Cultural encounters
With the experiences and the materials collected during his adventurous trips, the author holds "Cultural Conferences" with slide-shows and videos about his travels, destinations and the different people he has met; he also offers a direct talk-show which gives information and a better idea about the traditions and the cultures of the peoples he has met and lived with.
Taiganà - the last reindeer herders of Mongolia
This conference will present a documentary on VHS made by the author on the nomadic people of Taigana, better known as Tsaatan or Dukha. These 180 people live in north-west Mongolia, among the Altai mountains and breed reindeer.
The docu. will show the everyday-life of these nomads, who maintain their ancient tradition and live in an impressive but very tough environment as the taiga is.
Their way of life, their particular relationship with the reindeer, their beliefs and opinions will help us to better understand the importance and the value of a particular cultural and social model.
The last part of the meeting with the author will highlight the problems and the needs in the taiga since the socialist system collapsed in 1990.
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On Genghis Khaan steps between past & present
This meeting will present about 200 slides showing the life and traditions of the Mongolian nomadic people who try to maintain their tradition in spite of western influence.
These nomads were often discriminated against and considered barbarians and as people with no culture at all by sedentary western people; but once you have the chance to live with them for a while you'll realize that the reality is much more different and the hospitality is great, and part of their everyday life, something that we have almost totally forgotten.
Watching the slides you'll be traveling by horse, camel and local transportation through the steppes, desert and taiga, meeting different ethnic groups( in Mongolia there are 18 different groups), tied to each other by a common and ancient tradition: the flow, which develops a real and unique life-style model. |
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The people of the sun among the people of the Andes
After traveling through the Cordillera of the Andes for 14 months between 1989-1990, Dino de Toffol chose about 200 slides among the 12,000 shot during his trip, and he's now able to hold a conference and talk especially about the native peoples of the seven countries of the Cordillera (Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela).
Enchanting landscapes will be shown, and while hiking through tiny and remote villages hidden in the Cordillera, Dino was able to have true contact with the natives, listening to their problems, wishes and dreams, and was able to do anthropological research with some tribes that might disappear in the very near future.
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Caravans of Asia on the Marco Polo's traces
During his travels through Central Asia in 1992-1994, Dino was able to step where his countryman Marco Polo did 800 years ago, and in some places like Afghanistan and Mongolia he felt like him, because welcomed in the same way.
On the ancient Silk Road, he touched 14 countries and used local transportation only (camel caravans, horses, trains, trucks and buses); he had a great opportunity to collect information, stories and especially thousands of pictures which bear witness to a millenarian tradition that the author will try to show and revive through the 200 slides he has assembled.
The merchants traveling through Asia were carrying not only silk but also gems, spices and papal messages, but also technological innovations, philosophical speculation and religious concepts which enrich our concept of the "other" as part of the heritage of humanity. |
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