunted in their dramatic high-speed dance over miles of difficult terrain in unimaginable heat. We follow the three hunters through the harshness and beauty of the world's largest expanse of sand, the Kalahari, and marvel as they respond to minute changes and signals in the landscape.

With the encroachment of modern land ownership and global economics, various San communities have been dispossessed of their rights to land and their ancient hunting grounds. The film chronicles the extraordinary tenacity that enables these people to move between traditional and modern worlds. Practices like hunting and the trance dance still provide a powerful link to their ancestors who have shared the same rhythms for thousands of years.

"We are San bushmen, sons and daughters of the first people," Karoha explains. "We know hunting. This is what we were born to do."

Being San
Director: Michael Duffett (South Africa, 2001, 15 min, video)

With their traditions threatened by the encroachment of land ownership and economic pressures, the San people gather for an outdoor screening of The Great Dance and share in a renewed appreciation of their hunting traditions.

Planet in Focus is Canada's first annual, international environmental film and video festival. Their mandate is to promote the use of film and video as catalysts for reflection, discussion and appropriate action on the social and ecological health of the planet. They strive to bring to traditional and new audiences (including children and youth) the most aesthetically interesting, educational, thought provoking, and entertaining films and videos on social and ecological themes.

Planet in Focus programmers in attendance.

Running time: 90 minutes

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