穿过区隔的密林：

2020年“澜湄之眼”纪录片作品简述

生活于世界的生命历程中其他地方的他人看待事物的可能方式，对我们意识的影响力，至少不逊于我们在此时此地（我们所在之处）对事物的直接感受。

——克利福德·格尔茨《地方知识》

在经济和文化全球化的语境下，国家与国家之间、族群与族群之间的关系愈发紧密且复杂。但2020年新冠疫情的全球蔓延，促使人们被迫区隔开来，也为跨境文化交流带来了阻力。尽管如此，人们依然期望并需要听见他人的声音，甚至比此前更加迫切。创办于2020年的“澜湄之眼”计划，便是试图在这样的背景下，将跨越多个国家的澜沧江、湄公河流域及其辐射地带的区域性文化生态连接起来——让本土文化实践者的声音得以传达，得以听见。

参与2020年“澜湄之眼”纪录片工作坊和创作实践的八位创作者分别来自缅甸、泰国、老挝和中国，他们本身有着多元的文化背景，同时也有着多元的创作身份、方法论。最终，他们以“跨境民族”为主题，立足于自身民族文化的特殊性或跨境文化经验中的普遍性，从本土经验和本土观念出发，创作出八部影像作品对自己所处的社会环境、文化身份、时代潮流作出了回应，并诚挚地剖析了这一切与自身个人之间的关系。使得我们在当下的世界环境中，以影像的直观方式去感知“他人看待事物的可能方式”成为可能。以下，我将主观地对这八部影片做出简短的概述，而它们到底带来了怎样的“地方知识”，将留给观众们去判断。

其中，来自老挝琅勃拉邦的拍摄者Ka Xiong，以纪录片《祖母的世界》记录了祖母的生活、盼望和记忆，并为我们展示了老挝北部山区苗族社区的一个文化侧影；

来自中国西双版纳勐宋村的哈尼族画家妹兰，以自己的成长经历为基础，将记忆中的哈尼族传统童谣及游戏方式以动画的方式呈现出来，最后在云南财经大学、云南艺术学院的学生们的协助下制作了这部《忆童年》；

来自缅甸掸邦的23岁女孩Jupiter，在缅甸爆发第二波新冠疫情之际，以一部《生活依旧》对自己的身份、成长路径、家庭关系进行了深入的剖析，也为这个时代写上一个面对黑暗、倾洒光明的注脚；

来自泰国的电影人、艺术家Nontwat，近年一直在以剧情电影、纪录片以及多媒体艺术的方式关注从缅甸迁徙到泰国工作生活的掸族人。Nontawat在探访了清迈的多个掸族聚居区之后，决定拍摄一位在清迈生活了七年的掸族僧侣。观众也将跟随他的镜头去了解这个庞大却长期“未可见”的群体；

《佐米亚之歌》是泰国导演Santiphap Inkong-ngam对自己逾20年影像素材的梳理。在参与“澜湄之眼”项目期间，他尝试了多种剪辑方法，最后决定将多个泰国北部山区的民族音乐合在一起。由于Santiphap的少数民族出身，从2000年开始，他的创作实践一直围绕着民族身份和家园叙事，在地理学及文化区域意义上的“佐米亚”拍摄了大量的影像。他的影像手法游走于纪录片与录像艺术之间，是泰国导演Jay作为少数民族的主体话语和同时作为拍摄者/观察者的客观话语的重合；

另一位来自西双版纳的拍摄者，岩（ai）罕法，将他的镜头对准了自己的表嫂——一位从老挝嫁过来的年轻姑娘，玉罕。影片中的一系列对谈，反映出了边境地区跨境婚姻的困境及希望；

“阿尺目刮”在傈僳语中意为“山羊的歌舞”，这种歌舞发源于中国维西傈僳族自治县澜沧江流域。纪录片《轮椅上传承的阿尺目刮》的主人公是当地一个力图传承这种歌舞的民间群体。拍摄者余明光（傈僳名：斯噶咱）自己本身也是这个群体的一员，因此，这部影片以内部视角为我们带来了文化传承工作中更有血有肉的故事；

另一位傈僳族拍摄者，Zaw Lar，来自缅甸北部紧邻中国的克钦邦。尽管《山农》是他的第一部纪录片，但影片具有很高的完成度，从日常生活中看见神性，并展示出了作者的个人风格。影片记录了四季变迁之下，傈僳族在边境山地的耕种方式。这部影片超越了关于山地农业的田园式宏观书写，恰到好处地表达了作者对个体命运的思考与关怀。

“Our consciousness is shaped at least as much by how things supposedly look to others, somewhere else in the lifeline of the world, as by how they look here, where we are, now to us. ” —Local Knowledge by Clifford Geertz

In the context of economic and cultural globalization, the relationship between countries or ethnic groups has become increasingly close and complex. However, the global spread of the Covid-19 in 2020 has forced people to be separated, and it also has brought resistance to cross-border cultural exchange. Nevertheless, we still expect and need to hear other people's voices and it seems even more urgent than before. The “Lancang-Mekong Vision” program which founded in 2020 is aimed at making a platform to connect the regional cultural scene of the Lancang-Mekong river basin and its radiation zones among several countries, to make the voice of the local cultural practitioners be conveyed and heard.

The eight creators who participated in the workshop and creative practice of Lancang-Mekong Vision in 2020 are from Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and China. They are from diverse cultural backgrounds and carry out pluralistic creative identities and methodologies. Finally, they have created eight documentaries to respond to their social environment, cultural identity, and the current of the times with the theme of “cross-border ethnic groups” and their local experience and interests, based on the particularity of their own national culture or the universality of cross-border cultural experience. They have sincerely analyzed the relationship between the cultural scene and their own individuals. Their works make it possible for us who are facing the current world environment to perceive “how things supposedly look to others, somewhere else in the lifeline of the world” in an intuitive way of documentaries. Below, I will give a brief introduction of these eight documentaries subjectively, and what kind of “local knowledge” they bring will be left to the audience to determine.

Ka Xiong, a photographer, and filmmaker from Luang Prabang, Laos, started to make a documentary named “Grandma’s World” in the framework of the 2020 Lancang-Mekong Vision program, this film is about his grandma's life, hope, and memory, and it showing us a cultural profile of the Mhong community in Northern Laos;

Maer Lanq, an Akha painter from Monsong village, Xi Shuangbanna. Based on his own growth experience to presented his memory of Akha traditional nursery rhymes, children games in the form of animation, and cooperated with the students from Yunnan University of Finance and Economics and Yunnan Arts University to produce this “Memories of childhood”；

Jupiter, a 23-year-old girl from the Shan state of Myanmar, made a deep analysis of her identity, growth path, and family relationship with her self-portrait documentary "But…life goes one" during the second wave of Covide-19 broke out in Myanmar, which also wrote down a footnote of facing darkness and pouring light into this era;

Nontawat, a filmmaker and artist from Thailand, has been focusing on the Shan people who have migrated from Myanmar to work and live in Thailand in the form of feature films, documentaries, and multimedia art in recent years. After visiting several Shan communities in Chiang Mai, Nontawat decided to make the documentary ”the MONKHOOD” about a Shan monk who had lived in Chiang Mai for seven years. The audience will follow Nontawat’s camera to understand this huge but long-term "invisible" group;

“Zomia’s Song” is a review of Thai director Santiphap Inkong Ngam's video footages for more than 20 years. He tried a variety of editing methods, and finally decided to combine the folk music of several ethnic groups in the mountainous areas of northern Thailand during his participation in the “Lancang-Mekong Vision” program. In 2000, Santiphap began to shoot a large number of videos around the narrative of ethnic identity and homeland in the sense of geography and the cultural region "Zomia" since his ethnic background. His video technique wanders between documentary and video art, which is the coincidence of his subjective discourse as a member of a minority and objective discourse as a filmmaker/observer at the same time;

Another filmmaker from Xi Shuangbanna, I Han Phap, made a documentary called “Wife From Laos” about his cousin, Yuan, a young girl married from Laos. A series of dialogues in this documentary reflected the difficulties and hopes of cross-border marriage in the villages of border areas;

“Ah Chi Mu Gua” means “song and dance of goats” in the Lisu language, which originated in the Lancang River basin of Lisu Autonomous County in Weixi, China. The protagonist of the documentary “Inherit the Ah Chi Mu Gua on Wheelchair” is a local group who aims to inherit this kind of folk song and dance. The filmmaker SI K Za himself is also a member of this group. Therefore this documentary brings us a vivid story about the cultural heritage work from an internal perspective;

Another Lisu filmmaker, Zaw Lar, is from Kachin state in Myanmar. “Mountain Farm” is his first documentary and it is highly accomplished with his personal artistic style, thus we could find the divinity in daily life. This documentary records the farming methods under the changes of seasons of Lisu people in the border mountainous areas. It also goes beyond the macroscopic Arcadian narrative to a turn to expresses the filmmaker’s thinking and concern about the fate of individuals.