According to Bill Nichols seminal title on documentary filmmaking, Introduction
to Documentary
, he listed the three ways that that filmmakers, people and audiences are related in documentary film:

1. I speak about them to you.
2. It speaks about them or it to us.
3. We speak about us to you.

In this triangle of communication, Opal Productions focuses on ethnographic documentaries where 'I speak about them to us.'

Our method of thinking cinematically about ethnography or thinking ethnographically through film results in a new and different understanding of these disciplines. Creating an ethnographic experimental film means having to combine approaches from both disciplines to create an entirely new form of visual ethnography that Opal Productions calls 'ethnographic art documentary.'



Title: A Stripe of Bèlè
(30:00mins, miniDV, 2007)

Director: Janine- Opal Fischer
Performers: L'AM4, SIM'LN
Interviewees: Simon Vaitï, Jean-Marie Desirée, Dartagnan Laport

Synopsis: In this ethnographic art documentary 'A Stripe of Bèlè', split screen is used to communicate the relationship between the dance form Bèlè , Martinique’s history, where the dance form Bèlè is currently being performed and the current social environment of Martinique’s inhabitants.


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