Underground harvest

“Underground harvest” was produced jointly by SEATIDE and UNIMIB. The 38-minute film is based on Giacomo Tabacco's and Silvia Vignato's research, respectively, on gold and stone mining and on marriage and labour in West Aceh (Indonesia).

It is about seeking fortune and fast money in post-tsunami, post-conflict and resource-rich Aceh. It is a choral description of the relationship between a female-centred, matrifocal agricultural work and landscape (which includes men's work too) and the obstentatiously male risky work of gold miners, up in the mountains, in the pits compounds where women are banned. It is, therefore, a film about young men desiring success and girls, and young women laughing about them. It is also a vision of landscapes of different resources.

The film does not privilege one character but is rythmated by a woman's narration. She is a war survivor, a farmer and the mother of two miners. The images of miners descending down the mineshafts are then constantly reinserted in the village everyday life and words.

  • Silvia Vignato
    Director
  • Christian Giuffrida
    Director
  • Parsifal Reparato
    Director
  • Giacomo Tabacco
    Director
  • Parsifal Reparato
    Camera person and sound recordist
  • Christian Giuffrida
    Editor
  • University of Milano-Bicocca
    Producer
  • Integration in Southeast Asia: Trajectories of Inclusion, Dynamics of Exclusion (SEATIDE)
    Producer
  • Silvia Vignato
    Writer
  • Giacomo Tabacco
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature, Short
  • Runtime:
    38 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 5, 2018
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Indonesia
  • Language:
    Indonesian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Festival del Cinema Africano, d’Asia e America Latina
    Milan
    Italy
    March 18, 2018
  • 12th International Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival 2019
    Kuala Lumpur
    Malaysia
    October 22, 2018
    Selected
Director Biography - Silvia Vignato, Christian Giuffrida, Parsifal Reparato, Giacomo Tabacco

* Silvia Vignato is Associate Professor in anthropology at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Beside a monography about conversions to hinduism in Indonesia (2001), she has published articles about Malaysian factory workers and manpower agents for migrants and about post-conflict and post-disaster young Acehenese people (children, teenagers, young parents). She now carries out research on work, marginal environments, gender, evolving structures of families and independent children in Indonesia (Aceh) and Malaysia. She is author and director of “Le feu de la Déesse”, ethnographic film, Paris 3/Archipel production, 1998.
_______________________

* Christian Giuffrida
Selected works:
2015 » doc Teatro alla Scala. Il Tempio delle Meraviglie
2012 » doc Mezzo Morra
2012 » doc Vado a Vivere da Sola
2011 » doc Con Permesso Vogliamo Crescere
2011 » doc Le due Storie di Adamà
2011 » doc Mariscica fu la Prima
2009 » doc La Scuola tra le Nuvole
2009 » doc Ritratto di Famiglia con Badante
2008 » doc Mangia il Tuo Riso, al Resto ci Pensa il Cielo

_______________________

* Parsifal Reparato was born in Naples in 1985, he is anthropologist and journalist. He studied also as Director Of Photography. In 2011, he realized his first short documentary movie, Mas allá de la Santería (special mention Procida Film Festival 2013). In 2012 he co-realize the documentary Villa villa Vigna (awarded a special mention for the competion “Rural4Youth” of the Ministry of Agriculture) on biodiversity. A common thread connects
his works, his conceptual choices and choices of life that now are coming to the Nimble fingers project, a movie about Vietnamese women workers.

_______________________

* Giacomo Tabacco has completed his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Milano-Bicocca in 2017. His doctoral research is an ethnography of gold mining work in the post-disaster society of Aceh, Indonesia. In 2015 he co-authored REZEKI: gold and stones mining in Aceh, an ethnographic film that is based largely on his doctoral research and was shot at his field site. He is currently working on a monograph about the utilization of local resources in the outer region of Aceh. He is part of the EASA Anthropology of Mining network and has worked with the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS) and the EU-funded project Integration in Southeast Asia: Trajectories of Inclusion, Dynamics of Exclusion (SEATIDE).

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