'Survey in Cyprus" to premiere on campus

When UND Assistant Professor of History William Caraher suggested filming a documentary to UND alum Joshua Patrow, it was almost a "joke." On Thursday, that joke will be on display for the campus community to see.

Caraher, along with Patrow, who is now a California-based documentary filmmaker, created "Survey in Cyprus" to document the day-to-day life of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project in Cyprus, which was a busy trading crossroads during the Greek and Roman empires.

The 28-minute film will be debuted at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Burtness Lab Theater on campus. The presentation is free and open to the public.

"Almost as a joke, I said (Patrow) should record the project," Caraher said.

"It really didn't start out as a grandiose idea, but it looked better and better as it was being made."

Caraher said the documentary, although it deals with specifics of the archaeological dig, is meant to appeal to everyone.

"It's supposed to be fun. Basically the dorky people who watch the History Channel, that's our ideal demographic," he said.

"But it will be lighter than most of the documentaries shown on that channel. It's pretty high-speed, and presents the material in a popular way."

Since 2003, Caraher and colleagues from around the United States have been working at the Cyprus site, which is now part of a British military base. The crew is probing the rocky soil to find artifacts and gather details about the daily life of the area's ancient inhabitants. They also hope to determine the relationship between the stretch of coastline being researched and other coastal sites in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The film will be broadcast on several PBS stations and also will be publicly shown in Bismarck and Indiana, Penn., later this year. It also is intended for classroom use.

Caraher and Patrow originally planned to use the footage as a test film to help secure financial backing for a full-length documentary, but decided the film was good enough to showcase. They hope this film will draw attention to the Cyprus site and, in return, draw in the financial backers to complete the full-length project later, Caraher said.

"Hopefully (the film) will show off what we're doing in Cyprus and get us some help," he said.

Plans are to begin production on the new documentary in summer 2008, but work could begin as early as 2007 if enough funds have been raised.

Partial financial support for the current film was provided through the Office of Instructional Development at UND.

More information on the film is available at http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/wcaraher/Multimedia.html, and information on the archaeological project is available at http://www.chss.iup.edu/pkap/.