A Rare Photo (Ket Photos and Film Chronicles)

The article is dedicated to the visual record of the traditional culture of the Kets, one of the numerically small peoples of the Krasnoyarsk region. The history of drawings (using the example of an illustration from the book by I. G. Georgi) and photographic records of the Kets is considered, beginning with the expeditions of V. I. Anuchin (1905–1909) and F. Nansen (1913) and ending with the expeditions of A. P. Dulzon (1950s–1960s); references are given to the holdings in archives and online collections of museums where photo collections are kept. Fifteen films and videos about the Kets, shot between 1978 and 2021 and found in open sources and archives, are described and analyzed from the perspective of visual anthropology. The filming locations, the first and last names of the Ket language speakers who appear on screen, the video and audio sequence of the films, the characteristics of the direction, and the author’s position on the prospects of the development (or extinction) of the Ket language and traditional Ket culture as a whole are analyzed. The author’s video footage taken during his expeditions to the Ket in 2004–2005 is also considered. All the films examined are presented in a table that includes the year of release, the date, the name of the directors and the name of the studio that produced the film, the language (Russian, Ket), and a link to the film or its trailer or synopsis in open sources on the Internet. The author concludes that the Ket culture has maintained its representation on screen despite its relative neglect by filmmakers compared to neighboring peoples (Nenets, Evenks, and Selkups). The conclusion is that the photographic and video records devoted to the Ket language and culture need to be further studied from the perspective of visual anthropology, including data from the informants’ personal photo and video archives. The article may be of interest to ethnologists, folklorists, and specialists in visual anthropology.

photography, filmmaking, videography, Kets, visual anthropology