Diana Szántó
Author,
is a Hungarian cultural anthropologist. Her professional interests are in medical anthropology, political anthropology and urban anthropology. She teaches medical anthropology in the Health and Community Program of IHP (International Honors Program). She is also the President of Artemisszio Foundation, a Hungarian NGO for intercultural dialogue. Her book, Politicising Polio in Sierra Leone, documents her 10 year fieldwork in Sierra Leone. The film tells the personal story behind the book, revealing the messy reality of anthropologic research and the often intricate relationships between the researcher and the research participants.
Denis Ramos
Director,
has been an independent director for twenty years and is dedicated to documentaries on social issues: treating social, cultural, ethnic and artistic phenomena. He is the author of more than twenty films in France, Europe and Africa. His films are currently broadcasted by various channels. He gives priority to the meaning of his work and is conducting several projects independently from the classical media circuits. Author of his films, he is intransigent as to the quality of the images he shoots himself as chief operator.« The originality of this documentary « Manish » is that we make the discovery of this complex reality by simply following the main characters in their daily preoccupations. We are trying to stay close to them and observe them discretely. In front of our eyes their individual movements are distilled into a collective struggle. Modestly, I tried to become the chronicler of this struggle. « The Walpoleans » are for me a symbol of hope, testifying the force of the margins in claiming for their rights for human dignity. »
Ferdinando Formisano
Assistant director,
is a researcher at the Italian National Research Council, where he is in charge of experimental research in physics. Aside from his academic work, he has been involved for the last few years in some collaborative and inter-disciplinary projects, for instance design projects requiring both artistic and technical skills. He has assisted the camera operator in video shooting, light, sound recording and photography.
Frederic Maury
Sound Editing,
is a French sound engineer. His professional career started as a sound editor assistant thirty years ago in Paris. After seventeen years as an independent sound editor, working on many films for France Television and many other production companies, he created his own post-production studio in 2006, in Montpellier: Tomato Sound Factory.
« When Denis proposed to work for the film Manish, I was really happy to accept the challenge!!! Denis has been a very good friend since we studied together at the Cinema University, and even though we have our individual careers, we like very much working together. »
Oscar Inostrosa
Light operator,
was born in France, in a family of Chilean origin. He worked for the municipality of Grenoble as a maintenance agent, deployed in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city. He was an expert practitioner of Ninjutsu, an ancient Japanese martial art. He met Denis Ramos during the trainings. The microscopic film crew needed somebody with good technical skills, diverse talents and ready to work in difficult conditions. Oscar joined us and supported the shooting in multiple ways. He died tragically in 2018. His memory is with us.
