Festival brings folklore into present

It may go unnoticed, but every day we all engage in
folklore.

Michael Owen Jones, a world arts and cultures professor and
faculty adviser for the upcoming UCLA Folklore Society’s
Vitas Film Festival, defines folklore as “expressive forms,
processes and behaviors that people learn and utilize in their
everyday lives.” So when you call your significant other
“honey,” eat your grandma’s famous pumpkin pie at
Thanksgiving, or help sing “Happy Birthday” at a
friend’s party, you’re participating in folklore.

“(Folklore is) everything we do, the process involved in
being human beings,” said Joann Staten, president of the UCLA
Folklore Society and graduate student in cultural studies and
performance.

Folklore has existed as long as humans have, but in the last
century, the invention of film has helped bring its diverse customs
to a new, global audience.

The annual UCLA Folklore Society Film Festival was created in
1986 by then-graduate student Arthur Gribben. But the festival was
suspended in 1999 with the closing of the Folklore and Mythology
department.

This year’s organizers see the 2004 festival as the new
incarnation of what they hope will be an ongoing tradition,
blending the talents of many different organizations. The bulk of
the funding came from the Center for Student Programming and the
world arts and cultures department, with some extra support from
the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Though the
logistics have changed, the purpose of the festival has remained
the same, according to Jones.

“(We want) to screen and thus honor outstanding visual
productions that document, present and interpret the kinds of
behaviors found in all societies and that therefore define us as
members of a common species,” he said.

Although folklore is found in all social classes, the
“folk” aspect means it has traditionally been
associated with lower income classes. Some might find it strange
that folklore has found its way into film, a medium traditionally
open only to those with a lot of money. The rise of inexpensive
video equipment has made it easier for people who might not
otherwise have connections to the film industry to tell their
stories.

“Video has democratized the recording of traditional
behaviors and events,” Jones said.

Open to the public, this year’s competition contains works
from around the world, with contributions from both professional
and student filmmakers. Because of the lack of strict guidelines,
there is no running theme across the submissions, according to
Staten.

“We just wanted to see what people would send in,”
she said.

Even professors are showing their works. Interested in how
folklore can adapt while keeping its traditions intact, world arts
and cultures professor and faculty adviser John Bishop has two
films being screened: “In the Wilderness of a Troubled
Genre” and “O What a Blow that Phantom Gave
Me.”

“Even though (folklore) appears to change on the surface,
the core values don’t change,” he said.

According to Bishop, film has proved an ideal form of preserving
traditions that might otherwise be lost to history. This
year’s festival hopes to fight the perception that folklore
is only in the past.

“We’re not looking to the past anymore,”
Staten said. “We’re looking to the present.”

For more information, visit
www.studentgroups.ucla.edu/folklore.