Introduction to Ethnographic Cinema

Sisters in Law. Ayisi, Florence and Kim Longinotto (2021).

In the little town of Kumba, Cameroon, there have been no convictions in spousal abuse cases for 17 years. But two women determined to change their community are making progress that could change their country. This fascinating, often hilarious doc follows the work of State Prosecutor Vera Ngassa and Court President Beatrice Ntuba as they help women fight often-difficult cases of abuse, despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent. Six-year-old Manka is covered in scars and has run away from an abusive aunt, Amina is seeking a divorce to put an end to brutal beatings by her husband, the pre-teen Sonita has daringly accused her neighbor of rape.

In and Out of Africa. Barbash, Ilsa and Lucien Taylor (1993).

In and Out of Africa traces the transnational trade of African Art between West Africa and the USA, providing an insight into how value, commoditization and authenticity are understood and created. The film follows a Nigerien trader, Gabai Baare, from the Ivory Coast to Long Island, USA, as he conducts his job, doing business with art collectors and translating the meaning of the ‘bois’ (‘wood’) he sells from one context to the other. Interviews with African traders and European and American collectors complement the narrative, while insights into the production of the art objects and the techniques used to create desired effects, are offered.

Selbe et tant d'autres (One Among Many). Faye, Safi (1982).

Selbé et tant d’autres (Selbé: One Among Many; 1982) by Safi Faye (born 1943) begins how it ends. It is carried by song in a cycle that does not allow rest. In the documentary film’s first two minutes, we are introduced to Selbé, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of eight from Fad’jal, the filmmaker’s native Serer village in southern Senegal. We hear her doleful song, with a repeating lyric in Serer, “There is no respite for the unfortunate ones.” Her voice guides us throughout the thirty minutes of the film, as she sings at irregular intervals to accompany her labor. The lyrics reflect the film’s visual portrayal of her and other women at work and in constant motion in the absence of their husbands, who have migrated to the nearest cities in search of work.

Diary of a Maasai Village. Llewellyn-Davies, Melissa (1985).

This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period.

To Live With Herds. MacDougall, David and Judith MacDougall (1974).

This classic, widely acclaimed film on the Jie of Uganda, produced by the renowned ethnographic filmmaking team of David and Judith MacDougall, examines the effects of nation building in pre-Amin Uganda on the seminomadic, pastoral Jie. Much more than an intrinsically interesting historical document, it has achieved classic status among ethnographic films owing to its remarkable success in developing a coherent analytical statement about its subjects' situation, yet at the same time allowing them to speak for themselves about the world as they see and experience it.The film explores life in a traditional Jie homestead during a harsh dry season. The talk and work of adults go on, but there is also hardship and worry, exacerbated by government policies that seem to attack rather than support the values and economic base of Jie society.A mother counts her children; among them is a son she hardly knows who has joined the educated bureaucracy. Later we find him supervising famine relief for his own people in a situation that seems far beyond his control.At the end of the film Logoth, the protector of the homestead, travels to the west to rejoin his herds in an area of relative plenty; at least for the time being his life seems free from official interference.

Turkana Conversations Trilogy. MacDougall, David and Judith MacDougall (1980).

This classic trilogy of films by David and Judith MacDougall focuses on the Turkana people of Kenya. "Lorang's Way" (1977) is a multifaceted portrait of Lorang, the head of the homestead and one of the important senior men of the Turkana. Because they are relatively isolated and self-sufficient, most Turkana (including Lorang’s son) see their way of life continuing unchanged into the future. But Lorang thinks otherwise, for he has seen something of the outside world. In "The Wedding Camels," (1980) one of Lorang’s daughters, Akai, is going to marry one of his friends and age-mates, Kongu. Because of the close ties between the two men everything should go smoothly, but the pressures within the two families are such that the wedding negotiations over the bridewealth become increasingly tense. "A Wife Among Wives" (1981) investigates the views of the Turkana, and especially Turkana women, on marriage and polygyny. As the plans for a marriage in a nearby homestead unfold, the film explores why a Turkana woman would want her husband to take a second (or third) wife, and how the system of polygyny can be a source of solidarity among women while at the same time it may brutally disregard individual feelings.

The Hunters. Marshall, John (1957).

In this classic documentary, the Kalahari Bushmen of Africa wage a constant war for survival against the hot arid climate and unyielding soil. 'The Hunters' focuses on four men who undertake a hunt to obtain meat for their village. The chronicle of their 13-day trek becomes part of the village's folklore, illustrating the ancient roots and continual renewal of African tribal cultures.

N!ai, The Story of a !Kung Woman. Marshall, John (1980).

This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period.

Quand les étoiles rencontrent la mer. Rajaonarivelo, Raymond (1996).

Kapila is born on the day of an eclipse of the sun, a ‘visible disharmony in the heavens’. According to local tradition on Madagascar, children born in such circumstances have great and dangerous powers. As a test Kapila has to spend a night among the cattle. He survives this, but not through his own efforts. A young woman with no children saves Kapila and in doing so she changes his fate for ever. Raymond Rajaonarivelo follows his epic first film on the Malagasy liberation struggle, Tabataba, with a very different, poetic film exploring the relationship between traditional and modern concepts of human freedom.

Jaguar. Rouch, Jean (1967).

One of Jean Rouch's classic ethnofictions, the film follows three young Songhay men from Niger -- Lam Ibrahim, Illo Goudel'ize, and the legendary performer Damouré Zika -- on a journey to the Gold Coast (modern day Ghana). Drawing from his own fieldwork on intra-African migration, the results of which he published in the 1956 book Migrations au Ghana, Rouch collaborated with his three subjects on an improvisational narrative. The four filmed the trip in mid-1950s, and reunited a few years later to record the sound, the participants remembering dialogue and making up commentary. The result is a playful film that finds three African men performing an ethnography of their own culture.

Les maitres fous (The Mad Masters). Rouch, Jean (1955).

The Mad Masters (Les maitres fous), the most controversial and also the most widely celebrated work by ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch, depicts the annual ceremony of the Hauku cult, a social and religious movement which was widespread in French colonial Africa from the 1920s to the 1950s. Participants in the ceremony mimic the elaborate military ceremonies of their colonial occupiers. Rouch does not document this from a distance, but, using a hand-held camera and quick cuts, creates an effect he called "cine-trance".

Moi, un noir. Rouch, Jean (1958).

The film depicts an ordinary week in the lives of men and women from Niger who have migrated to Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire for work. After a short introduction by Rouch, "Edward G. Robinson"-Omarou Ganda, who like the film's other subject-collaborators plays himself under the name of a Western movie star-takes over the film's narration, recreating dialogue and providing freewheeling commentary on his experiences. Robinson describes the bitter reality of life in Treichville, a poor inner suburb populated largely by migrants, and his work as a day laborer (bozori) in the ports. When the weekend arrives, he and his friends go to the beach and the bars, but even during this brief respite from their drudgery, they remain second-class citizens.

The Lion Hunters. Rouch, Jean (1965).

Shot on the border between Niger and Mali over a period of seven years, THE LION HUNTERS is Jean Rouch's documentation of the lion hunt performed by the gow hunters of the Songhay people.

Mammy Water. Rouch, Jean (1956).

On the coast of Ghana, in the shadows of the Portuguese slave forts, lies the Gulf of Guinea. This sea is home to the "surf boys", teams of expert fisherman who paddle into the ocean in large canoes, sometimes staying at sea for one or even two nights.

For the Best and for the Onion!. Sani, Elhadj Magori (2010).

Agriculture is key to the local economy, with Galmi onions prized throughout West Africa. Shot over the course of one growing season, For the Best and For the Onion! is a verite documentary that captures the rhythms of life in Galmi, and how the vagaries of market price and harvest can affect the most intimate personal decisions.

Mandabi. Sembène, Ousmane (1968).

Recorded primarily in Wolof, this second feature by Ousmane Sembène was the first ever made in an African language--a major step toward the realization of the trailblazing Senegalese filmmaker's dream of creating a cinema by, about, and for the inhabitants of his home continent. After jobless Ibrahima Dieng receives a money order for 25,000 francs from a nephew who works in Paris, news of his windfall quickly spreads among his neighbors, who flock to him for loans even as his attempts to cash the order are stymied in a maze of bureaucratic obstacles, and new troubles rain down on his head. One of Sembène's most coruscatingly funny and indignant films, Mandabi--an adaptation of a novella by the director himself--is a bitterly ironic depiction of a society scarred by colonialism and plagued by corruption, greed and poverty.

Trance and Dance in Bali. Bateson, Gregory and Margaret Mead (1951).

A performance of the kris dance, a Balinese ceremonial dance which dramatizes the never-ending struggle between the witch and the dragon—the death-dealing and the life-protecting—as it is given in the village of Pagoetan in 1937-1939. Dancers go into violent trance seizures and turn their krisses (daggers) against their breasts without injury. Consciousness is restored with incense and holy water. Balinese gamelan music forms the soundtrack, along with Margaret Mead's narration.

Herdsmen. Bin, Wei (2001).

A small film crew tracks a Kazak family in Xinjiang, China's western-most province, from spring to winter. Unlike the people of Kazakstan, who grew into a nation of farmers and workers, the Kazaks retained their nomadic life and a close bond with nature.

Ta'ang. Bing, Wang (2016).

In a pair of refugee camps, those displaced by the war attempt to create reasonably safe living conditions, while others go deeper into China where they may find work in sugarcane fields or try their luck in urban areas. Meanwhile, those still in Myanmar must journey across the mountains, belongings and livestock in tow, as the sounds of gunfire and artillery echo around them.

Himalayan Herders. Bishop, John and Naomi Bishop (1997).

Himalayan Herders is an intimate portrait of a temple-village in the Yolmo valley of Central Nepal where Tibetan Buddhists consult shamans, married life begins by kidnapping the bride, and the nearest road is a two-day walk away. The community drama of marriage, death, and rituals is juxtaposed with the rich texture of daily life, both in the village and the surrounding mountains and forest where these pastoralists herd zomo, a cross between a cow and a yak, which thrives in middle altitude pastures between 8,000 and 14,000 feet. Cultural change, in the form of a government primary school, incorporation into a national park, and circular migration for wage labor outside Nepal, is discussed by residents in interviews.

Sudesha. Dhanraj, Deepa (1983).

Sudesha tells the story of a woman who is a village activist in the Chipko Forest Conservation Movement in the foothills of the Himalayas. In this area, people depend entirely on the forest for their daily needs of firewood, food, and water. But the forests have been destroyed by powerful timber traders—and along with the forest, the livelihood of the people has been threatened.

Naim and Jabar. Di Gioia, Herbert and David Hancock (1974).

The hopes, fears, and aspirations of adolescence are expressed in the close friendship of two Afghan boys. As their acceptance of the filmmakers leads them to express their feelings more and more openly, the film grows rich in fact and themes of universal concern. Filmed in the Balkh Province, an area inhabited by Tajik and other Central Asian peoples. The town of Aq Kupruk is approximately 320 miles northwest of Kabul. The theme of the film focuses on education and socialization.

Forest of Bliss. Gardner, Robert (1986).

Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares (now Varanasi), India's most holy city. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next without commentary, subtitles or dialogue. It is an attempt to give the viewer a wholly authentic, though greatly magnified and concentrated, sense of participation in the experiences examined by the film.

Sons of Shiva. Gardner, Robert (1985).

Sons of Shiva is a sustained attempt to film a four-day ceremony concerned with the worship of Shiva. Devotees of the God Shiva are shown from the initial taking of the Sacred Thread through gradually intensifying action to a culmination in a variety of ascetic and self denying practices. Devotees are also shown in informal activities such as preparing food and listening to recitals of devotional songs by the famous mendicant Bauls of Bengal. Among the specific devotional practices is the fulfillment of vows to please the gods. Many devotees resolve to roll in prostration through the field to the shrine of Shiva. Others participate in the nightly processions that involve falling in trance while dancing and holding a symbol of Shiva on one's head. One of the highlights of the film is a performance by a group of Bauls (wandering holy men and religious troubadours) who sing devotional songs for the resting devotees.

Altar of Fire. Gardner, Robert (1976).

This film records a 12 day ritual performed by Mambudiri Brahmins in Kerala, southwest India, in April 1975. This event was possibly the last performance of the Agnicayana, a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back 3,000 years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual. Long considered extinct and never witnessed by outsiders, the ceremonies require the participation of seventeen priests, involve libations of Soma juice and oblations of other substances, all preceded by several months of preparation and rehearsals. They include the construction, from a thousand bricks, of a fire altar in the shape of a bird.

The Akha Way. Hainsfurhter, Sharon (1999).

or over a thousand years, the Akha people have inhabited the hills of Asia — mainly Southern China, Burma and Northern Thailand. The Akha Way or Akhazaunh, is the code by which they live. This documentary describes their origins and their culture. It contains extraordinary footage of a shaman healing ceremony; a funeral, with the ritual sacrifice of a water buffalo; the reading of a pig's liver after a new house is built, and more. Today the Akha Way is fast disappearing. Forced migration, Christianity, money and drugs are eroding the cultural heritage of the Akha tribe.

Undala. Jablonko, Allison and Marek Jablonko (1967).

Undala was filmed in 1964 in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan just before the emergence of the technology required for the field recording of synchronous sound. Dust hangs over the land, diffusing the light, muting shadow, and adding a patina of gold to each scene. As an intense and purely observational experience, it could be seen as a precursor to what is being referred to today as "sensory ethnography." The village Gangwa is presented as first encountered by a team of filmmakers and anthropologists. A musical score by Harold Schram, a student of Indian classical music, accents the movement and rhythm of a medley of visual impressions of daily work activities: a potter opens a flawless clay vessel on his potter's wheel spinning on a spike of wood, a carpenter planes a sliver from a plank held without tool or vise and men lift 340 pounds of water from a shaft well in the skin of a flayed bovine. The tactility of grit and dust, of sweat and heat, of abrasive winds and squinting eyes, and of water flushing from a leather bag, infuses the viewing with the sensate - an embodied world of the craftsmen that no longer exists.

The Goddess and the Computer. Lansing, J. Stephen and Andre Singer (1988).

For centuries, rice farmers on the island of Bali have taken great care not to offend Dewi Danu, the water goddess who dwells in the crater lake near the peak of Batur volcano. Toward the end of each rainy season, the farmers send representatives to Ulun Danu Batur, the temple at the top of the mountain, to offer ducks, pigs, coins and coconuts in thanks for the water that sustains their terraced fields. Outsiders have long considered the rituals of Agama Tirtha, "the religion of holy water" an interesting but impractical way to grow crops. Development companies have spent millions trying to improve on the ancient system. With the help of an ingenious computer program, anthropologist Steve Lansing and ecologist James Kremer have shown that the Balinese rice growers have been practicing state-of-the-art resource management. Besides placating the goddess, it turns out, the island's ancient rituals serve to coordinate the irrigation and planting schedules of hundreds of scattered villages. And as a new computer model makes clear, the result is one of the most stable and efficient farming systems on the planet.

A Celebration of Origins. Lewis, E. Douglas, Timothy Asch and Patsy Asch (1992).

A Celebration of Origins, filmed in 1980, depicts the first celebration of these rituals since 1960. The rituals, which require the participation of the entire community, had been delayed by poor harvests and epidemics. The film focuses on a small group of ritual leaders who struggle to hold the celebration in the absence of the Source of the Domain, the ritual leader of the community, who died after initiating the rituals. Evoking the contested nature of ritual, the film demonstrates how ritual performance implicates delicate political relationships based on pragmatic alliances, festering antipathies or developing jealousies.

Doon School Chronicles. MacDougall, David (2000).

Sometimes called "the Eton of India," the Doon School has nevertheless developed its own characteristic style and presents a curious mixture of privilege and egalitarianism. The school was established by a group of Indian nationalists in the 1930s to produce a new generation of leaders who would guide the nation after Independence. Since then it has become highly influential in the creation of the new Indian elites and has come to epitomize many aspects of Indian postcoloniality. Shot over a two-year period, the film explores the social aesthetics and ideology of the school through its rituals, the physical environment it has created, and its effects upon several boys of different ages and temperaments.

Photo Wallahs: An Encounter with Photography in a Northern Indian Hill Station. MacDougall, David and Judith MacDougall (1991).

The film focuses on the photographers of Mussoorie, a hill station in the Himalayan foothills of northern India whose fame has attracted tourists since the 19th century. Through a rich mixture of scenes that includes the photographers at work, their clients, and both old and new photographs, this extraordinary film examines photography as art and as social artifact - a medium of reality, fantasy, memory, and desire.

Mujaan (The Craftsman). McKee, Chris (2005).

On the distant steppes of Mongolia, using only simple tools, strength and ingenuity, a nomad builds a home much the way his ancestors have for the past one thousand years. Mujaan (The Craftsman) is a vivid window to a disappearing way of life in a pristine wilderness.  

The Sprouts of Capitalism in China. Qin, Wen-jie (1997).

Mr. Yang came from a rich gentry family and was given away as an infant when his family disintegrated at the beginning of the socialist era. He grew up in the countryside as a poor peasant and came to the city in the late 70's as a construction worker. After years of struggle, he now owns a construction material plant and an ice cream factory and is a major investor in the local real estate market. The film searches for the drive behind his determination for economic success and links his personal story to the turbulent history of China in the past several decades. We are introduced to Mr. Yang's wife, who is a full partner in running the family businesses, as well as the couple's eight-year-old son, who attends an expensive private school that concentrates on teaching foreign languages. Scenes of the family reveal Mr. Yang's memories of the past and his dreams for the future.

To the Land of Bliss. Qin, Wen-jie (2001).

To the Land of Bliss is an intimate portrayal of the Chinese Pure Land Buddhist way of dying and living. In 1998, filmmaker/anthropologist Wen-jie Qin returned to her home region in Sichuan Province in southwest China to research the post-Mao revival of Buddhism. During her fieldwork on the sacred mountain Emei, an eminent monk named Jue Chang passes away. Wen-jie Qin captures the poignant time following his death when community members mourn the departure of their beloved teacher. The film follows those same people as they gather to escort the monk's body through a rite of fire, and to ultimately observe his consciousness rise to a paradise known as the Land of Bliss of Amita Buddha.

Leaving Bakul Bagan. Ray, Sandeep (1994).

Three generations of the extended Roychowdury family have resided for decades at 160 Bakul Bagan Road, Calcutta. Every now and then one of its members has to leave the landscape of their childhood - a large sprawling house built around a courtyard and all the affection that dozens of relatives surround them with, to relocate for a job or to start a family elsewhere. In Leaving Bakul Bagan, Saborna, a 19 year-old girl, prepares to leave for higher studies in the United States. The film is an intimate portrayal of her interactions with her family during her last few days at home. It is full of casual conversational humor and vignettes from typical familial interactions. Incidental to the time and woven into the film are the effects of race riots throughout India in the aftermath of the destruction of a Mosque by Hindu fanatics. This incident precipitates an already brewing political debate about the ethics of leaving for America, especially on the eve of such a tragic political disaster.

Wuxing People's Commune. Richardson, Boyce and Tony Ianzelo (1978).

In 1978, the 14,500 peasants on Wuxing People's Commune in North China produced enough food in that year to satisfy most of their needs on just 3,000 acres. This film documents the organization of work and its dignity, from 63-year-old Yu Lu Tiao who tends his vegetable field at dawn, to chanting kindergarten youngsters, to the thousands of men, women, and children who mobilize for a great wheat harvest in June.

Which Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam . Sachs, Lynne (2015).

When two American sisters travel north from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends reveal to them the flip side of a shared history. Lynne and Dana Sachs' travel diary of their trip to Vietnam is a collection of tourism, city life, culture clash, and historic inquiry that's put together with the warmth of a quilt. WHICH WAY IS EAST starts as a road trip and flowers into a political discourse. It combines Vietnamese parables, history and memories of the people the sisters met, as well as their own childhood memories of the war on TV. To Americans for whom ""Vietnam"" ended in 1975, WHICH WAY IS EAST is a reminder that Vietnam is a country, not a war.

The Bharvad Predicament. Sandall, Roger (1987).

Bharvad cattle herdsman have been nomadic pastoralist for centuries. The film presents the conflict that has arisen between the local landholding farmer and the Bharvad, in Dhrangadhra, northern India.

A Zenana: Scenes and Recollections. Sandall, Roger (1981).

In India, the most secluded section of the palace was the zenana, or women's quarters. Here, until recently, palace women lived behind protective walls and brass doors firmly shut at night. This film is an account of women's life in the Dhrangadra, in northern India, the seat of power of the Jhala Rajputs from the 11th century A.D. until 1947. The film unfolds through songs, dances, and stories of several palace women, including the Maharani (wife of the Maharaja), who is the mother of one of the filmmakers. She and others reflect upon traditional women's roles, the strictness of their former seclusion, and the ideals of women's purity and inner strength.

The Kazakhs of China. Singer, Andre (1983).

The Kazakhs of Xinjiang (Sinkiang) are one of the fifty-five national minorities that now live within the borders of the People’s Republic of China. The policy of the Chinese Communist Party toward these people has been one of Sinofication, a neutralization of `reactionary’ local leaders and an alliance of Han Chinese with the indigenous culture. The film follows the movement of the family of Abdul Gair, illustrated the cycles and tensions of present day Kazakhs, mixes detail of their traditional life as herders with suggestion of the effect of Chinese rule.

Tie dao (The Iron Ministry). Sniadecki, J. P. (2018).

Traces the vast interiors of China on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. The film immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines on what will soon be the world's largest railway network.

Summer Pasture. True, Lynn, Nelson Walker, and Tsering Perlo (2010).

Filmed in the high grasslands of eastern Tibet, Summer Pasture offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a young nomad couple and their infant daughter. Locho and his wife Yama live in Dzachukha, eastern Tibet - nicknamed '5-most' by the Chinese for being the highest, coldest, poorest, largest, and most remote county in Sichuan Province. They depend on their herd of yaks for survival, much as their ancestors have for generations. In recent years however, Dzachukha has undergone rapid development, and Locho and Yama are finding their traditional way of life increasingly more difficult to maintain.

Song of Ceylon. Wright, Basil (1934).

Made by the GPO Film Unit and sponsored by both the Empire Tea Marketing Board and the Ceylon Tea Board, Song of Ceylon chronicles the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs. The film is poetic in tone and features a number of image and sound montage sequences. A montage of industrial sounds and electronic waves are mixed together, creating an expressive, yet rather dissonant, sense of the encroachment of modernity.

Chinese Portrait. Xiaoshuai, Wang (2018).

Shot over ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaus of people and environments, each one more extraordinary than the last. Pedestrians shuffle across a bustling Beijing street, steelworkers linger outside a deserted factory, tourists laugh and scamper across a crowded beach, worshippers kneel to pray in a remote village.

Black Mother. Allah, Khalik (2018).

Part film, part baptism, in Black Mother director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, Black Mother channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica's turbulent history but existing in the urgent present.

The Ax Fight. Asch, Timothy and Napoleon Chagnon (1975).

A fight broke out in Mishimishimabowei-teri on the second day of Napoleon Chagnon and Tim Asch's stay in the village in 1971. The event lasted about half an hour, ten minutes of which were filmed. The film is constructed of four parts. The first consists of an unedited version of what the cameraman saw and the sound technician recorded, including the filmmakers' comments. The following three parts attempt to resolve the apparent chaos of the first part into anthropological explanation and analysis. The Ax Fight thus operates on several levels. It plunges the viewer into the anthropology of Yanomamö kinship, alliance, and village fission; of violence and conflict resolution. At the same time it raises questions about how anthropologists and filmmakers make sense of and translate their experience into meaningful words and coherent, moving images.

Video in the Villages. Carelli, Vincent, et al. (1987-2004).

Since the 1980s, the Video in the Villages' project has encouraged the encounter of the Amazonian Indians with their images. The project's proposal is to turn video into a tool that will enable the expression of their identity, reflecting their vision about themselves and about the world. While providing the indigenous communities with video equipment, the project has stimulated image and information exchange among the nations. Initially the training of Indian video-makers was done village-by-village, providing records for their own use. Today, through national and regional workshops, they learn and discuss together ways to present their reality, for their own people and for the world.

Mangrove Music. Cubero, Carlo A. (2006).

The Caribbean island of Culebra is located between Spanish speaking Puerto Rico and English speaking Virgin Islands. Musicians from the island are inspired from a variety of regional, national and global influences when composing and producing their distinct island music. This film follows two music groups from the island of Culebra and specifically looks into the processes and relationships that constitute an island musical identity.

Ika Hands. Gardner, Robert (1988).

In the highlands of Northern Colombia, the Ika live a strenuous and isolated life, economically dependent on small gardens and a handful of domestic animals. They are thought to be descendants of the Maya who fled from the turmoil of Central American High Civilization's warring states to the remote valleys of Colombia's Sierra Nevadas. The Ika still inhabit a spectacular but demanding terrain extending between five and fifteen thousand feet, an almost vertical geography through which they move with prodigious ease. Their lives are filled with a multitude of tasks, which they perform with a rare dexterity and purpose. Their labors, though they belong to two quite separate realms - the practical and the spiritual - contribute equally to the well being of everyone. Both days and nights are long and arduous. Indeed, the central figure in Ika Hands, Mama Marco, is a man whose priestly calling is simply another career undertaken in addition to that of farmer and householder.

The Battle of Chile. Guzman, Patricio (1975).

On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende's democratically-elected Chilean government was overthrown in a bloody coup by General Augusto Pinochet's army. Patricio Guzman and five colleagues had been filming the political developments in Chile throughout the nine months leading up to that day. The bombing of the Presidential Palace, during which Allende died, would now become the ending for Guzman's seminal documentary THE BATTLE OF CHILE, an epic chronicle of that country's open and peaceful socialist revolution, and of the violent counter-revolution against it.

Reclaiming the Forest. Henley, Paul (1987).

National governments, itinerant gold-miners, and indigenous inhabitants compete for control of an area of the South American rainforest. The film shows the potential conflict between the interests of aboriginal peoples and the responsibility of nation states to implement ecologically sound policies in tropical forest areas. It also demonstrates the complex relationship between culture and ethnic identity under conditions of rapid social change.

Cuyagua: The Devil Dancers. Henley, Paul (1987).

The men of the Afro-Caribbean population of Cuyagua enact a ritual that occurs 60 days after Easter. The film is a portrait of two men who direct the devil dancing. They tell the history of the village, the organisation of devil dancing, and stories associated with the Devil. The film also focuses on the intriguing ritual of the dancing itself.

Justice. Ramos, Mario (2005).

The film offers an intimate look inside the Brazilian justice system, closely observing the everyday work of attorneys, judges, prosecutors and other legal professionals, as well as the defendants passing through the system-a young man caught with a stolen car, another charged with complicity in petty theft, and a teenager arrested for possession of drugs and weapons.

Vuelve Sebastiana. Ruiz, Jorge (1953).

Sebastiana Kespi, a pastoral girl, goes into the forbidden neighboring town, that of the Aymaras. Her grandfather seeks her, trying to convince her to return to his village.

Transfiction. Sjöberg, Johannes (2012).

Transfiction explores 'ethnofiction' - an experimental ethnographic documentary film style in which the participants collaborate with the filmmaker to act out their own and others' life experiences in improvisations. The film focuses on identity and discrimination in the daily lives of transgendered Brazilians living in São Paulo. Fabia Mirassos projects her life through the role of Meg, a transsexual hairdresser confronting intolerance and re-living memories of abuse. Savana 'Bibi' Meirelles plays Zilda who makes her living as one of the many transgendered sex workers in São Paulo, as she struggles to find her way out of prostitution.

Aymara Leadership. Smith, Hubert (1984).

The theme of leadership is difficult to convey, especially in another culture, in which outsiders often do not recognize subtle cues and implicit understandings that play so important a role in the exercise and acceptance of authority. This film helps viewers, even if they have no prior familiarity with the Aymara, to appreciate the ways in which a young man manages to minimize conflicts, resolve disputes, and generally promote the social welfare in a community where age and experience have traditionally been highly valued.

The Living Maya. Smith, Hubert (1985).

This four-part series documents life in a Yucatan village, focusing on one family over the course of a year. The films explore the ancient agricultural and religious customs that ground contemporary Maya life in traditional values – even as modern Mexico comes to the village.

The Body Won't Close. van de Port, Mattijs (2020).

Our bodies are semi-permeable. All over the world, stories are being told about heroes who magically “close” their bodies, so as to become invincible. This film follows one such story, as it is told in Santo Amaro, Bahia (Brazil). Besouro Mangangà was a capoeira player, a black hero, who had closed his body. No bullets, no knives or daggers could pierce his skin. Bahian men explain how “closing the body” makes sense in their precarious and violent world, and why, in the end, this closure can never be accomplished. Soon the filmmaker realizes that his film is not only about the people in Bahia. He too is struggling with the porosity of his body, endlessly trying to strike a balance between shutting the world out and letting the world in.

Home from the Hill. Dineen, Molly (1984).

An unsentimental, sometimes painful and sometimes humorous portrait of Colonel Hilary Hook, an old British soldier and former professional hunter, forced to retire from his country home in the Kenyan hills to live in a small semi- detached cottage in an English village. Colonel Hook's dilemma suggests something of the legacy of colonialism, in which the 'civilisers' have become anachronisms.

It Was Tomorrow. D'Onofrio, Alexandra (2018).

After living in Italy for almost ten years without documents, three Egyptian men – Ali, Mahmoud and Mohamed – are suddenly awarded legal residence. As a whole new world of opportunities opens up to them, they revisit the ports where they arrived in Italy as teenagers after hazardous journeys across the Mediterranean. Here, difficult memories are intertwined with fantasies about what could be, or could have been, and their possible new lives. Through creative collaborative filmmaking that weaves animation, theatre and storytelling with documentary images, we are able to delve deep into the memories and imaginations of these young men.

Travel. Mai, Nicoloa (2016).

Joy left Nigeria to help her family after her father's death. She knew that she was going to sell sex in France, but she was unaware of the degree of exploitation that she would face. With the help of an association she obtains asylum, but to help her family and live her life, she continues selling sex. This two-screen film installation and documentary ethnofiction was co-written by Nicola Mai and eight Nigerian women with experiences of migration, sex work and trafficking. Joy is one of several fictional characters embodying their individual and collective experiences. In order to protect their identities these roles are played by non-professional actresses including some of the film's co-authors.

Chronicle of a Summer. Morin, Edgar and Jean Rouch (1961).

The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin termed cinéma- vérité is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. Simply by interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960—beginning with the provocative and eternal question “Are you happy?” and expanding to political issues, including the ongoing Algerian War—Rouch and Morin reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student. Chronicle of a Summer’s penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.

Balkan Rhapsodies: 78 Measures of War. Silva, Jeff (2009).

Balkan Rhapsodies is an episodic documentary poem that interweaves a mosaic of encounters, observations, and reflections from Silva's travels throughout war-torn Serbia and Kosovo between 1999-2005. An American filmmaker and ethnographer, Jeff Daniel Silva, was the first US civilian allowed entry into a devastated Serbia in 1999 just days after the NATO bombings.

A Little Corner of Paradise. Veuve, Jacqueline (2008).

This is the story of the life reborn of Ossona, a hamlet in Val d'Herens in the Valais canton, which was abandoned in the sixties and has now become the pilot project for an agro-tourism site. From 2005 to 2008, we followed the restoration of this site listed as a sustainable development zone, and those involved in the project.

Marcellin Babey, Turner. Veuve, Jacqueline (1989).

Marcellin Babey, from the Swiss Jura, is thirty-five years old. He works in an old workshop in the heart of Lausanne, conscious that building speculators will oust him some day. As there are no longer any apprenticeships in wood turning in Switzerland, Babey learned his craft from the former owner of his Lausanne workshop, and by going, on foot, to visit old turners in France and Spain. When he learned from old documents that the inhabitants of the Swiss canton of Vaud used to play bagpipes on holidays before the Bernese Protestants forbade it in belief that it was an instrument of the devil, Babey decided to build the instrument as it used to be. In the film, we see him make and play the bagpipes.

Market Day. Veuve, Jacqueline (2002).

Marcellin Babey, from the Swiss Jura, is thirty-five years old. He works in an old workshop in the heart of Lausanne, conscious that building speculators will oust him some day. As there are no longer any apprenticeships in wood turning in Switzerland, Babey learned his craft from the former owner of his Lausanne workshop, and by going, on foot, to visit old turners in France and Spain. When he learned from old documents that the inhabitants of the Swiss canton of Vaud used to play bagpipes on holidays before the Bernese Protestants forbade it in belief that it was an instrument of the devil, Babey decided to build the instrument as it used to be. In the film, we see him make and play the bagpipes.

The Albanians of Rrogam. Wason, David (1991).

With the fall of the Stalinist regime in Albania, one of the poorest countries in Europe, the people of a remote mountain village, Rrogam, are faced with the dilemma of how to re-allocate the land and flocks after 40 years of collectivism. For the first time they have to make their own decisions in the face of an uncertain, changing future, and eke out an existence without the direction from above to which they have become accustomed. Rrogam is a small Catholic village more than 3,000 feel above sea level in Northern Albania. Closed to foreigners since the second world war, the Disappearing World team were the first outsiders to fully explore this area in the north. Traditional Northern Albanian society stressed honour and etiquette. Today these traditional codes have been replaced with Albanian law, effecting the Rrogamis deeply.

In Pursuit of Lost Time. Arca, Özcan (1999).

This is a documentary about the shipwreck excavations along the Agean-Mediterranean coasts and the foundation of Nautical Archaeology in Turkey, after the initial discovery of the shipwrecks by the sponge divers of Bodrum. In excavating a shipwreck, underwater archaeologists travel back in time. Preserved in these ships is the knowledge of ancient civilizations and cultures. The institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) has fully excavated four shipwrecks in Turkey since the 1960's, including the 3,300 year old Canaanite wreck which was brought to the surface at Uluburun. Excavation of this ship took 11 years between 1982 - 1993.

Sons of Haji Omar. Asch, Timothy, Patsy Asch and Asen Balikci (1978).

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakenkhel, a Pashtun tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. Concentrating within one family, the film draw sharp, colourful portraits of the protagonists and their problems. Haji Omar, a wealthy settled nomad, determined on economic diversification through his sons; Anwar, the eldest, his father’s favourite, pastoralist and expert horse-man; Janat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.Much of the film is concerned with pastoral nomadic activities, beginning in the spring camp in the steppe not far from the provincial centre, Baghlan, and moving in May and June up and over the Khawak pass to Mountain pastures in the Hindu Kush.

Milking the Desert. Fedda, Yasmin (2004).

Frederic came from France to become a novice at the St. Moses Abyssinian monastery in the desert of Syria. We follow him and Syrian monk Boutrous through their daily chores and routines: milking goats, making cheese and praying. Their lives create a backdrop for Muslim and Christian relations in the area.

Islam: Empire of Faith. Gardner, Robert (2000).

From the birth of the prophet Muhammad to the glories of the Ottomans, this groundbreaking work illuminates the first thousand years of a misunderstood civilization. Historical renactments; a remarkable explication of Islamic art; and interviews with scholars recount the rise of the islamic civilization and it's profound impact on Western Culture and world history. 

Ocak. Kaserci, Zeynep (2020).

The story of a family who earns their livelihood as hazelnut cultivators in rural north-eastern Turkey. Filmed in an observational style, it offers glimpses into the local social life of the village residents and explores the relationship between people and their hazelnut gardens which have been inherited throughout generations.

Where is the Friend's House?. Kiarostami, Abbas (1987).

The first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s sublime, interlacing Koker Trilogy takes a simple premise—a boy searches for the home of his classmate, whose school notebook he has accidentally taken—and transforms it into a miraculous child’s-eye adventure of the everyday. As our young hero zigzags determinedly across two towns, aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters, his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of rural Iranian society in all its richness and complexity and a touching parable about the meaning of personal responsibility. Sensitive and profound, Where Is the Friend’s House? is shot through with all the beauty, tension, and wonder a single day can contain.

And Life Goes On. Kiarostami, Abbas (1992).

In the aftermath of the 1990 earthquake in Iran that left fifty thousand dead, Abbas Kiarostami returned to Koker, where his camera surveys not only devastation but also the teeming life in its wake. Blending fiction and reality into a playful, poignant road movie, And Life Goes On follows a film director who, along with his son, makes the trek to the region in hopes of finding out if the young boys who acted in Where Is the Friend’s House? are among the survivors, and discovers a resilient community pressing on in the face of tragedy. Finding beauty in the bleakest of circumstances, Kiarostami crafts a quietly majestic ode to the best of the human spirit.

Through the Olive Trees. Kiarostami, Abbas (1994).

Abbas Kiarostami takes meta­narrative gamesmanship to masterful new heights in the final installment of The Koker Trilogy. Unfolding “behind the scenes” of And Life Goes On, this film traces the complications that arise when the romantic misfortune of one of the actors—a young man who pines for the woman cast as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to do with him—creates turmoil on set and leaves the hapless director caught in the middle. An ineffably lovely, gentle human comedy steeped in the folkways of Iranian village life, Through the Olive Trees peels away layer after layer of artifice as it investigates the elusive, alchemical relationship between cinema and reality.

Ameer Got His Gun. Levari, Naomi (2011).

Ameer Abu Ria is about to enlist in the army. As opposed to the majority of eighteen-year-old boys in Israel, for whom army service is mandatory, Ameer is exempt from military service under the assumption that his enlistment may endanger Israel's security. That is because Ameer, an Israeli citizen, is a Muslim Arab. And yet, Ameer has decided to volunteer. He believes that his induction is the way to equality, he believes this is the way to belong to the state he lives in, the state he wants to love. He is considered an enemy, a fifth column in the eyes of Israeli Jews, and a traitor of the worst kind in the eyes of Arab citizens; the kind who turns against his brothers. The film lays bare the different types of citizenship within the Israeli state.

Divorce Iranian Style. Longinotto, Kim (1989).

This film is set in the Family Law Courts in central Tehran. The three main characters are Jamileh who punishes her husband for beating her, Ziba, a 16 year old girl who is trying to get a divorce from her 38 year old husband, and Maryam who is fighting for the custody of her daughters. The film moves away from portraying Iran as a country of war, hostages and Fatwas. It concentrates instead on ordinary women who come to this court to try and transform their lives.

Runaway. Longinotto, Kim (2001).

This film is set in a refuge for girls in Tehran and follows the stories of five girls who come here. These girls, in leaving a situation that has become intolerable, show incredible courage and resourcefulness. The film explores their experience of male authority, their longing for respect and freedom, and their hopes for a brighter future. The centre is run by the dynamic and charismatic Mrs Shirazi, who protects the girls from their families and helps them to renegotiate their relationships. The film shows how Iranian women are learning to challenge the old rules, and how rapidly their country is changing.

Foragers. Manna, Jumana (2022).

Older Palestinians are caught between their right to forage their own land and the restrictions imposed by their occupiers to protect the environment. The film mixes fiction, documentary, and archival footage (from 1974-2000) shot in the Golan Heights, Galilee and Jerusalem.

Dervishes of Kurdistan. Moser, Brian (1973).

A community of Kurds resident in Iran on the border with Iraq forms the subject of this film. Many of the inhabitants of the community are refugees from Kurdish areas of Iraq and the villagers are Qadiri Dervishes – followers of an ecstatic mystical cult of Islam. The unusual manifestations of the Qadiri Dervish faith are explored in this film, both in the context of religious ceremonies and everyday life, with the main focus on the spiritual and temporal power wielded by their leader, Sheikh Hussein.

Sahar's Wedding. Musleh, Hanna (1991).

The chronicle of a wedding in a village in Palestine under Israeli occupation at the time of the first Intifada, this film looks at the lives of the bride and groom, and their families. Attitudes toward marriage, the role of women and politics are undergoing great changes, and, despite the military presence, there is hope for the future.

El Mar La Mar. Bonnetta, Joshua and J.P. Sniadecki (2017).

A performance of the kris dance, a Balinese ceremonial dance which dramatizes the never-ending struggle between the witch and the dragon—the death-dealing and the life-protecting—as it is given in the village of Pagoetan in 1937-1939. Dancers go into violent trance seizures and turn their krisses (daggers) against their breasts without injury. Consciousness is restored with incense and holy water. Balinese gamelan music forms the soundtrack, along with Margaret Mead's narration.

Sweetgrass. Castaing-Taylor, Lucien and Ilisa Barbash (2009).

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.

Leviathan. Castaing-Taylor, Lucien and Véréna Paravel ().

In this cinema verité work set entirely on a groundfish trawler out of New Bedford, Mass., the filmmakers have avoided the standard equipment of interviews, analysis and explanation. A product of the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard, the film offers not information but immersion in wind, water, grinding machinery and piscine agony. The brutality of fishing, as opposed to its romance, is emphasized here. The experience is often unnerving and sometimes nauseating, because of the motions of the juddering, swaying hand-held camera and also because of the distended eyes, gasping mouths and mutilated flesh of the catch. Presented without dialogue, speech is drowned out by the roar of the elements and the screech and thump of engines and hydraulic winches.

Mr. Coperthwaite: A Life in the Maine Woods. Grimshaw, Anna (2014).

In 1960, Bill Coperthwaite bought 300 acres of forest wilderness in Machiasport, Maine. Influenced by the poetry of Emily Dickinson and by the back-to-the-land movement of Scott and Helen Nearing, he was committed to crafting what he called “a handmade life.” For more than 50 years until his death in 2013, Bill Coperthwaite lived and worked in the forest. He was a builder of yurts, and a maker of spoons, bowls, and chairs. The four films chart Coperthwaite’s life as it unfolds over the course of a year. They explore the changing character of work through the seasons and the distinctive temporality of specific tasks. "Spring in Dickinson’s Reach" is the longest film and the starting point of the series. It establishes, literally and metaphorically, the scope of Bill Coperthwaite’s world. In contrast, "A Summer Task" is tightly focused and follows a single activity in painstaking detail. "Autumn’s Work" records the passage of time through a change in the seasons as Bill makes preparations for winter. "Winter Days" draws the viewer into the quiet space and routine of the year’s end. Who is Bill Coperthwaite? How do we understand his life? What does it mean to dwell in nature?

At Low Tide. Grimshaw, Anna (2017).

Every day, carrying the simplest of tools, diggers across coastal Maine set out at low tide to dig for clams on the wide mud flats that stretch far into the bay. It is backbreaking work. But it has an unusual beauty that emanates from the ebb and flow of the tide, the shifts of light and wind, the skill and rhythm of digging, and the sound and texture of deep, viscous mud. At Low Tide explores the choreography of digging through a portrait of a man who lives and works according to the tide. In its focus on pattern, movement and repetition, the film evokes the sensory richness and poetic dimensions of clam digging, offering a new perspective on contemporary American culture.

George's Place. Grimshaw, Anna (2020).

This seven-part film series follows a year in the life of Maine lobster fisherman, George Sprague. The series offers an intimate view of a distinctive way of life that unfolds according to the seasons and coastal landscape of Downeast Maine. In winter, the locals visit "the cellar," a place where people gather to talk, make lobster traps, and to share news and stories. In spring they prepare for the fishing season ahead by working on lobster traps and on halibut hooks. In the summer they haul, bait, sell and band their catch. In the fall George lovingly tends racks of smoked fish.

A Chair: In Six Parts. Grimshaw, Anna (2013).

A poem about a chair. In 1960, Bill Coperthwaite bought 300 acres of wilderness in Machiasport, Maine. Influenced by the poetry of Emily Dickinson and by the back to the land movement of Scott and Helen Nearing, Bill Coperthwaite dedicated himself to what he called "a handmade life." Until his death in 2013, Bill Coperthwaite lived and worked in the forest. He was a builder of yurts, and a maker of spoons, bowls and chairs. A Chair: in six parts, a meditation on time and process, explores the rhythm, movement and poetry of dwelling in the world.

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner. Kunuk, Zacharias (2001).

Atanarjuat is Canada's first feature-length fiction film written, produced, directed, and acted by Inuit. An exciting action thriller set in ancient Igloolik, the film unfolds as a life-threatening struggle between powerful natural and supernatural characters. Igloolik is a community of 1200 people located on a small island in the north Baffin region of the Canadian Arctic with archeological evidence of 4000 years of continuous habitation. Throughout these millennia, with no written language, untold numbers of nomadic Inuit renewed their culture and traditional knowledge for every generation entirely through storytelling. Atanarjuat is part of this continuous stream of oral history carried forward into the new millennium through a marriage of Inuit storytelling skills and new technology.

Itam Hakim Hopiit. Masayesva, Victor (1985).

Itam Hakim Hopiit, which translates as "we / someone, the Hopi," is a poetic visualization of Hopi philosophy. Made at the time of the Hopi Tricentennial - marking 300 years since the 1680 Pueblo Revolt against Spanish colonial rule – the film presents a view of Hopi culture and history. Speaking in Hopi, a community elder shares personal recollections and cultural history, recounting stories of the Hopi emergence, perseverance, and the Bow Clan migration stories of his father. Through use of the film medium, Masayesva challenges viewers to understand the Hopi conception of time as cyclic, in which the world starts, ends, and starts again.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes. Story, Brett (2016).

In the United States there are 2.2 million people in prison, up from only 300,000 forty years ago, yet for most Americans, prisons have never felt more distant or more out of sight. A cinematic journey through a series of seemingly ordinary American landscapes, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes excavates the hidden world of the modern prison system and explores lives outside the gates affected by prisons. By examining the impact of mass incarceration from outside the prison walls, the film takes us to unexpected locations — from a California mountainside where female prisoners fight raging wildfires, to a Bronx warehouse with goods destined for the state correctional system, to a rural Kentucky mining town that now depends on the local penitentiary for jobs. The film visits two communities – Baltimore and St. Louis County, Missouri – bristling from racially motivated violence and rising tensions between African American communities and police, where we meet a Missouri woman who ends up in jail because she didn’t put her garbage bin lid on properly. And in New York, we meet a formerly incarcerated chess player and join family members on a dark street corner waiting for the bus to Attica.

Benny and the Dreamers. Burum, Ivo; Fionna Douglas; CAAMA Productions (1993).

An elderly traditional Aboriginal and his family members recall the impact of their tribe's first contact with white people in the 1930s. This program traces the reactions of a people whose nomadic culture had survived for 40,000 years only to be changed by early white settlers.

Ringtone. Deger, Jennifer and Paul Gurrumuruwuy (2017).

Welcome to the once-remote Aboriginal community of Gapuwiyak in northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia, where individual ringtones reveal rich insights into lives of the Yolngu people. From ancestral clan songs, animal calls and birdsongs to hip hop artists and gospel tunes, a Yolngu ringtone always comes with a great story. It might be the music a young woman dances to in a city nightclub, or a clan song invoking memories of ancestors and country. Yolngu people are renowned as first-rate storytellers with a keen sense of humour. In Ringtone, various individuals talk directly to camera as they reveal the advantages and perils of their new connectivity. Made collaboratively by Miyarrka Media, a new media arts collective of Indigenous and non-Indigenous filmmakers, Ringtone is a beautiful, funny and surprising film about the place of mobile phones in a contemporary Australian Aboriginal community.

Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka'wuy. Dunlop, Ian (1979).

In 1976, Ian Dunlop was invited by Dundiwuy Wanambi, a leader of the Marrakulu clan, to Gurka’wuy on Trial Bay in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He wanted Film Australia to record the first major Marrakulu ceremony to be held at Gurka’wuy since its recent establishment as a clan settlement. While they were there, a baby boy died. The Madarrpa men, including the child’s father and Dundiwuy, asked for the funeral to be filmed. Because the Madarrpa funeral at Gurka’wuy is for a young child, and not an adult, the ceremony is relatively short. It is, nevertheless, still complex. Every part of the ritual is rich in symbolism and has many meanings. Because the deeper meanings are secret and cannot be revealed in this film it is not easy to explain the significance of much of the ritual. However, this film is a detailed study of the funeral ceremony. It highlights the complex connections of people of different clans.

Narritjin in Canberra. Dunlop, Ian (1981).

In 1978 Narritjin Maymuru and his son Banapana were awarded fellowships as Visiting Artists to the Faculty of Arts at the Australian National University in Canberra. For three months they and their families worked in their campus studio. In the film, Narritjin conducts a seminar for anthropology students. He explains his technique of bark painting and discusses some of the meanings behind the paintings. At the end of their stay in Canberra, Narritjin and Banapana hold an exhibition of their Manggalili art. Some see the official opening as typical of any art gallery opening night; others may feel a certain ambivalence towards this strange cultural mix. However, for Narritjin, the occasion is simply another opportunity to present his message to a non-Indigenous audience.

Dead Birds. Gardner, Robert (1964).

Robert Gardner's seminal 1964 film Dead Birds is a portrait of the lives, beliefs, practices and ritual warfare of the Hubula people of the remote Baliem Valley in western New Guinea, now part of Indonesia. The film focuses on Weyak, the farmer and warrior, and on Pua, the young swineherd, following them through the events of Dani life: sweet potato horticulture, pig keeping, salt winning, battles, raids and ceremonies. Gardner: "Dead Birds has a meaning which is both immediate and allegorical. In the Dani language it refers to the weapons and ornaments recovered in battle. Its other more poetic meaning comes from the Dani belief that people, because they are like birds, must die."

Torres Strait Islanders. Haddon, Alfred C. (1889).

Torres Strait Islanders contains the surviving four-and-a-half minutes of footage shot by A.C. Haddon during an expedition conducted by Cambridge University to Murray Island in the Torres Straits, in 1898. Composed of five short sequences, this film is the world’s first field footage of indigenous peoples in Australia. Made three years after the invention of the cine-camera, Torres Strait Islander men perform traditional dance sequences of the Malu-Bomai Ceremony and demonstrate a fire-making technique. In the final film, a small group of young mainland Aboriginal men who have traveled over to Murray Island demonstrate the shake-a-leg dance on the beach.

Familiar Places. MacDougall, David (1980).

Narrated by the linguist and anthropologist Peter Sutton, this documentary observes his work with a family in far north Queensland, outside Aurukun, to map their hereditary "clan country". The aim of the older members of the family is partly to protect their land and prove their attachment to it, for purposes of dealing with the government and industry, and also to demarcate the country from claims by other Aboriginal groups. Angus Namponen, with his elderly uncle, Jack Spear, and their extended family, take Sutton and the filmmakers into the bush around a large salt-water inlet, to show them places that they know and remember from their youth. The process of mapping with Peter Sutton has significance in introducing Angus's children to the country and to the family's own history - both a process of recording memories and transmitting knowledge.

Collum Calling Canberra: A View from the Station. MacDougall, David and Judith MacDougall (1981).

Gordon Smith, head of the Collum Collum Aboriginal Co-operative which operates a cattle station in northern New South Wales, and Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, are negotiating with the Aboriginal Development Corporation in Canberra for a loan. Finance is needed to stock the property with breeding cattle so that the station can become financially independent. The film details the frustrations of negotiating with a distant bureaucracy while, at the same time, trying to manage the property and make it a viable business.

Takeover. MacDougall, David, Judith MacDougall (1979).

Gordon Smith, head of the Collum Collum Aboriginal Co-operative which operates a cattle station in northern New South Wales, and Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, are negotiating with the Aboriginal Development Corporation in Canberra for a loan. Finance is needed to stock the property with breeding cattle so that the station can become financially independent. The film details the frustrations of negotiating with a distant bureaucracy while, at the same time, trying to manage the property and make it a viable business.

The House Opening. MacDougall, Judith (1980).

When Geraldine Kawanka's husband died, she and her children moved out of their house. In earlier times, their bark house would have been burnt, but today a "house-opening" ceremony has evolved, creatively mingling Aboriginal, Torres Strait, and European traditions in order to deal with death in the context of new living patterns in the Aboriginal community of Aurukun, on the Cape York Peninsula, north Queensland. This beautifully observed documentary shows both the preparations for the ceremony and then the elaborate event itself, involving ritual, dancing, music, and a big feast that not even a sudden drenching tropical storm can disrupt.

Waiting for Harry. McKenzie, Kim (1980).

The film is concerned with a burial ceremony carried out by the Anbarra people of the Blyth River near Maningrida, Arnhem Land. Frank's brother has died, and Frank wishes to bury him in the traditional manner. The ceremony continues for several weeks and is held up by the absence of Harry, uncle of the dead man, who must be present to ensure that the motifs on the coffin are appropriate.

Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy. Moffatt, Tracey (2007).

A fictional story in which a middle-aged Aboriginal woman resents the responsibility of caring for her old white mother. Her memories and dreams invade her routine until the old woman's mortality fuels the daughter's guilt and loss. Filmed entirely in a studio, with vibrantly colored sets and extremely creative use of ambient sound.

Nice Coloured Girls. Moffatt, Tracey (2009).

In this film excerpts from 16th century sailor's journals concerning sexual exploitation of native Australian women are transposed over current day scenes of prostitution trade among aboriginal native women.

Two Laws. Strachan, Carolyn, Alessandro Cavadini, and Borroloola Community (1981).

Two Laws is a film about history, law and life in the community of Borroloola in far North Queensland. The films offers viewers a remarkable and different way of seeing and hearing. It is one of the few productions at that time in which Aboriginal people had creative input. The impetus for Two Laws came from the community themselves. There was substantial collaboration with the film makers before and during the shooting period.

We Don't Need a Map. Thornton, Warwick (2019).

The Southern Cross is the most famous constellation in the southern hemisphere. Ever since colonization it's been claimed, appropriated, and hotly-contested for ownership by a range of Australian groups. But for Aboriginal people, the meaning of this heavenly body is deeply spiritual. For them, the Southern Cross isn't a cross--it's a totem that's deeply woven into their spiritual and practical lives.