Slovenia has a diverse range of ethnographic film, visual anthropology and visual research. Visual production includes ethnographic and documentary film, as well as emerging genres such as videos ...produced for museum exhibition and student video works. Commentary on these productions focuses on the difference between documentary and ethnographic film, and on the difference between ethnographic films and visuals works made for research. Much visual media created for Slovene ethnological purposes stores images of a culture as a kind of inventory or list that is structured according to professional standards. Visual ethnography is a specific way of researching culture with the help of a photo or video camera. There is no need for a researcher to be a filmmaker in a classical sense. Rather, it is sufficient that the researcher be skilled in shooting and flexible in the use of the camera under different methodological circumstances.
»Intertwinements« is the title of an attempt at ethnological research of inter-ethnic relationships in Bela krajina exclusively with the use of a video-recorder. Numerous interviews were recorded, ...and on their basis the author of this research tried to learn both about quantity and quality of interpersonal contacts between Croatians and Slovenes in the vicinity of the Kolpa river. Statements by inhabitants of both sides of the river revealed that the most frequent instances or activities when Slovene and Croatian cultures intertwined were the following: mixed marriages, language, social life (hunters, firemen), economy (agriculture, milling and sawing industry, migrations), religion, smuggling, as well as the National Liberation War in the past. The author next ponders upon various advantages and disadvantages of a video research. A microphone may disturb informants if they discuss »delicate« problems. This first attempt at a video research in Slovene ethnology has nevertheless yielded satisfactory results which should encourage ethnologists to undertake similar actions in the future. Added to the paper is the partial transcription of the recorded tract on the cassette which refers to various statements about mixed marriages.
Milovan GAVAZZI (1895-1992) is a pioneer of Croatian and Yugoslav ethnographic film. He made his first shots in the year 1930: The pottery in Dalmatia, followed by: Boiling the milk with the help of ...hot stones (1930), Traditional funeral on the wooden sledge (1935), etc. From 1930 to 1945 he made 12 films, 16 mm, black and white, filmed with simple spring-driven Agfa movex camera. After the Second World War Gavazzi organized a modest ethno film production at the Department for Ethology (Zagreb University), temporary connected with Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film in Goettingen. In the year 1957 he founded Yugoslav Commission on ethnographic film as a part of CIFES, which incited and stimulated ethnographic filming in other parts of Yugoslavia as well. Gavazzi's visual initiative represents an important segment.
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