Dr. Tara Douglas introduced the audience to a collection of animated films, called the ‘Tales of the Tribes’, developed from oral narratives from northeast and central India. She talked about her discussions with groups of animation workshop participants in northeast India, and presented two significant reasons to involve indigenous storytelling into the medium of animation: to sustain the stories for young people, and to raise awareness of the value of indigenous cultures in wider society, and to serve the long-term aim of contributing to reduce the discrimination that is reportedly faced by young indigenous people in India.

While time constraints and other logistics limited Dr. Elwin’s longterm commitment, his early collaboration with the community is emulated by the participatory film-making practice for the production of the ‘Tales of the Tribes’ collection of animated films, which invite the voices of the participants and storytellers.

Tara argued that the multimedia approach that defines all the films in the collection can firstly draw from the richness and depth of traditional culture, and then use a modern medium to translate it into a contemporary form – an animated film.