Synopsis
Shadows and Illuminations is part of the Afflictions: Culture & Mental Illness in Indonesia series. The film focuses on Nyoman Kereta, a rural Balinese man in his late sixties, who suffers from a psychotic-like illness.
Shadows and Illuminations explores how non-normative mental events and behavior, including auditory and visual hallucinations, can be understood or interpreted in multiple ways outside the confines of western psychiatric diagnosis.
(35 min)
Afflictions: Culture & Mental Illness in Indonesia
Shadows and Illuminations is one of six films in the Afflictions: Culture and Mental Illness in Indonesia series. Afflictions is the result of longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork conducted by psychological anthropologist Robert Lemelson in Java and Bali over the span of a decade.
The series addresses mental illness and difference with regards to the etiology, phenomenology, local and cultural perceptions, and long-term outcome in order to understand the role of culture, family, biography, and personality in the suffering and resilience of those who are afflicted.
Volume 1: Psychotic Disorders
Shadows and Illuminations
Shadows & Illuminations explores how non-normative mental events and behavior can be understood or interpreted in multiple ways outside the confines of Western psychiatric diagnostics (35 minutes, 2010)
Memory of My Face
Memory of My Face illustrates how the residues of colonialism and the pervasive influence of globalization affect the subjective experience of mental illness (22 minutes, 2011)
Ritual Burdens
Ritual Burdens questions how communal spiritual obligations may be folded into personal schemas of stress to trigger episodes of mental illness (25 minutes, 2011)
Volume 2: Neuropsychotic Disorders
The Bird Dancer
The Bird Dancer focuses on the social stigma of neuropsychiatric disorder and the human suffering it entails (40 minutes, 2010)
Family Victim
Family Victim examines bi-directional influences between an individual considered to have a disruptive or troublesome personality (38 minutes, 2010)
Kites and Monsters
Kites and Monsters follows a young Balinese from boyhood to manhood, discovering the influential and protective aspects of culture that may guide developmental neuropsychiatric processes (22 minutes, 2011)
Filmmakers
Robert Lemelson
Director & Producer
Robert Lemelson is a cultural anthropologist, ethnographic filmmaker and philanthropist. Lemelson received his M.A. from the University of Chicago and Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. Lemelson’s area of specialty is transcultural psychiatry; Southeast Asian Studies, particularly Indonesia; and psychological and medical anthropology. He currently is a research anthropologist in the Semel Institute of Neuroscience UCLA, and an adjunct professor of Anthropology at UCLA.
Alessandra Pasquino
Producer
Alessandra Pasquino is a filmmaker and producer of documentaries, commercials, and special projects. She has collaborated with many artists and celebrities including: Oliver Stone, Wayne Wang, Klaus Kinski, Gregory Colbert, Leonardo Di Caprio, Pietro Scalia and Matthew Rolston. She is currently developing documentary projects both with Elemental Productions and independently.
Wing Ko
Director of Photography & Editor
Wing Ko has collaborated with a who’s who of modern artists, musicians and filmmakers. He worked with Spike Jonze on several music videos and edited the pilot for MTV’s “Jackass.” Wing helped create more than 80 music videos for Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Public Enemy and other top bands of the time. For more than 15 years he has traveled around the world and crewed skateboard videos.
Dag Yngvesson
Director of Photography
Dag Yngvesson was the cinematographer on “Stoked: the Rise of Gator,” a documentary about the rise and fall of skateboard legend Mark “Gator” Ragowski and wrote, produced and edited “Rated X: A Journey through Porn,” about the Los Angeles porn industry. Yngvesson studied film and anthropology at Pitzer and Hampshire Colleges, where he made his first films: “The Kaos Company,” a documentary on squatters in Gothenburg, Sweden, and “Making Skateboards in New Russia,” about skateboarder/ entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg after the fall of communism.
Press
Awards
- Shadows and Illuminations, Winner, Award of Excellence, Best Shorts Competition, La Jolla, CA, 2012
- Shadows and Illuminations, Winner, Best Documentary Feature, Los Angeles Shadows and Illuminations, International Underground Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA, 2012
- Shadows and Illuminations, Winner, 1st Place Documentary Feature, Los Angeles Reel Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA, 2012
- Shadows and Illuminations, Nominee, Honorable Mention, Richmond International Film Festival, Richmond, VA, 2012
Conferences
- Shadows and Illuminations, University of Michigan, Culture, Mind and the Brain Conference, Ann Arbor, MI, 2012
Festivals
- Shadows and Illuminations. Jean Rouch International Ethnographic Film Festival, Paris, France, 2011
- Shadows and Illluminations, Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA.
- Shadows and Illuminations, Richmond International Film Festival, Richmond, VA.
- Shadows and Illuminations, Jean Rouch International Ethnographic Film Festival, Paris, France, 2011
Screenings
- Shadows and Illuminations, USC Masters of Visual Anthropology Seminar, Los Angeles, CA, 2010
- Shadows and Illuminations, Rutgers University, Comparative Religion Class, Newark, NJ, 2012
- Shadows and Illuminations, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, 2012
- Shadows and Illuminations, Brunel University Seminar, London, UK, 2012
Shop
iBook
With a complete documentary film, ethnography, and multi-media interactive study guide contained in one package, this immersive ebook is anthropology for the 21st century. It provides students and educators with an innovative and updated way to explore key topics in psychological anthropology through the story of Kereta, a Balinese man who believes he lives in two worlds, the everyday world and the world of the spirits. His case raises fascinating questions about culture, personal experience, mental illness, and trauma.
Ideal for use in college-level survey and upper-division anthropology courses, the ebook offers multiple educational features including biographical and cultural information, theoretical investigations, glossary, review quizzes, essay prompts, group discussion questions, and more. Its media-rich format will engage students with over one hundred still photographs, video extras, a complete original soundtrack and behind-the-scenes glimpses into fieldwork and ethnographic filmmaking.
Contact
Elemental Productions
Production Company
Elemental Productions is a Los-Angeles based ethnographic documentary film company dedicated to the production of films focusing on the relationship between culture, psychology, and personal experience. Elemental Productions was founded in 2007 by anthropologist Robert Lemelson and evolved out of fieldwork gathered in Indonesia since 1997.