About

Short Bio

Monica Dovarch, visual anthropologist (MA Visual Anthropology – Goldsmiths, London). She lives between Italy and Germany working mostly as independent documentary maker. She worked for Arte TV, feature-lenght and short films as first assistant director and production coordinator, She worked as well as cinematographer for documentaries and music videos. Monica always looks at any kind of project with her anthropological background that always characterizes her cinematic approach.

A bit more about me:

I was born in 1984 in Nuoro, Sardinia an Italian Island in the middle of Mediterranean Sea. My father was born in Rome and my mother in Nuoro. My surname Dovarch, reveals my hybrid origins. I still don’t know where exactly my surname comes from. Someone said it is from Hungary, others from Slovenia or maybe Austria. As soon as I finished the high school, I moved to study Anthropology at the Università degli Studi di Bologna and lived in Bologna for four years. Afterwards, with the desire to get more technical expertise, I moved to London and attended a Master of Art in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths University.

Just shortly before starting the Master in London I attended a workshop of Visual Anthropology held by David and Judith MacDougall, organised by ISRE Sardegna in Nuoro. The workshop was fundamental for my future professional training.
Afer my studies in Anthropology I started looking at my roots and identity with different eyes and “discovered” a really fascinating Island. Since that moment, most of my researches and works, both written and filmed are set in Sardinia. I wrote about Sardinian funeral rituals and archaic euthanasia; as well as filmed about music and traditional instruments’ technics of construction, healing herbs, endemism habitats, permaculture, archaeology, idioms and longevity.