Gestures of craftsmen, Pierrine Saini, Thomas Schärer - The films of the Swiss Society for Popular Traditions 1960–1990

Editions Waxmann, 2019, 822 pages, ISBN 978-3-8309-3929-0

Pierrine Saini and Thomas Schärer offer for the first time a complete and transversal study of the film production of the Swiss Society of Popular Traditions (SSTP), a set of nearly 80 films witnessing the gestures and lives of craftsmen in Switzerland since 1942. By analyzing multiple sources – archives, films and interviews with filmmakers and protagonists – the authors retrace the developments of the SSTP’s Film Section and reveal the intentions, production, form and reception of these works that represent a rich audiovisual heritage. The history of the culture of craftsmanship as well as that of documentary and ethnographic film in Switzerland is highlighted, with, as a backdrop, the international context of this cinema and contemporary debates in cultural and visual anthropology.

The films analyzed in the book as well as some of the audiovisual interviews cited are accessible by streaming.

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