On Culture and Tropics

Synopsis

There is a schism between the capacity to understanding and the necessity to simply observe. As one of the most famous ethno- and anthropologist in the world, Claude Lévi-Strauss battled for this. While he was travelling in the 1950s to meet very different cultures and people, he has always refrained from establishing judgments based on his own comprehension of things, a philosophy that would be very well welcomed in the everyday life of all of us. Mostly, he was the first to coin the notions of the denaturation of culture - in reference to the predominance of western culture over more traditional ones.

Building from this abstract vision of the world, I remained in the abstract sphere to offer images and sounds to move the audience as if it was travelling through other worlds, and other cultures. Inspired by Mettler and Marker in the style of sequencing and the disembodiment of narration, I use the abstract to attempt at conveying a message and to offer a view into the exploration of the surroundings of men, but mostly tried to look at the inner search of every one of us.

Footage was recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, UAE and Singapore.

Director Biography

Fisnik Maxhuni was born in Kosovo and grew up in Switzerland. After finishing his ‘Bachelor in International Relations’ in Geneva, Switzerland, he moved to Tokyo, Japan for nearly a year to work in diplomacy. In 2012, he began his ‘Master studies in Geopolitics, Security and Territory’ at King’s College London and did one semester abroad in Singapore, where he had the opportunity to travel in very different countries from where originates most of the material in the video. In 2014, he was based in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a few months to work on different projects, but now lives in Lausanne, Switzerland.