Film Screening: Chasing Shadows (Roger Canals, 2019)
6-8pm, Friday 8 November 2019
Pitt Rivers Museum (South door entrance, Robinson Close off South parks Road)
Documentary film screening and Q&A with director Roger Canals (University of Barcelona) and anthropologists Ramon Sarró (University of Oxford) and Marina Temudo (University of Lisbon)
Chasing Shadows (2019) offers an intimate portrait of the current practice of the prophetic movement called Kyangyang in Guinea-Bissau. Kyangyang means “the shadows”, but its followers also call themselves “Children of God”. The members of the movement communicate with their ancestors and with God through prophetic writing, glossolalia, divination rituals, and spirit possession. Guided by the ancestors, they heal, guide and give advice in collective ceremonies. This film delves into the creative and poetic world of Kyangyang by giving voice to its members, young and adults, men and women. It also explores the relations between Kyangyang and Balanta cosmology and between the prophetic movement and the two main "world religions" in the country: Islam and Christianity, in its Catholic and Evangelical modes.
