This paper examines how visual anthropology and cinematic practice converge in the resacralization of reality through performative ritual. Drawing on eight years of fieldwork (2015–2023) across multiple sites — the Shroud of Turin exhibition, Vietnam, Mexico, Cambodia, and Sardinia — this research explores how the anthropologist-filmmaker engages in both documenting and co-creating sacred experiences. Through Victor Turner’s “anthropology of experience,” combined with theories of performance, space, and visual representation, I argue that ethnographic cinema functions not merely as documentation but as a transformative medium that resacralizes reality. This work culminated in the epic film Across (2023), premiered at Venice Film Festival. The paper integrates frameworks from visual anthropology, performance studies, spatial anthropology, and art theory to demonstrate how the camera becomes an instrument of sacred revelation, transforming the anthropologist into both witness and participant in the ritual creation of meaning. The analysis moves through four ethnographic sites, examining how pilgrimage, syncretic ritual, and performative intervention create new forms of the sacred in contemporary life. By positioning the filmmaker as ritual specialist, this research contributes to debates on ethnographic authority, sensory anthropology, and the possibilities of visual knowledge production in an age of liquid modernity.
Keywords: Visual anthropology; Ethnographic film; Ritual; Sacred; Performance