WHY FILM?
Anthropologists also make films: to teach, to convey insights of their research projects through stories, to think through different media. Filmmakers also do research: to make compelling stories, to teach, to entertain, as well as to invite thinking. Beekeeping in the End Times is an independent film put together by two sisters and beekeepers. The production process blended the tools and tasks of anthropology and filmmaking to bring forth unusual, upbeat stories about multispecies love and human responsibility while seriously considering the signs of our world going to wrack and ruin. Courtesy of the Wenner-Gren Fejos Fellowship for an ethnographic filmmaking and a grant from the ACLS/Luce Program for Religion, Journalism, & International Affairs, the co-directors collected 72 hours of footage, filming beekeepers and shepherds at 32 locations in the mountainous, riverine, and Mediterranean sub-climates of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A gifted musician, Mirza Redzepagic, wrote a highly original score, which blends maqam music, Sufi invocations, Balkan lore, and industrial beats to build up an atmosphere of the final times with all the twists and surprises entailed by honey hunting through a post-war, developing country. The film is currently in post-production.
