A Wife Among Wives

David and Judith MacDougall are exploring the marriage rituals and roles of Turkana women in this ethnographic documentary. The film's biggest part is taken up by talks between the Turkana people. As one of the first ethnographic documentaries "A Wife Among Wives" subtitles these talks so that the viewer can get a better and probably more personal understanding of the life of the Turkana.

Dukas Dilemma

Ghostland: The View of the Ju'Hoansi

Remember the culture clash in THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY? This time it's real. One of the most ancient cultures on our planet is undergoing a major change. The Ju/Hoansi Bushmen in Namibia are not allowed to hunt anymore and need to converge with our so called “civilized” lifestyle. For the first time the Ju/Hoansi Bushmen travel through the Kalahari and then right into the heart of Europe. What starts as a look at their fascinating culture becomes an even more fascinating look at our Western lifestyle. A warm and humorous reflection of our habits through the eyes of people who are about to give up their million year old traditions.

Asante Market Women

As retailers, wholesalers, and negotiators, Asante women of Ghana dominate the huge Kumasi Central Market amid the laughter, argument, colour and music. The crew of this `Disappearing World' film have jumped into the fray, explored, and tried to explain the complexities of the market and its traders. As the film was to be about women traders, an all female film crew was selected and the rapport between the two groups of women is remarkable. The relationship was no doubt all the stronger because the anthropologist acting as advisor to the crew, Charlotte Boaitey, is herself an Asante. The people open up for the interviewers telling them about their lives as traders, about differences between men and women, in their perception of their society and also about marriage.

Banks of the Nile

With a dual motion a cruise ship and a fishing boat pass one another on the Nile and butlers in turbans set up a wooden gangway. Thanks to a rope and pulley system cows climb skywards then disappear into the hold of the sailing vessel. On the bank, black-haired women rock back and forth, bursting out laughing and showing the first signs of going into a state of trance. Never-before filmed gestures and faces of the people of the Nile succeed one another, uprooted to an unknown, magical world. The Banks of the Nile is one of the first experiments of film in colour that uses the Kinemacolor process.

Nègres Ashantis: Toilette d'un negrillon II

A woman from the Ashanti tribe bathes her child in a shallow bowl.

Barrage du Nil

Travellers, nomads and salesmen make their way along a dam next to the Nile.

Esquimaux Game of Snap-the-Whip

“The picture [shows] a number of Esquimaux picking nickels from cracks in a board with their dog whips, in which sport they are very expert. In the background will be seen one of their "Topeks," a sealskin tent in which they live during their short summer.” (Edison catalog)

Kwaheri

Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.

The Hunters

An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.

La máscara de la conquista

The film tells two parallel stories. One, set in the present, tells of a pagent about the conquest of America, while the other, set in the 15th century, tells of a group of conquistadors coming ashore searching for gold. The film takes place in an unnamed country.

La Nación Oculta

Ñaalec (Fabián Valdez) is a Moqoit college student disenchanted with formal ways of learning and embarrassed by his drunken classmates. He seeks to recover his people's culture by learning from elders who still remember the old ways. Ñaalec travels to the Nanaicalo Nqote ("eye of the dragon"), a sacred lake whose water gave people the power of the gods. This docudrama is part of a series of community-created films supported by CEFREC (led by Iván Sanjinés, son of legendary Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés).

Burial among the Tetela

Short ethnographic documentary on the Tetela tribe in Congo based upon footage and commentary by director Luc de Heusch from 1953 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

Lotoko

Short ethnographic documentary showing a leopard dance based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

Nkumi, everyday life

Short ethnographic documentary showing some everyday life scenes based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).

Melodies of the mountains

Film about the singing and dancing culture of the Ingush people

Congo

An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.

L'île de Pâques

The first Easter Island documentary, filmed in 1935 when the Belgian naval ship Mercator came to collect Drs. Henri Lavacherry and Alfred Métraux, who had arrived six months before to carry out archaeological and ethnological work. The film, directed with melodramatic gusto and featuring a full orchestral score by Maurice Jaubert (who also did the narration), shows islanders, the monuments, and a public dance. A theme of decay and decadence characterizes the film, the motif portrayed gruesomely by extensive close-ups of the inhabitants of the leper colony there at the time. The film suited a romantic image of a mysterious lost civilization, the survivors eking out a pitiful existence on a barren rock. (Grant McCall)

Ether Reveries (Suite for Thérèse Rivière no.2)

Drawing together footage, photographs and texts from archival sources as well as the artist’s personal collection of materials, Yto Barrada’s new film is as much a poetic enigma as it is a portrait of identity. Ether Reveries (Suite for Thérèse Rivière no.2) takes as its starting point the work and life of Thérèse Rivière (1901–1970), a French anthropologist whose remarkable working life was cut short following her confinement in psychiatric institutions.

Esquimaux Village

“One of the principal features at the Pan-American Exposition is the Alaskan or Esquimaux Village. In this most interesting exhibit, scenes are enacted just as they take place in the far away frozen North. In this subject we depict a large number of Esquimaux clothed in their native costumes and seated on their sleds, which are drawn by spans of four Esquimaux dogs. They are engaged in a race and are to be seen running over the ice and snow at a high rate of speed. There is a pond in the foreground of the picture on the shores of which the home stretch of the race takes place. The picture is perfect photographically, and the figures stand out clear and sharp, throwing a most perfect reflection on the pond.” (Edison film company catalog)