Courtesy of Mike Poltorak
28 May 2026

On images, care and impact: conversation on relationality (va) – led filming in Tonga, with Dr. Mike Poltorak

online

Webinar

Series: Images, Ageing and Care

share this

Images of Care Collective is thrilled to invite you for the 13th webinar of the “Images, Ageing and Care” series. On Thursday,  28th May, 17:30 – 19:00 CEST we will host Dr. Mike Poltorak, an award-winning filmmaker,  anthropologist and the founder of the Project Puono, a multimodal resource for health communication.

Courtesy of Mike Poltorak

To join the zoom meeting click here on the event’s date:

Building on Mike’s “The Healer and the Psychiatrist” (2019, 74 min), we will talk about anthropological images (and especially feature film format) and its potential to transform health communication: how can camera work, editing and community screenings bring together dispersed care worlds, along with the resonances and frictions these encounters generate? And to what extent can a creative potential of visual anthropological project be harnessed to tranform community (health)care? How far can its transformative capacities travel? After the Q&A session with Mike Poltorak faciliated by Paolo Favero and Barbara Pieta, we will open the floor wide open to the questions from the audience. 

Participants unfamiliar with Mike’s work are invited to watch “The Healer and the Psychiatrist” (2019, 74 min) in advance. You can do it here:

Password: Care

To learn more about Mike’s work, check these external sites:

Speakers

Dr.

Mike Poltorak

Mike Poltorak’s collaborative philosophy of film making was inspired by two years of using a video camera as an integral part of medical anthropological research on traditional healing and mental illness in the South Pacific island group of Tonga from 1998-2000. There he learned the importance of the relationship between filmmaker and subjects to creating a film with integrity and utility for the community. For him, ethnographic and documentary film making is one part of a journey of research and engagement, which aims at social and policy change. The collaborative and feedback based process he follows is demonstrated in ‘Fun(d)raising-The Secret of Tongan Comedy’ (a film about the Tongan comedian, Tevita Koloamatangi), ‘ One Week West of Molkom’ (a collaborative documentary on volunteers at the ‘No Mind’ festival in the community of Angsbacka in central Sweden) and Five Ways In, where he followed five people through the Freiburg International Contact Festival in Germany. The Healer and the Psychiatrist is his fourth documentary. How social health emerges as a result of meaningful and transformational social relationships and practices is a central video research interest addressed by all his documentaries.

Contacts

Barbara Pieta