To help visualizing the results, I have also written a new abstract of the documentary (copied). It was written for another class but prompted by last week's editing session.
And finally some reflections on our course: As someone who is all for drastic changes and the broad scheme of ideas, this will perhaps be my favorite part of the editing process. The lectures on editing were helpful, as well as the group effort in editing individual scenes. The in-class screenings were interesting, too, but I was not always sure of their objectives, other than showing what awesome stuff everyone's camera recorded over the summer. By only seeing a glimpse of each project, I felt things were too much out of context for a narrative or structural suggestion (with exceptions.) Since most folks were not re-shooting or revisiting places, practical suggestions seemed unnecessary and perhaps discouraging. Having the course website, calendar and blog was motivating. Thanks for everything.
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WELCOME TO GREENLAND, WE ARE NOW SERVING TOFU
The short documentary film Welcome to Greenland, We Are Now Serving Tofu (working title) opens with a scene of two friends, Age and Kristian, riding a small motorboat. As they sail forward, an iceberg the size of a tennis field enters the frame: Welcome to the Arctic! Soon, their mission becomes clear, too. Kristian’s eyes light up: “Slow down! Slow down!” He grabs the rifle in a rush. A seal. Spotted by the rocks. It gets away. The young hunters return empty handed (thus, no animals were harmed for this Master’s thesis project.)
They are becoming a rare sight. The scenes of hunters in action. Paper money lifestyle, thinner sea ice and international animal protection laws are slowly but surely making harpoon skills a useless trade. Young adults like Age and Kristian are between two worlds. Raised looking up to hunters but at the same time shaped by government efforts to train its population and institutionalize a society which fundamentally represent a moment-to-moment survival: In other words, they have been raised in a town which no roads lead to, sent to a Danish-modeled school and thought the traffic rules.
After the neighboring Kap Tobin was abandoned, Ittoqqortoormiit became the most isolated town on Earth. A town of 438 people (dominantly Inuit) and 250 sled dogs, it is the largest remaining hunting community in the Greenland. Others have either been abandoned or shifted to commercial fishing. The latter is not an option in the high Arctic, where sea ice locks the area for nine months of the year. If not fishing, what then is the alternative? Global tourism, it seems.
Northeast Greenland is perhaps the largest unclaimed tourist territory on Earth. It is also the frontline of climate change: Melting icebergs, vulnerable polar bears, the death of our planet and other wonderful photo opportunities! Until recently, the North Pole saw more visitors than Ittoqqortoormiit. Now, a dozen to a hundred tourists regularly arrive on cruise ships, with foreign cash and lots of stupid questions. Sara, a 17-year-old local girl, dresses up in traditional clothing and pose for photo-ops in front of the museum. After three hours, the visitors depart and the locals can walk the streets without being paparazzied by a gray haired German dentist. As summer passes, the boom goes to bust.
Tourism is primarily run by women. So are all major institutions, from the Pilersuisoq supermarket to the local administration office. Men have not laid down the harpoon and picked up a keyboard in the same manner. They have, instead, migrated. The population census shows that men in the active age of 30 - 50 have left town. The film explores how young adults follow the trend. One of the leading character departs on a sailing boat to study in Marseille, French. Other decides to build a house. Their story, framed in a portrait of a peculiar town, predicts the future of isolation, traditions and autonomy in our global era.
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