Atali's Gift

The story is about Atali who has recently moved back to his homestead in the Rombo District on the eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. For nearly twenty years, he has pursued university studies and engaged in various business ventures, but these have brought him few material rewards. Atali is determined to turn his life around and is convinced he needs to settle some longstanding matters pertaining to his long-deceased father and father’s father. His path to a better future goes through the past and requires an intervention in the present. A visit from the anthropologist Knut Christian Myhre, who has long lived in Atali’s house while conducting research in the area, provides Atali with the impetus to proceed with his plans. He wants a new name and connection to a different Homestead, and for this a ceremony is required. But will his elderly mother agree to this? This is a film about anthropological topics, such as adaptation, kinship, religion and ritual life. It is also a film about anthropological fieldwork - tuning in, hanging out and hanging on - participating and observing. This film shows how documentation can be combined in new ways with narrative and the aesthetic conventions of cinema.