Filming Udmurt ceremonies in Bashkortostan: From the project to DVDs

This article presents our team's field experience in Udmurt villages of the Tatyshly district of Bashkortostan. We started in 2013. Our aim was to analyse the Eastern Udmurt's contemporary religious practice. These people were able to escape evangelisation and have retained their animistic ceremonies, either in full or in part. It should be noted that since the 1990s there has been a powerful revitalisation movement practically in all of the Udmurt villages of Bashkortostan, and so today almost all of them hold Udmurt ceremonies. An integral part of our research was filming, and even before starting fieldwork, we were aware that the visual was going to be central to it. The article presents the research in its entirety, from initial plan to concrete research output. Among other things, we reflect on how we started working with the Eastern Udmurt people and how this work has enriched our team, as well as on the principles underlying both the shooting and the editing. Finally, we comment on the reception of the four films we shot.

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