When a Poet Disappears

Preview screening, in the presence of the director and followed by a debate moderated by André Iteanu, anthropologist (CNRS, EPHE) organized by the Société des Océanistes as part of the Océanistes cinema cycle, in collaboration with the International Festival of the Oceanian Documentary Film.

In the Toraja Mountains of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, Lumbaa is one of the last masters of ritual speech. Forced to convert to Pentecostalism, he was obliged to interrupt his oratory and ceremonial activity. Faced with the disappearance of “those who know”, a young priest, named Yans Sulo, sets off in search of ancient orality to reinvent in his own way a form of remanence. The two men meet. But it’s too late.
By telling the story of Lumbaa’s life and death, this film tells the story of a society turned upside down by the intrusion of a religion with a universalist aim. 

• Ethnographic documentary (Sulawesi, Indonesia) by Dana Rappoport
  82 mn, 2020, production Le Miroir, Gabriel ChabanierAward-winning film at the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival March 2021 (UK)
  Selected at Riga Pasaules Film Festival (Latvia) September 2021 
• Place :  Movie room | musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, 37 Quai Branly, 75007 Paris
• Dates:
  Saturday September 11, 2021 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.