Where Birds Dance Their Last
2012 | 07:35 mins | Vietnamese with English subtitles | Vietnam
Lena Bui, provides a crucial perspective on the threat of bird flu by following farm workers in a village in north Vietnam, where duck feathers are sorted and sent for export to China. Through this film she highlights the struggles of farm workers after China placed a ban on importing duck feathers following the avian influenza outbreak of 2005. When Birds Dance Their Last touches upon various questions surrounding our consumption of animals and animal produce, changes in a rural landscape and how disease affects people beyond the aspect of health.
The screening of this film was followed by a discussion between filmmaker Lena Bui and anthropologist Frederic Keck.
About the Director
Lêna Bùi lives and works in Saigon, Vietnam. Her works are sometimes amusing anecdotes and other times in-depth articulations of the impact of rapid development on people's relationship with nature. She reflects on ways that intangible aspects of life, such as faith, death and dreams influence behaviour and perception. Bùi’s works have been included in group exhibitions and presentations at Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2018); Mansfield Freeman Center, Wesleyan University, United States (2018); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017); The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Vietnam (2016); and the Wellcome Collection, London (2013) amongst other venues.
About the Anthropologist
Frédéric Keck is a Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Social Anthropology (CNRS-Collège de France-EHESS). After studying philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley , he has investigated the history of social anthropology and contemporary biopolitical questions raised by avian influenza. He was the director of the research department of the musée du quai Branly between 2014 and 2018. He published Claude Lévi-Strauss, une introduction (Pocket-La découverte, 2005), Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, entre philosophie et anthropologie (CNRS Editions, 2008) Un monde grippé ( Flammarion, 2010) and Avian Reservoirs : Virus Hunters and Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts, (Duke University Press, 2020),. He has co-edited (with A. Lakoff) Sentinel devices,, Limn, 2013 and (with A. Kelly and C. Lynteris) Anthropology of Epidemics (Routledge, 2019).
