[OR_Archaeology] See what you missed: best films from TAC Festival 2010 appear in Eugene

[RPettigrew at aol.com]

To our Oregon friends: Did you by any chance miss any of the great  films 
we showed at The Archaeology Channel Film and  Video Festival 2010 at the 
Hult Center this past May?  You’re in luck,  because our upcoming 
ArchaeologyFest Film Series: Best of 2010, to be  held the first two weekends of August 
at DIVA in downtown Eugene, will screen  the top seven films from that 
international competition!  So now you can  see what you missed.  Please come and 
sample these films and help support  TAC Festival.  You’ll be amazed at how 
good these films are.  They are  indeed the best in the world in this genre.
 
One of my personal favorites is the first film, Chumpi’s  Adventure, a 
beautifully filmed production from Peru about a little boy  whose father and 
grandfather take him to their sacred waterfall in the  Amazon.   Almost like 
Avatar in real life, but without the  violence!
 
Please see the announcement just below, which includes the awards won by  
each film at TAC Festival 2010.  Details also are posted at 
_http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/ArchaeologyFest2010.shtml_ 
(http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/ArchaeologyFest2010.shtml)  
(http://www.archaeologychannel.org/) , including clips from the  films.  Thanks! 

Rick Pettigrew
Archaeological Legacy  Institute
_www.archaeologychannel.org_ (http://www.archaeologychannel.org/) 

****************************************************************************
**
 
ArchaeologyFest Film Series: 
Best of  2010
 
A benefit for The Archaeology  Channel
International Film and Video Festival
 
Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA),
110 W. Broadway,  Eugene
August 6/7 and 13/14, 2010
 
Doors open one-half hour before the start times indicated below.   
Admission $6.  Tickets at the door.  These are the best films from the  2010 edition 
of TAC Festival.

Program A: Friday, August 6, 8:15 pm
 
• Chumpi's Adventure (Peru) 47 min.
This film  focuses on the lives of three generations of Achuar, who live in 
the Peruvian  Amazon.  A young boy, Chumpi, his father, Secha, and his 
grandfather, Irar,  make an upriver trip to a sacred waterfall, where both 
adults received their  visions as young men.  They travel through the tropical 
rainforest in an  adventure into the spiritual world of these indigenous 
people.  Their  journey gives insight into the Achuar culture, as they try to 
continue their  traditions while facing conflicts with oil companies and the 
encroaching  industrial world. (Special Mention by Jury; Honorable Mention by 
Jury for  Script, Cinematography, and Inspiration)
 
• Lost Nation: The Ioway (USA) 57 min.
In 1824,  during the twilight of Native American dominion, two conflicted 
Ioway leaders  met with William Clark, one of the principals of the earlier 
Lewis and Clark  Expedition, to sign a momentous treaty.  White Cloud saw 
cooperation as  survival for his people, while Great Walker regretted the loss 
of their  ancestral homeland.  This pivotal moment led both men to different 
tragic  destinies in their battle with epic change. Ioway Elders join 
historians and  archaeologists to tell the dramatic and true story of the small 
tribe that once  claimed the territory between the Missouri and Mississippi 
Rivers from  Pipestone, Minnesota, to St. Louis.  What was a quest for 
survival in the  past has become a struggle to retain a unique Native American 
culture and  language in the present. (Honorable Mention by Jury in the Best 
Film  competition)
 
Program B: Saturday, August 7, 7:30 pm

• Life in Limbo (USA) 40 min. 
This film paints  a portrait of life in the town of Hasankeyf, in 
southeastern Turkey, adramatic  town of caves located near the borders of Iraq and 
Syria. It has been inhabited  since the 9th Century B.C. and is considered an 
archaeological treasure because  it is the finest example of a medieval city 
in the region. Hasankeyf has endured  upheavals through the centuries but 
it now faces a seemingly insurmountable  threat to its survival; a proposed 
dam on the Tigris River that will submerge  the town. Through a combination 
of verite scenes, lyrical landscape images and  interviews, Hasankeyf is 
revealed as a town of long traditions, an  archaeological treasure and finally, 
a community that is fated to be destroyed.  (Honorable Mention in the 
Audience Favorite competition; Honorable Mention by  Jury in the Best Film 
competition, Cinematography, and Music)
 
• Stone Age Artists: The Magdalenian Masters (France) 52  min.
The inception of art in prehistoric times is a much debated  issue.  Some 
believe it coincides with a revolution of the mind, which is  thought to have 
started about 40,000 years ago.  Others think it is the  result of gradual 
evolution that began with the very first human beings, some  two million 
years ago.  Our forefathers gradually devoted more and more  time to art, 
decorating their objects and their places of residence.  As  for the 
Magdalenians, ancestors that settled in large areas of Europe between  18,000 and 10,000 
years B.C., art was amazingly developed.  The sculpted  bas-relief of the 
Roc-aux-Sorciers site in southwestern France is proof that a  golden age of 
prehistory did actually exist.  For the first time ever, this  film reveals 
Lascaux Cave, a showcase that suggests that the Stone Age may well  have had 
its share of “Michelangelos.” (Best Script by Jury; Honorable Mention  in 
the Audience Favorite competition; Honorable Mention by Jury in the Best Film 
 competition, Narration, Animation, Cinematography, and Inspiration)
 
Program C: Friday, August 13, 7:30 pm

• Standing with Stones (UK) 135 min.
Produced  and directed by documentary film-maker Michael Bott and presented 
by naturalist  and explorer Rupert Soskin, this is a first-hand account 
from Rupert of a  journey taken through the British Isles and Ireland, starting 
at the tip of  Cornwall and ending on the Scottish Isles, visiting more 
than 100 Neolithic and  Bronze age monuments en route.  Beautiful to look at 
and aiming to be  enlightening, the film explores the diversity and wonder of 
these extraordinary  enigmatic structures.  It also looks at some of the 
explanations and  absurdities which attach to them.  Rupert Soskin has a deep 
knowledge of  the subject, but also a refreshingly open-minded attitude to 
the whos, the hows  and especially the whys of the stone construction.  The 
entire project was  conceived and realized entirely by Michael Bott and Rupert 
Soskin, with a  camera, a camper van, two very understanding wives, and a 
passion for stones.  (Best Narration by Jury; Most Inspirational by Jury; 
Honorable Mention in the  Audience Favorite competition; Honorable Mention by 
Jury in the Best Film  competition, Animation, Script, and Music)
 
Program D: Saturday, August 14, 7:30 pm

• Herculaneum: Diaries of Darkness and Light (Italy) 52  min.
This film tells the story of the excavations at Herculaneum,  following 
Amedeo Maiuri, the archaeologist who in little more than 30 years  brought to 
light the Roman city, which had been destroyed along with Pompeii by  the 
eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.  Today, two-thirds of the ancient  city 
still lies under the modern city of Ercolano.  In order to continue  the 
excavations, large parts of the modern city would have to be knocked down,  as 
Maiuri had started to do a few years before his death.  The diaries of  
Maiuri, together with interviews and unseen footage, lead us in the discovery of  
the archaeological site and invite us to consider the relationship that 
humans  have with their past along with our desire to discover it, to understand 
it and  to preserve it in time. 
 
• Paddle Ship “Patris”Lost in 1868... (Greece) 63  min.
This documentary concerns the historic steam engine paddle  ship Patris, 
which sank in 1868.  This type of boat is unique because it  used wheels for 
movement.  It was manufactured at a time before the advent  of the screw 
propeller, when most ships were made of wood.  This particular  boat was one of 
very few made of metal and for this reason it was  preserved.  It was a 
luxurious vessel that had a paddle-wheel steam engine,  but also had sails.  
Patris was property of “Hellenic Steam Navigation  Company,” the first coastal 
shipping company that was founded in Greece.   The film was made with the 
collaboration of the Museum of Industrial Heritage of  Syros, subordinate to 
the Municipality of Syros, Greece, and the Greek Ministry  of Culture, the 
National Institute of Research, the Department of Underwater  Antiquities, 
and the Underwater Filming Research (UFR) diving team. (Best Film  by Jury; 
Best Cinematography by Jury; Honorable Mention by Jury for Narration,  
Animation, Special Effects, Script, Music, and  Inspiration)

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