A Life with Slate

Festival Year

Film Original Title (if different)

Film screener link

Year of production 2006

Festival Prize Category

Duration 59

Community and/or ethnic group Thami People

Location(s) depicted

Synopsis Alampu is a beautiful and exceedingly remote village in Nepal. The majority of the settlers there are Thami people, one of the indigenous groups of Nepal. More than 90 percent of them have been involved in the slate production at Alampu. This film includes technical details about slate production in the mountainside mine, and how the slate is worked prior to distribution. In the film we see the social relationships, co-operation between the miners, and the intimacy of the mining families. Strong women perform the tough and arduous work alongside the men. They have to carry heavy slate loads far to sell them. The film also describes the socio-cultural life of the village and its interaction with the environment. The activities of the men and women in the mine, as well as in the village, have an almost poetic dimension.

Language(s) of film subjects Thami with English Subtitles

Colour / Black and white Colour

Film web page

Url of film page player

Directors Kharel, Dipesh

Production company or producer

Country of production Norway

Image 1 uploads/rai/rai_a_life_with_slate.jpg

Image caption © Kharel

Status A

Contribution

Presentations

Awards Material Culture Film Prize 2007

Student film prize

Werbner Award Entry

Ethnomusicology Film Award

USC Festival

ASP URL http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/1870981

ASP royalty percentage25

ASP sale enabledY

ASP start date n/a

Anthropologist(s) – first name Dipesh

Anthropologist(s) – last name Kharel

Anthropologist(s) – affiliation Visual Cultural Studies, University of Tromsø

Anthropologist(s) – contribution title

Anthropologist(s) – contribution description

Camera

Country Nepal

DVD Territory

DVD royalty percentage to filmmaker 50

DVD sales enabled Y

Director(s) – first name Dipesh

Director(s) – last name Kharel

Director(s) – affiliation

Distribution company or distributor

Editing Film fest screening

Film original format —

Image 2

Image name uploads/rai/rai_a_life_with_slate.jpg

Kanopy URL

Kanopy sale enabled

Keywords Labour
Socioeconomic conditions

Language of film narration

Language(s) that subtitle are available in

On Demand Price

On Demand Url

On Demand enabled

RAI Film Festival Award

Region South Asia

Screen ratio

Section Sales

Series

Series number

Sound

Werbner Award