August 17, 2011

Lost and Found Film: ‘Kazakh Reel 6

This weeks Lost and Found film, Kazakh Reel 6, is one of a group of films in the UW Audio Visual Services Materials Library collection that are labeled Kazakh, all with similar content — village life, riding horses, getting water from a well, boys wrestling and racing. This one is a little over two minutes long and was shot in about 1979.

“The whole series seems to have been professionally shot, with certain scenes or sequences staged for the camera,” wrote Film Archives Specialist Hannah Palin. For example, she said, in one reel there are quite a few takes of a man in what appears to be traditional dress pulling water from a well and drinking out of a ceramic cup. The man is obviously cooperating with the filmmaker, performing the action several times to get just the right shot for the camera. There is also a sequence in what appears to be a village square with the assembled men slaughtering a goat and women working outdoors near cookstoves.

Kazakh Reel 6 is one of hundreds of reels of film that Palin is trying to identify for archiving purposes. She has film clips from the late 1940s through the 1970s — some from research projects, some from campus events and some from commercial films or original productions.

Can you help Palin figure out whats going on in these forgotten campus clips? For Kazakh Reel 6, she would like to know the location being depicted. What were the researchers hoping to accomplish and who is in the clip? Was it for research or part of a longer film?

Anyone with answers for Palin should enter a comment in the form below. When UW Today presented earlier films from Special Collections, readers provided important information, and Palin hopes shell get a similar response now.

Some previous Lost and Found Films:

June 30: Campus Color, circa 1940-48

July 6, Research at Sea

July 14: Aberdeen Gathering

July 21: Palo Alto Home

Aug 4: University District, circa 1965

Aug. 11: The American Dream