Carmen Ávalos , philosopher, anthropologist and filmmaker, spoke about the documentary as a communication tool in the seventh edition of the Planeta UAB Cycle, an initiative of the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación aimed at students of its master’s degrees.
This cycle of conferences is part of the project “Planet UAB: The journey to the other – equals in differences” organised by the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación during the academic year 2020-2021, with the support of the Solidarity Fund of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, which organised a series of activities and awareness-raising actions based on the concept of the UAB campus as a “planet” and which dealt with major issues such as the culture of peace, sustainability, the environment and interculturality, among others.
Students from the Master’s in Travel Journalism, the Master’s in Environmental Communication and the Master’s in Communication and Education participated in this fourth session with Carmen Ávalos. The filmmaker analysed different documentaries differentiated into the following categories:
- Classic documentaries: Nanook (Robert J. Flaherty, 1992).
- The Journey to the Other: Other Peoples (Luis Pancorbo, 1983)/ The Baka (Phil Agland, 1987) Honey Land (Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov2019) / Hamada (Eloy Domínguez Serén, 2019) / Human (Yann Arthus-Bertrand, 2015) ) / Woman (Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertra, 2019).
- Adventure and self-discovery: Mon Petit (Marcel Barrena, 2013)
- Environment: Chasing Ice (Jeff Orlowski, 2012)/ The Salt of the Earth (Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, 2014)/ Metamorphosis (Nova Ami, 2018)/ Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog, 2008)/ Frozen Memories (Albert Solé, 2013) / Watercolour (Victor Kossakovski, 2019).
- Peripheries and non-travels: Sacro Gra (Gianfranco Rosi, 2013)
- Last trips: La Plaga (Neus Ballús, 2013) / Agente Topo (Maite Alberdi, 2020).
Carmen Ávalos holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and a degree in Anthropology from the University of Barcelona. She studied filmmaking in Paris between 1995 and 1999 (Ateliers Varan, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne). She has worked as a filmmaker in different media such as TVE (Gran Angular Programme), BTV (Noches temáticas) or La Cinquème (France).
