ABSTRACT
Janus Metz (b. 1974) is director of several documentary films, including Armadillo (2010), for which he received the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. 1 Sine Plambech (b. 1975) is an anthropologist at the Danish Institute for International Studies specializing in human trafficking, international migration and gender. Together, Metz and Plambech made the films Love on Delivery (2008) and Ticket to Paradise (2008), both official selections at the 2008 International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA). The outcome of a meeting between academic research and the art and craft of documentary filmmaking, the films explore migration and transnational ties and identities under conditions of globalization by focusing on marital arrangements among Thai women and men in provincial Denmark. Love on Delivery and Ticket to Paradise challenge conventional narratives of victimhood by focusing on the self-perceptions of Thai women as they make the life-determining choice to settle in an unknown country on the other side of the planet, leaving behind family and communities. We sat down with Metz and Plambech to talk about their collaboration and the opportunities and challenges of bringing together (anthropological) research and documentary filmmaking.
