ARTS FESTIVALS: SOME BUDDING AND SOME IN BLOOM : DOCUMENTARY FILMS SET AT USC

“Anthropos ‘87: The Barbara Myerhoff Film Festival,” a cinematic event devoted primarily to documentaries, will debut in May at the University of Southern California.

The festival, sponsored by USC’s Center for Visual Anthropology, will merge anthropology and cinema to “give people a way to look at human society and human life through film,” according to festival director Vikram Jayanti.

The May 20-24 festival is dedicated to the memory of Myerhoff, a USC professor of anthropology. Her book on the struggles of elderly Jews in Venice, “Number Our Days,” was turned into a public-television documentary that received a best-documentary Oscar in 1976. Myerhoff was 48 when she died of cancer in 1985.

The festival will concentrate on documentaries about the human condition, including anthropological and women’s subjects, social issues and Jewish culture--all interests pursued by Myerhoff. “Instead of a festival featuring a grab bag of films, we’re programming this from a point of view,” Jayanti said.

Robert Guenette, president of the International Documentary Assn., praised Jayanti’s efforts in organizing the new festival. “Anthropological documentaries break the boundaries usually associated with documentaries,” he said. “They’re of interest to almost everybody.”

Anthropos comes from the Greek word for mankind, which underscores the focus of this festival, Jayanti said. “We want to cinematically look at people’s belief systems: how they make sense of the world, how they organize their daily lives, how they raise their children, how they live together and how they make war.”

To encourage film makers who pursue this kind of subject matter, the festival will also sponsor a competition with five categories: student films, women’s subjects, Jewish subjects, visual anthropology and non-documentary short subject. Winners will receive $1,000 prizes.

Jayanti said 35 films already have been selected for the competition. He is in the process of selecting a panel of judges which, he said, will include leading film makers and anthropologists.

As an example of what the festival terms an “anthropological film,” Jayanti mentioned “All American High,” submitted by a film student: “It’s about Torrance High School’s senior class year. It’s an important but terrifying view of high school education.”

Although the primary focus will be documentaries, Jayanti said, the festival will also highlight the role that feature films play in presenting other cultures. He said the festival’s philosophy is that today’s film makers--commercial and independent--base their subjects on the way people all over the world lead their lives.

“Many people are only exposed to this kind of information through their movie-going,” he said.

The festival will include screenings of new feature films, which are in the process of being selected, and a retrospective of major feature film makers whose work can be seen and discussed from an anthropological perspective.

Jayanti said a perfect model would be Peter Weir, director of “Witness,” “The Year of Living Dangerously” and “The Last Wave”: “He makes different social systems come to life.

“He made it easier for me to understand Amish life in ‘Witness,’ and that’s hard to do; the Amish don’t let you film them.”

Jayanti, who worked with Myerhoff for six years, produced documentary films for USC’s anthropology department before being named head of the festival. He produced “Burden of Dreams,” director Les Blank’s new film about Serbo-American folk music, and “Ziveli: Medicine for the Heart,” which will be premiered at “Anthropos ’87.”