11 am

Birth and Death

Episode 5 of "World – Speaking in Tongues", produced by OBE (Original Black Entertainment).

This episode looks at the phenomenon of artificial languages, the future of languages, and which ones will emerge as the important languages of the future.

12 pm

The Bad French

Looks at a unique British language, Guernesias, the language of the Guernsey Islands.

Local characters tell remarkable stories in their language, and the language has begun revistalisation.

12:30 pm

Msgamil

A beautifully produced film from Taiwan; a story about the Tayal people and their mission for restoration of their land.

2 pm

Mlabri and Outsiders

A film directed by Janus Billeskov Jansen & Signe Byrge Sørensen

For centuries the Mlabri have lived as hunters and gatherers in the jungles of northern Thailand, but the forest is disappearing and now modern society is closing in on them. So far they have managed to keep their identity and unique language alive, but at present they number only 300 people.

We meet them at a decisive moment in Mlabri history, when the first youngsters are getting ready to leave the community. This film, made by Danish film-makers Signe Byrge Sørensen and Janus Jansen is mainly in the Mlabri language with English subtitles.

3 pm

Fragments of the Owl's Egg

A film directed by Kim McKenzie

Subtle in structure, understated, full of grace and gentle laughter, this film tells several related stories: how Nadjamerrek, a celebrated Australian Aboriginal artist, is directing a fire management project from his home at Kabulwarnamyo; how rock art surrounds him at every turn; and how he quests far and wide by helicopter to find a lost art site he remembers from his youth. The story is told in Lofty's beautiful, endangered language, Kundedjnjenghmi; it is narrated by linguist Murray Garde and the words we hear seem to mingle with the splendour of the plateau, its rocks, streams and paperbarks, its cave walls and overhangs filled with ancient art.

Fragments is a film made on Aboriginal terms dealing with traditional preoccupations, yet it is very much an artistic hybrid of two ways of seeing. The pathos of the story is extreme: a movie narrated in a dying language, paying tribute to the last traditional master of a near-emptied country, discovers at last a style of film that crosses fluidly between worlds.