FILM

Fatmawati’s Wedding: the weddings of two sisters (1998) 50 minutes

This film records the preparations for the wedding of two sisters in eastern Sumatra in December 1996. There is an emphasis on the importance of the role of women in the village. Ritual exchanges of textiles and cakes, and a series of purification rituals are shown.

Available for purchase from the Royal Anthropological Institute:

https://raifilm.org.uk/films/

In addition to Fatmawati’s Wedding Fiona has shot film to be included in exhibitions at the Horniman Museum. Most of this footage focuses on crafts:

Carving a Topeng Mask (2014) 20 minutes

Fiona showed her film Carving a Topeng Mask in October 2014 at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, as part of their Afterhours Java and Bali programme. The film was made over a period of two weeks in 2008, documenting the work of Balinese master carver Ida Bagus Alit from Lodtunduh village, near Ubud, Bali.

Other filming:

Between 2007 and 2010 Fiona filmed temple performances of a range of dances in many locations in Bali: rejang, baris, topeng, gambuh, wayang wong and Barong. She also filmed a shadow puppet show as well as a cremation ceremony. The film of a cremation was shown in 2014 at the Pitt Rivers Museum in combination with film of a similar subject made by Beryl de Zoete in the 1930s.

Fiona filmed batik production in Jambi, Sumatra, for an exhibition in Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, and in Yogyakarta, Java. In Japan, she filmed the making of shibori in Arimatsu and in Cambodia the process of silk production from silkworm to finished cloth including the mudmee (ikat) process. Both were used in exhibitions at the Horniman Museum.

In Thailand Fiona documented weaving, reeling, dyeing etc, in a village in Isan. In Sardinia she filmed the winter masquerade in Mamoiada, Sardinia.