Alumni Spotlight: Josefine Borrmann ’11

January 28, 2014

Wilkinson College
alumnae Josefine Borrmann (B.A. in Ethnographic Film ’11) has been receiving awards for her first feature film titled,
A Question of Perspective.
Borrmann created the film while still at Chapman and finished it during her studies of Visual and Media Anthropology in Berlin, Germany with co-director Julia Luhnau, University of Cologne.

The film explores the values of the Brazilian drug cartel Comando Vermelho, “Peace, Justice and Liberty”. It takes a closer look at these values and their significance in the lives of those who are inevitably intertwined with the drug wars in Brazil.

In April 2013 the film made its world premiere, at the L.A. New Wave International Film Festival where it was awarded Best Directing, Best Concept and First Place Documentary Feature Film. The film has also screened at The Indie Gathering International Film Festival in Cleveland where it won Second Place for Foreign Documentary, the International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration and Equality in Indonesia where it received an Honorable Mention as New Comer, and at ETHNOCINECA Ethnographic and Documentary Film Festival in Vienna.

Most recently,
A Question of Perspective
has been awarded Best Student Film by the Society for Visual Anthropology, (SVA) conference, Chicago SVA Film Festival and accepted at the 2014 Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival.

“I was lucky that I was able to use the film towards my Master Thesis, however, the film would have been made regardless of my MA program,” said Borrmann. “It ends on a big question mark. My dream is to someday receive enough funding to make a second and third film, following the same participants over time. I would like to make this project into a longitudinal research study, spanning 6-8 years.
A Question of Perspective
was entirely self-funded, except for some small private donations from friends and family and the Chancellors Grant from Chapman University,” she said.

Borrmann and Luhnau were both full-time MA students, working part-time, and producing this film.

“It was a busy two years, and for future projects we hope to find better funding. We couldn’t be more fulfilled and happy about the film we were able to create in spite of the many obstacles we had to overcome,” said Borrmann.