I argue that contemporary filmmakers, including today’s most artistically acclaimed Lithuanian film director, Šarūnas Bartas, whose works examine an ethnographic subject, question the rigid distinction between art and ethnography and prompt us to rethink the definition of ethnographic film. However, since they are primarily interested in the result, these filmmakers inadvertently perpetuate a cinematographic colonialism instead of trying to challenge obsolete models of representing other cultures. To make my point, I analyse two of Bartas’s early films: Tofalaria (1986) and Few of Us (1996), both shot in the area of the Eastern Sayan Mountains informally known as Tofalaria and inhabited by the Tofalars, the smallest indigenous ethnic group in Russia. Although they focus on the same subject, these films employ two different strategies of filmmaking and visual representation: Tofalaria can be considered as a conventional ethnographic documentary in which a voice-over describes the images and tells the story of the Tofalars, whereas Few of Us is a fiction film which has a narrative structure and features professional actors alongside local amateurs. Both films share the same premise: Tofalar culture and the Tofalars themselves are dying. Moreover, Tofalaria is depicted as a non-place, to use Marc Augé’s term, and has therefore lost its anthropological meaning.

我认为当代电影制作人，包括当今在艺术上最受赞誉的立陶宛电影导演萨鲁纳斯·巴塔斯（Šarūnas Bartas），他的作品审视了民族志主题，质疑艺术与民族志之间的严格区别，并促使我们重新思考民族志电影的定义。然而，由于他们主要对结果感兴趣，这些电影制片人无意中延续了电影殖民主义，而不是试图挑战代表其他文化的过时模式。为了阐明我的观点，我分析了巴塔斯的两部早期电影：《托法拉里亚》（Tofalaria，1986）和《我们中的少数人》（Few of Us，1996），这两部影片都是在东萨彦岭地区拍摄的，该地区被非正式地称为托法拉里亚（Tofalaria），居住着托法拉尔人，这是俄罗斯最小的土著民族。虽然它们关注同一主题，但这些电影采用了两种不同的电影制作和视觉表现策略：《托法拉里亚》可以被视为一部传统的民族志纪录片，其中画外音描述图像并讲述托法拉人的故事，而《我们中的少数人》是一部具有叙事结构的虚构电影，由专业演员和当地业余演员组成。这两部电影都有一个共同的前提：托法拉文化和托法拉人本身正在消亡。此外，用马克·奥热的术语来说，托法拉里亚被描述为一个非地方，因此失去了其人类学意义。