Dear NAFA Friends,
A new year for all of us, a new year for the Nordic Anthropological Film Association – NAFA, so here we send a new reminder of the work NAFA now has been doing for around half a century.
NAFA is a non-profit organisation within the field of visual anthropology. The organisation has been active since the 1970s, and has since then developed into a well-established and well-known worldwide network of visual anthropologists, and anyone interested in anthropological film.
NAFA has five main focus points with a dedicated team of volunteers working for each. So, what is NAFA doing? Let’s take a quick look again.
- The NAFA film archive and film collection. NAFA has built up an ethnographic film archive, located at the University Museum of Bergen, Norway. The original 16mm archive has become a preservation archive. The film collection consists of a growing number of about 400 ethnographic films, which are now available to members. The online film collection was created in 2013 when the archive turned digital. NAFA members can access the films through the dedicated website and use them in education, research and other non-profit activities. Anyone can become a NAFA member, individuals as well as institutions. The membership grants the members access to the online film collection for one calendar year. Membership is renewed yearly.
- The NAFA International Ethnographic Film Festival. In partnership with local organisers, NAFA organises a travelling annual film festival. It is the oldest and most recognised ethnographic film festival in Europe, and one of the oldest most prestigious in the world. The film festival is normally organised one year in a Nordic country, the following year in another European country. Hopes are that we may some day organise a the festival outside Europe. The film festival usually consists of two parts: a symposium / conference / filmmaking workshop and the festival proper, with the screening of a number of high quality ethnographic films. The films are carefully selected by an international selection committee.
- The Journal of Anthropological Film (JAF) is an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal, which publishes original, empirically based contributions that present new insights to the study of human behaviour through audio-visual means. Contributions are normally fieldwork-based. The films are directed towards an academic community, for use in research and the teaching of academic disciplines concerned with the cultural and social diversity of the world, and universal ideas and values.
- NAFA Network is the quarterly newsletter of NAFA and is published in co-operation with the Commission on Visual Anthropology (CVA) of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES). The newsletter team, based at Aarhus University in Denmark, has been running the newsletters online for the past twelve years, keeping the visual anthropological world connected and informed. As they update their communication channels and aim to become more accessible, they also hope to strengthen the networks between all the different practitioners and scholars of visual anthropology around the world. At the moment, they do so by promoting relevant works and events, as well as developing the Visual Anthropological Map, a directory of institutions, laboratories and collectives involved in visual anthropology activities.
- Finally, NAFA, in co-operation with Intervention Press, produces the NAFA Book Series, which started in the early 1990s with volumes based on the proceedings from conferences linked to the NAFA festival.
We hope the diverse work of NAFA may inspire you all this year as well; and please remember to renew your membership, or sign up for one to be able to access our online collection! NAFA is run by volunteers and is sustained almost exclusively by membership fees. Thank you and we wish you a happy new NAFA year, with the wonderful films from our collection!