Ethnofiction is a neologism which mainly refers to docufiction, a blend of documentary and fiction film. It’s used in visual anthropology as ethnography. Its object is not the individual but the ethnicity, excepting when the individual represents it.
Jean Rouch is considered to be the father of ethnofiction. Ethnologist, he soon discovers that, always interfering in the event which it registers (the ritual), the camera becomes participant. The exigency in research of a non-participating camera is a preconcept denied by practice. Going further in his attempts, Jean Rouch introduces the actor as a tool in research. A new genre was born. (see: Jean Rouch and the Génesis of Ethnofiction– thesis by Brian Quist (PDF Long Island University). Robert Flaherty, «avant-le-lettre», may be seen as the grandfather of this genre.
Being mainly used to refer to films in the domain of ethnology as a branch of science, the term ethnofiction is as well adequate to refer to documentary films in the field of arts with meaningful tradition, preceding and following Rouch’s oeuvre. It may also be useful to designate any fictional creation with an ethnographical background.
Ethnofictions
CRONOLOGY
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Ethnic portraits of local realities are often drawn in the Portuguese films of the sixties. The Cape Vert theme, as a typical expression of Africa, steps into the lime-lights of the eighties with the films of Flora Gomes, Pedro Costa and Daniel E. Thorbecke, an unknown . Terra Longe, a remarkable oeuvre, is one of the forgotten fruits of cinema.
You may guess on one hand that the Portuguese cinematography and those of Portuguese expression distinguish themselves by this motive, which gives them a voice in the world of cinema, like the voice of Cesária Évora in the world of music. The favelas and the trans-sexuals themes are focused in Brasil.
Arising fiction in the heart of ethnicity is something common in the Portuguese popular narrative (oral literature). There is no reason to surprise if, due to a peculiar attraction for legend and surrealistic imagery, ethnofiction strips off her realistic predicates and becomes pure fiction. This fact is common in many films, such as those of Manoel de Oliveira, António Campos, António Reis, João César Monteiro and others. Ethnofiction – real life and fantasy in just one – is a distinctive mark of the Portuguese cinema.
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