December 1942: US bomber `Little Eva' was returning to base after
a bombing raid over New Guinea. It hit a storm and crashed at Moonlight
Creek in Australia's far north.
Aeroplane Dance dramatises the Americans' struggle to survive in
an unfamiliar land, a place they experienced as hostile, and brings
together the Americans' and Yanyuwa peoples' tales of war, survival,
story-telling and the creation of legends.
An oral history of Klickitat Indian Basket weaver, Nettie Jackson
Kuneki, and an exploration of Klickitat River culture within an
investigation of documentary practice and cultural preservation.
And Women Wove It In A Basket attempts to capture an often neglected
history, native life as it is experienced and articulated by a contemporary
native woman. At the core of the film is the problematic of cultural
preservation, loss and change ± preservation not only in archives
and museums but in the daily practice and memory of people.
Imbricated basketry is a traditional craft of Klickitat women that
has waned over the last generations. The film documents the making
of a basket from start to finish: The gathering and processing of
materials, the choice of designs, and the social interactions centered
around the weaving.
Starting with Nettie's reflective voice that articulates and questions
her own experience and culture, And Women Wove It In A Basket juxtaposes
images of Nettie's daily life through the rhythm of the seasons,
documentation of her craft, archival images of the past, and a visual
history of the Klickitat basket with the mythic voice of Klickitat
tales and legends and the self-reflexive voice of the film's exploration
to weave a tapestry of contemporary life for a fishing and basket-weaving
family along the Columbia River.
A record film, in seventeen parts, on the first stage initiation
ceremony of the Baruya, Eastern Highlands, Papua New Guinea. It
is intended as a film `document' rather than a `film' in the accepted
sense. The material is cut in strictly chronological order (except
for a few scenes). As far as possible everything of importance,
including occasional technically poor material, has been included.
For anything other than an aesthetic experience Baruya Muka Archival
is designed to be, and should be, viewed in conjunction with the
written documentation. Video cassette and written documentation
are related through time code.
Complete series, with accompanying documentation, available for
research purposes by special request to the RAI.
Musicians, academics, broadcasters and World Music aficionados
of culturally diverse backgrounds "beat" out a vibrant
discussion across Melbourne at night, a discussion that can be extrapolated
to most Western 'multicultural' cities. But there are no easy answers,
and in the end Beating the Drum is a documentary in which
the music does the talking.
When they retired from selling insurance and teaching, John and
Irene Brown volunteered to work overseas under a British Aid programme.
They were sent to expand a marketing project aimed at gardeners
in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The film brings out the conflicts
within a development project, where expectations of European market
capitalism clash with the local subsistence system.
A Celebration of Origins is a realistic portrait of a rarely performed
cosmogenic ritual in Indonesia. It evokes the contested nature of
ritual, demonstrating how ritual performance implicates delicate
political relationships based on pragmatic alliances, festering
antipathies or developing jealousies. Conflict is the thread that
weaves together the disparate themes of the film. A finely crafted,
sensually striking film with a compelling story which focuses on
one of the central themes in contemporary anthropological debate:
The contested nature of social, and ritual life. Society of Visual
Anthropology commendation 1993
A strange landscape in the middle of the Greek mountains. The silhouettes
of furnaces emerge from the hazy and smoke-dappled light. Charcoal
makers, who have come sometimes from distant places with their families,
are burning wood to make charcoal. They rent themselves and their
work out to contractors during the five or six summer months. This
film describes the technical process of charcoal making through
its pictures and sound track, but more than that, the spectator
himself participates in this difficult and archaic work. Both modern
and traditional, the activity of these men and women has a real
poetic dimension.
Villagers from remote hamlets high in the Andes join together with
people from the roadside village of Ocongate for the Peruvian Independence
Day celebration. Festivities require that a wild condor be captured
and pitted against a bull during a bullfight in the town plaza.
Through this event power relations are revealed between the villagers
of Ocongate and the highlanders, and of both of them to the Peruvian
state.
Coniston Muster provides a fascinating portrayal of a traditional
stock camp on a Northern Territory cattle station. Made some years
ago, it records this tough and often extraordinary way of life in
a straightforward and unpretentious way, through scenes of camp
life, mustering and yard work interspersed with interviews. It makes
no attempt to glamourise or romanticise the work (as has happened
so often in recent years) and thus achieves a much more meaningful
portrayal of a life that is essentially physical, male and, quite
often, brutal.
The narration is provided by one of the Aboriginal stockmen who
was clearly asked just to sit down and watch the film and comment
on the action. His commentary focuses on the aspects of the daily
life that he finds important, giving valuable clues about his own
interests and priorities rather than those of the filmmaker. Similarly,
in the brief interviews, the questions are straightforward, and
the respondents are left to talk about each subject freely, which
leads naturally to their own concerns. The ideas and comments that
emerge from this are marvelously expressive of the very different
ideas and beliefs held by the white station owner and by the Aboriginal
stockmen whose land has been taken over. Some of their visions of
each other are classic.
A series of interviews with Dundiwuy Wanambi, shot over twelve
years. They reveal the struggles of one man in the face of the huge
changes brought about by the coming of a mining project, and alcohol,
to northeast Arnhem Land.
Awarded the RAI Film Prize 1996.
Santa Clara del Cobre, a village in Mexico's province Michoacan,
is well-known for its copperwork, a craft originating from pre-Spanish
times. It gained new importance in the colonial era when kettles
were in demand. While in this century production has decreased to
a point where this old craft has almost disappeared.
In the late 1940s the people of Santa Clara tried to find new possibilities
for their copper production. Craft fairs and competitions gave new
impetus to the work, and development organisations also became interested
to implement projects. These activities caused the copper craft
to flourish again. Apart from the traditional kettles, ornamented
copper-plates, and other copper vessels were produced for urban
customers. This film documents the craft as it existed in these
times.
In 1991, a rough-cut of the film was shown to the craftsmen in
Mexico. By then, the economic situation had changed significantly.
The worldwide recession had not passed Santa Clara without leaving
its trace: some workshops had been closed. The craftsmen comment
on their experiences and contemporary problems during and after
the screening of the rough-cut. Their remarks have then become part
of the final film.
Received the (RAI) Special Award for Films on Material Cutlure
and Traditional Crafts 1994.
- VC.RA 256 Daba / Na Shaman
Colour, 40 minutes, 1999.
Filmmaker and anthropologist: Hua Cai
After more than a quarter of a century
without any form of religious ceremony, the Na, an ethnic group
living on the Himalayan plateau, began openly practising their religion
again in the early 1990s. Their priests are called daba.
Among the few old shamans who are still living today, Dafa Luzo
is the most remarkable. As the main character in the film, we see
him looking after his farm and his family, as well as performing
rituals to expel all unclean spirits and demons and honour the ancestors.
His main worry, and his greatest hope, is to make sure his knowledge
is safely handed down to the next generation.
Study guide available
on-line
- VC.RA201 Djungguwan at Gurka'wuy Part 1
- VC.RA202 Djungguwan at Gurka'wuy Part 2
- VC.RA203 Djungguwan at Gurka'wuy Part 3
- VC.RA204 Djungguwan at Gurka'wuy Part 4
- VC.RA205 Djungguwan at Gurka'wuy Part 5
By Ian Dunlop. 1990. Length: 233 minutes in total.
In 1976 Dundiwuy Wanambi organised a Djungguwan ceremony at his
Marrakulu clan homeland centre at Gurka'wuy, on Trial Bay, Arnhem
Land, Australia. This ceremony was a ritual opening of Gurka'wuy,
a reaffirmation of the Law of the Two Wawilak Sisters, an initiation
into that Law for the living, and a memorial or final farewell to
the dead. The film is a detailed study of the event from Dundiwuy's
point of view.
This production is divided into five parts for convenience of handling.
It may be viewed as a conventional film, in one mammoth screening;
however it is designed to be used in a rather different way. Composed
as a "film monograph", Ian Dunlop wanted to encourage
people to think of it, and use it, as they would a written monograph;
that is as a document to be taken down from the shelf, "read"
sequence by sequence, and then selectively re-read and studied.
Djungguwan at Gurka'wuy may be of general interest to anyone involved
in contemporary Aboriginal affairs or anthropology. It should be
of specific interest to students of land rights, the outstation
or clan homeland movement, art, music, dance, and religion. Other
themes, such as the importance of kinship and the attitude of adults
to children within a ritual context, occur implicitly or explicitly
throughout.
For the Yolngu, Dundiwuy hopes the film will provide a "history
for new generation and for new generation".
Readings:
Berndt, R.M. 1951. Kunapipi. Melbourne: Cheshire.
Keen, I. 1997. Yolngu Sand Sculptures in Context. In Form in
Indigenous Art, (ed.) by P.J. Ucko. Canberra: Australian Institute
of Aboriginal Studies.
Morphy, H. 1984. Journey to the Crocodile's Nest: An accompanying
monograph to the film Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka'wuy. Canberra:
Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Williams, N.M. 1986. The Yolngu and their Land. Canberra:
Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
- VC.RA207 Doctors of Two Worlds
Filmmaker: Natasha Solomons. 1989. Length: 55 minutes.
In the Bolivian highlands an English doctor is setting up a network
of health care for remote mountain villages. While teaching the
inhabitants the essentials of Western medicine the doctor is confronted
with and tries to learn the methods of the local curandero's methods
of healing. The film is a highly revealing document of the encounter
of different approaches to illness and is particularly suited for
the teaching of Medical Anthropology.
- VC.RA206 Dor, Low is Better
Filmmaker and anthropologist: Robert Boonzajer-Flaes. 1987/88.
Length: 47 minutes.
The film offers an experimental approach to the comparative study
of cultures: the monks of a Tibetan monastery compare their own
flutes with the Swiss alphorn and the Dutch windhorn introduced
to them by the anthropologist. While the monks agree to play those
foreign instruments, they still prefer their own flutes for the
performance of ritual music.
- VC.RA250 Drake and Son
By Tim Clements, 1997. Length: 32 minutes.
Michael was born in his fathers's farm house, works on his father's
farm and lives in a cottage just one field away, which he bought
from his father when he got married. It is November 1996, and Michael
is now 47. Jim, his father, has been running the farm for 50 years.
Drake and Son was funded by a Jerwood Foundation Award for Excellence.
- VC.RA251 Even Memories / Hasta La Memoria, Siempre
By Rodrigo Vazquez, 1997. Length: 26 minutes.
Sons and daughters of `disappeared' people in La Plata City, Argentina,
carry on their parents' fight-and-resist legacy at the time of the
20th anniversary of the military coup. Lucia Garcia, a 22-year-old
Argentinian woman, whose parents were `disappeared' by the Armed
Forces in 1976 and 1977, takes us on a trip through her memories
and political struggle for identity and justice in a country where
people are unable to construct a collective memory. A film about
trying to come to terms with a tragic past.
Recipient of the BBC's Picture This Bursary Scheme Award, 1996.
- VC.RA244 Every day is not a Feast Day
Anthropologist/Filmmaker: Colette Piault. Length: 59 minutes.
A chronicle of village daily life. Although the village appears
to be virtually self-sufficient, the truth is that its economic,
social and family life depend on the outer world to a great extent.
The film shows the alternation between the monotony of daily life
and feast days, which means the return for brief interludes of family
members, who have left the village for the city or foreign countries.
For readings to accompany the film:
Cowan, Jane 1990. Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Campbell, John 1964. Honour, Family and Patronage. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Green, S. and M. Lemon 1996. Perceptual Landscapes in Agrarian Systems:
Degradation processes in north-western Epirus and the Argolid Valley,
Greece. In Ecumene vol.3, no.2, pp.183-201.
- VC.RA 257 Fatmawati's Wedding
Colour, 50 minutes, 1998
Filmmaker and anthropologist: Fiona Kerlogue
This film records the preparations for
the wedding of two sisters in eastern Sumatra in December 1996.
There is an emphasis on the importance of the role of women in the
village. Ritual exchanges of textiles and cakes, and a series of
purification rituals are shown.
Study guide available.
- VC.RA240 Firth on Firth
By Rolf Husmann, Peter Loizos and Werner Sperschneider. 1993?.
Length: 49 minutes.
In a series of interviews in his London home and the London School
of Economics, Sir Raymond Firth talks about his life and some of
his personal views. The film focuses thus on his Maori studies,
Social Anthropology under Malinowski at the LSE, Firth's fieldwork
in Tikopia and, in an interview together with his wife, Lady Rosemary,
their common fieldwork in Malaya. A number of unique black-and-white
photographs taken by Firth himself also are used as illustrations.
- VC.RA261 Gogodala - a cultural revival?
Filmmaker: Chris Owen. 1983. Lenght: 58 minutes.
In the early 1970s, anthropologist Tony Crawford visited the Gogodala
area and found virtually no traditional artwork left, and found the people
to be in 'a state of cultural stagnation'. Moved by the desolate situation
and stimulated by discussions with the older men in the area, Crawford
submitted a detailed plan to the newly-formed National Cultural Council
of P.N.G. to construct a traditional long-house, in an attempt to revive
the carving traditions of the past. A grant was awarded and despite opposition
from local Gogodala Christians, the long-house was completed and officially
opened as the Gogodala Cultural Centre in 1974.
The stormy history of the Gogodala people earlier this century, and the attempts
in the 1970s to revive their culture, form the basis for this superbly
photographed film by Chris Owen.
- VC.RA213 The Guardian of the Forces
Filmmaker: Anne Laure Folly. 1991. Length: 52 minutes.
The guardian of the forces introduces the viewer to the world of
Sikavi, a `fetish priest' in Lome, Togo. He controls the spirits
of several voodoos or gods. The film explores the significance of
sacrifice and possession in communicating with spirits of ancestors
and voodoo deities. Tradition and modernity are contrasted in this
colourful documentary, which provides insight into healing practices
of life and death.
- VC.RA251 Hasta La Memoria, Siempre / Even Memories
By Rodrigo Vazquez, 1997. Length: 26 minutes.
Sons and daughters of `disappeared' people in La Plata City, Argentina,
carry on their parents' fight-and-resist legacy at the time of the
20th anniversary of the military coup. Lucia Garcia, a 22-year-old
Argentinian woman, whose parents were `disappeared' by the Armed
Forces in 1976 and 1977, takes us on a trip through her memories
and political struggle for identity and justice in a country where
people are unable to construct a collective memory. A film about
trying to come to terms with a tragic past.
Recipient of the BBC's Picture This Bursary Scheme Award, 1996.
- VC.RA210 Herat Films
(3 parts, all on one tape):
1. The City of Herat (21 minutes)
2. The Annual Cycle of Music in Herat (56 minutes)
3. The Shrines of Herat (30 minutes)
By Musicologist John Baily. Shot in 1983. Total length: 107 minutes.
These videos were edited from seven hours of Super 8 film shot
by John Baily during two years of ethnomusicological fieldwork carried
out in the Herat region of western Afghanistan between 1973 and
1977. The footage was transferred and edited at the TV Unit of Queen's
University Belfast 1981-82. The non-synchronous sound is a problem
at certain moments, especially in THE ANNUAL CYCLE, but overall
the editing has made the best of the image and sound available.
All three films have a substantial amount of voice-over commentary.
The films are of special interest because of the damage suffered
by this region during many years of civil war. This is the city
referred to so poignantly in Baily's later film Amir.
Taking Paul English's paper "The Traditional City of Herat"
as a starting point, The City of Herat sets out to describe systematically
the organisation of urban space. The film contrasts the old city
and its traditional businesses, against the new city with its modern
shops and workshops, and surrounding villages absorbed into the
expanding town.
The Annual Cycle of Music in Herat includes performances of a variety
of traditional genres of music and dance. These include sha'er-s
(poets) exchanging extemporised quatrains, sorna and dohol (shawn
and drum), dutar (long-necked lute) band, nai chaponi (shepherd's
flute), chahartar (long-necked lute), male singer with daireh (frame
drum) and Chelu musicians singing and playing sarang (fiddle), tal
(small cymbals) and daireh. Dances include atan, aushari and chub
bazi. Some of these genres are described in Baily (1988).
The Shrines of Herat shows four of its many Sufi mazar-s (shrines)
for which it is famous: Seyed-e Mukhtar; Karrukh; Kabarzan; and
Gazer Gah (the tomb of Ansari). Notable for its contraversial visual
representation of zikr.
Readings and Filmography:
Baily, John. Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician's Life in Peshawar,
Pakistan. Video. RAI.
Baily, John. 1988. Music of Afghanistan: Professional Musicians
in the City of Herat. Cambridge: University Press.
English, Paul. 1973. "The traditional city of Herat, Afghanistan."
In L.C. Brown (ed) From Madina to Metropolis: Heritage and Change
in the Near Eastern City. Darwin Press.
- VC.RA223 Home from the Hill
Filmmaker: Molly Dineen, 1984. Length: 60 minutes.
Anthropology's relationship with colonialism has been discussed
widely. Yet the ethnography of the colonial service remains largely
unexplored on film. This entertaining documentary shows, not without
human sympathy towards the main character, how after 40 years in
the tropics, Colonel Hilary Hook returns from the Kenyan highlands
to a London suburb.
- VC.RA218/1 Ian Gleadell: A Falkland Farmer
Filmmakers: Bob Edwards & Alastair Kenneil, 1987. Length:
34 minutes.
The 1982 war between Britain and Argentina brought the Falkland
or Malwinas Islands into the news headlines. This film is less spectacular:
it shows the way of life of one inhabitant of this remote island
in the South Atlantic. The film tells us in measured style about
sheep farmer's Ian Gleadell's struggle with the rough landscape,
the island's administration and loneliness.
- VC.RA197/1 Imbalu: Ritual of Manhood of the Gisu of Uganda
Filmmaker: Richard Hawkins, Anthropologist: Suzette Heald. 1989.
Length: 69 minutes.
An insightful documentary, constructed with visual restraint, about
the male circumcision ritual among the Gisu of Uganda. The narrative
follows one male participant through the ritual and contrasts his
hopes and anxieties on this important day of his life with the expectations
of the rest of the village and some rude remarks of his circumcisers.
- VC.RA252 Insight
By Georg Misch, 1996. Length: 8 minutes 45 seconds.
An attempt to represent the world as it appears to a man who has
lost his sight. The world around him is a blur, but strong visual
images of the things which are important to him live on in his memory.
An extraordinary journey into blindness, perception and memory,
seen entirely from the point of view of the film's subject, William
Kirby.
- VC.RA241 Ishi, the Last Yahi
Producers/Directors: Jed Riffe and Pamela Roberts. Length: 57:20.
Ishi was the only surviving member of an American Indian holocaust,
who after 40 years of hiding, walked into the twentieth century
from Aboriginal America. Three days later in August 1911, Ishi was
brought to San Francisco by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. Ishi
lived at the Museum of Anthropology where he dedicated the last
five years of his life to teaching and sharing the Yahi lifeways
through his songs, stories and his skills as a master archer and
craftsman.
Using Kroeber's meticulous notes and recordings taken at the time,
the program provides a glimpse of life in America before the arrival
of Europeans. The film captures the present day journey of the film
makers and two anthropologists as they retrace Ishi and Kroeber's
1914 trip back to Ishi's homeland. In addition, still photographs,
archival film footage, dramatized readings of letters and articles
by Ishi's contemporaries, Kroeber's wax recordings of Ishi's voice,
as well as interviews with several authorities on Yahi and Raymond
Clar, and recollections by an 89 year old man who met Ishi in 1911
and again in 1915 at the Museum of Anthropology are incorporated
in the story.
- VC.RA237 Jakub
Directed by Jana Sevcíková. 1992. Length: 65 minutes.
(Another film by the same director, Piemule, is also on same tape.)
Jakub presents an extensive ethnographical-sociological study of
the life of the Ruthenians, filmed in the Maramuresh mountains in
the north of Romania and in the former Sudetenland in Western Bohemia.
The film was made over a period of five years during the time of
both totalitarian regimes and was completed in 1992 after the revolution.
Jakub Popovich is the primary character whose story provides the
link between 1947, when the film begins, and the present.
Asked by the author of the film to remember and talk about Jakub,
they think and talk about what they have lost...The story of Jakub's
life and the lives of the other people are being told in two ways:
Through the official written information in the titles and through
the fragmented memories of his contemporaries. Jakub's fate is a
chronicle of sorts of the fates of all the others, because while
remembering him they remember their own lives and the lives of their
fathers and grandfathers. The individual memories combined form
a collective memory.
Scientists at the Ethnographic Folklore Institute, a part of the
Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague acted as collaborators in the
making of this film. The film has received attention from filmmakers
for its unique structure and cinematic quality as well from educators
and research scientists for its content.
- VC.RA215 John the Eel Trapper (joint use with SMOKE recommended)
Filmmaker: Toni de Bromhead. 1982. Length: 28 minutes.
The fens of East Anglia provide the scenery for this documentary.
At the centre of the film is John, a solitary character, who makes
his living by trapping eels in the numerous canals of the area.
We see him at work and narrating his own story. Eel trapping is
illegal, so he is always on the run: this is a tale of poaching,
a traditional craft, and the influence of the modern state on the
individual.
- VC.RA236 Leaving Bakul Bagan
By Sandeep Ray. 1993. Length: 44 minutes.
Shot over a period of four months in 1992, in the cinema-verite
style, Leaving Bakul Bagan revolves around the experiences of a
21 years old Bangali girl leaving her large, extended family in
Calcutta for higher studies in the United States. The film portrays
in close detail those aspects of everyday familial interactions
that shape and embellish our memories. Incidental to this time and
woven into the film, are the effects of race riots throughout India
in the aftermath of the destruction of a Muslim temple by Hindu
fanatics. The piece is a reflection on the complexities of leaving
one's family, country and the anticipated sense of displacement
often experienced in a foreign land.
Commended for the (RAI) JVC Student Video Prize 1994.
- VC.RA262 Lukautim Bus
By Chris Owen.
- VC.RA 258 Mabo: Life of an Island Man
87 minutes, 1997. By Trevor Graham
On June 3rd 1992, six months after Eddie "Koiki" Mabo's
tragic death, the High Court upheld his claim that Murray Islanders
held native title to land in the Torres Strait. The legal fiction
that Australia was empty when first occupied by white people had
been laid to rest. Mabo: Life of an Island Man tells the
private and public stories of a man so passionate about family and
home that he fought an entire nation and its legal system. Though
his greatest victory was won only after his death, it has forever
ensured his place, n Murray Island and in Australian history.
- VC.RA 263 Malangan Labadama- A Tribute to Buk-Buk
58 minutes, 1982. Filmmaker: Chris Owen. Anthropologist: Elizabeth Brouwer.
For the people of the Mandak region of New Ireland, the most
dramatic and complex ceremonial events in their community are those
surrounding death.
The creation and presentation of the 'malangan labadama', with its
carved figures, masked dancers, and feasting, is the final tribute
by three brothers of Panatgin village to their deceased clansman,
Buk-Buk, a renowned leader from their area.
The story of the brothers, their preparations, and the performances
of the 'malangan' is vividly portrayed in this superbly photographed
film.
- VC.RA219 Muktuk (joint use with TUKTU recommended)
Filmmaker: Graham Johnston. 1983. Length: 40 minutes.
Shot on the mosquito-ridden shores of the Mackenzie Delta in Canada's
North-West territories, the film deals with the annual Beluga (white
whale) hunt. Three families are followed who have migrated 110 miles
in order to lay supplies for the winter. Central character, Buster
Kalek and his grandson Trevor, are seen in a dramatic Beluga chase.
Elders of the Innuvialluit Eskimo feel that the survival of their
way of life lies in the transmission of knowledge about traditional
fishing.
- VC.RA98 My Country Djarrakpi
By Ian Dunlop. Producer: Film Australia. 1981. Length: 16 minutes.
Paintings, together with their related songs, dances and ritual
events, form an integral part of the religious life of the Yolngu
people of north-east Arnhem Land. Every painting or design is owned
by a particular clan and tells of events in a clan's Ancestral Past.
In this film Narritjin talks about his land at Djarrakpi, one of
the most important sacred sites of his Manggalili clan. The film
is set in two contrasting contexts: At an exhibition of his paintings
at the Australian National University in Canberra, Narritjin explains
the meanings behind a bark painting of Djarrakpi; then on the wind-swept
sand dunes of Djarrakpi itself. He explains the significance of
some of the actual features of the landscape.
- VC.RA235 My Family and Me
Anthropologist/Filmmaker: Colette Piault. Length 75 minutes.
The film shows one specific aspect of migration: family relationships.
Thanassakis, a 13 year old boy, is staying with his grandparents
in the greek mountain village of Epirus, while his parents are staying
with his younger brother, in Zurich, Switzerland. Shot through three
periods, winter in the village, summer in the village ± while his
parents, as most migrants, come back for a holiday, and Christmas
in Zurich, where the grandfather and the young boy are visiting
their family due to the invitation of Piault. The film is an attempt
to understand the family relationships, not through interviews but
following and filming moments of daily life, showing their emotional
family atmosphere. It may sometimes look like a fiction film but
nothing has been acted nor asked for.
- VC.RA233 Mystery of the Frozen Tombs of Siberia
Director: Françoise Lévie. 1994. Length: 44 minutes.
The film is devoted to an exceptional and very spectacular discovery:
the frozen grave of a Scythian lady buried 2,500 years ago, which
was preserved completely intact in the ice. This discovery was made
on the border of Russia, China and Mongolia by Russian Archaeologists
in the summer of 1993 .
Based on the very recent discovery by the young Russian archaeologist,
Natalya Polosmak, the film tells also the story of the frozen tombs
of Altai and shows the exceptional contribution to the knowledge
of the Scythian culture.
(See Film Review in Visual Anthropology, Vol. 7, pp. 277-282,
Frozen Tombs of Siberia.)
- VCRA224 Nagayati: Arts and Architecture among the Gabra
Nomads of Kenya
Director and Producer: Peter Oud.
NAGAYATI is a film about the Gabra, one of the nomadic peoples
living in the desert of the central part of Northern Kenya, not
far from the Ethiopian border. They are not particularly keen on
close contacts with the "modern" part of Kenya. They are
the only people in Kenya whose style of living and material culture
have hardly been affected by the rapidly westernizing society in
the rest of the country. For outsiders it is far from easy to get
access to the rather closed Gabra society.
NAGAYATI documents a marriage ceremony and shows many related activities
in which the families of the bride and the bridegroom participate.
The building of a new house is one of the most important elements
of celebration, which takes several days. During the weeks and months
previous to the wedding, the items to be used in the house have
been made, mainly by women, from the scarce materials found in the
desert. The film pays ample attention to the making of artefacts
and the way houses are built, taken apart, transported and rebuilt
in another place. They are shown within the context of daily life
in a Gabra community, in which the two families engage in preparations
for the marriage, culminating in several days of ritual interaction
during the ceremony itself. NAGAYATI has been made in the tradition
of the classic ethnographical film, most suited to the subject matter
and the use of the film for educational purposes.
- VC.RA199 Narritjin at Djarrakpi part 1
By Ian Dunlop. Producer, Film Australia. 1981. Length: 50
minutes.
Narritjin and his family are establishing a small settlement at
Djarrakpi, an important Manggalili clan site on the northern headland
of Blue Mud Bay. Narritjin and his sons get sheets of bark from
the stringy-bark trees, for use both as a building material and
as a canvas for his paintings. At Djarrakpi they live largely off
the land and the sea. Oysters, fish and turtle eggs are part of
their diet. He and his family produce bark paintings and craft work
to sell at Yirrkala.
Through paintings Narritjin teaches his sons about their clan land
and its ancestral history.
- VC.RA200 Narritjin at Djarrakpi part 2
By Ian Dunlop. Producer, Film Australia. 1981. Length: 39 minutes.
This film continues the life of Narritjin and his family at his
clan settlement at Djarrakpi. His small community has been increased
by the arrival of two married daughters and their families, and
some other young relatives.
Narritjin continues to paint. One of his sons makes a yadaki, or
drone pipe, for the tourist trade. Wild honey is an important delicacy
and everyone makes short work of a wild bees' nest they find. A
major sequence in the film shows the young men spearfishing along
the shore of Blue Mud Bay. Towards the end of the film, Narritjin
tells of his feelings about Djarrakpi and of his hopes for the future.
- VC.RA209/1 Nuba Wrestling
By Rolf Husman and Werner Sperschneider. Produced by IWF. 1991.
Length: 43 minutes.
In the Sudan, Nuba migrants in Khartoum hold wrestling tournaments
each Friday. Usually this takes place between the Northern and Southern
Nuba men. Their sport helps them strengthen their ethnic identity
in a hostile urban environment. Nuba wrestling has developed into
a unique mixture of traditional culture and modern sport.
The lives of some of the wrestler's who live in the shanty town
are also illustrated.
- VC.RA249 The Old Lady / A Velha
By Janine Prins, 1992. Length: 58 minutes.
At 83, Maria do Carmo Gago still lives alone in the Portuguese
countryside. After a lifetime of adapting to change, she is used
to making her own choices, preferring the earthy contact of her
strenuous agrarian lifestyle to the luxury of an idle life at her
daughter's city home.
- VC.RA229 Photo Wallahs
By David and Judith MacDougall. 1991. Length: 60 minutes.
This film is an exploration of the cultural and personal meanings
and uses of photographs in a hill station in northern India. The
"photo wallahs" are the local photographers of Mussoorie,
a town which once attracted Indian princes and British residents
but now caters to Indian tourists.
- VC.RA237 Piemule (and Jakub on same tape)
- VC.RA211 Polka
Filmmaker: Robert Boonzajer-Flaes. 1986. Length: 50 minutes.
The film confronts the accordion music of Chicano immigrants in
southern Texas with the traditional music of accordion players in
Austria. Without making any final judgements on the `roots' of `conjunto'
music of the Chicanos, the film is able to reveal the different
claims to ethnic identity. Most interestingly, Chicanos in Mexico
and Texas and Austrians comment upon each others' way of playing
Polka.
- VC.RA130 The Red Bowmen
Filmmaker: Chris Owen. Anthropologist: Alfred Gell. 1981. Length: 50 minutes.
In a remote part of the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea,
the Umeda people eke out a difficult living from the sago swamps and primary
rain forest that surround them. Until recently, these people performed an annual
ceremony, the Ida, which dramatised their relationship to the forest and
celebrated their continuing survival. The ceremony was the major social occasion
of their year in essence a fertility ritual focusing on a complex metamorphosis
of figures representing cassowaries.
This film is a record of the Ida ceremony, and an analysis of it, seen through
the eyes of anthropologist Alfred Gell.
- VC.RA253 The Road
By Jackie Waldock, 1997. Length: 16 minutes.
Gypsies and Travellers: happy people in painted wagons, touring
the rural lanes of Britain. Or are they? Kathleen's stuck on a council
site with two young kids who have asthma because of the pollution.
Mum and daughter, older and younger Tilly, bicker with each other
as they chain-smoke in a snowbound caravan. The Road explores perceptions
of traditional travelling life versus the reality of being a Gypsy
in Britain today, using a montage of images and voices to create
a picture of a close and closed society.
- VC.RA221 Sacred Harp Singers
Filmmaker: Mark Brice. 1984. Length: 85 minutes
A moving portrait of harp singers Leonard and Mazine Lacy. Sacred
harp music is a kind of harmonised plainsong practiced in rural
America. This film was shot in Sand Mountain, Alabama, and is recommended
for Ethnomusicology in particular.
- VC.RA260 Sacred Vandals
Filmmaker: Solrun Hoaas. 1983. Length: 55 minutes
Sacred Vandals is an intimate encounter with women who are
searching for sacred sites from the past to give meaning to their present.
The setting is tiny Hatoma Island, population 47, in Okinawa Prefecture -
part of Japan. This personal documentary invites the audience to share
the experiences of the women through informal conversations and through
extracts from the filmmaker's own diary. It reveals the motives of the women,
their visions, and the conflicts and power games that follow their attempts
to 'wake up places that have slept for a long time'. Visually it is
a 'landscape film' with a difference - an immersion into a very sensual
environment.
The film focuses on two strong personalities - Yasuko, a lively woman in
her fifties, who brought up six children and works as a bar hostess in Okinawa.
Although she was initiated once as a priestess, dreams warned her not to continue.
Her cousin, Sachiko, is tough and articulate and at an early age was recognised
as having powers to communicate with the spirits of the dead.
Guided by their dreams and illnesses, the women disrupt the established order
of worship on the island which brings them into conflict with the island's
priestess who has her own story to tell.
- VC.RA234 1700 Metres From the Future
By Ulla Boje Rasmussen, 1990. Length: 84 minutes.
Inhabitants of an isolated settlement called Gasadalur, on the
Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, discuss the pending tunnel
planned to connect them to the rest of the island. They share their
outlooks concerning the future impact it will have on their present
way of life and living conditions.
The film offers an invocation of life which is robust, marginal,
and unusual. The villagers cull seabirds, like puffins, and fulmars.
They run sheep and cattle on the uplands. They are very tough and
self-reliant, even though they get material flown in by helipcopter
nowadays, and have walkie-talkies and radios.
Readings on the Faroe Islands (in English):
West, John F, 1972. Faroe. The Emergence of a Nation. London: C.
Hurst and Company.
Williamson, Kenneth, 1970. The Atlantic Islands. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul. 2nd edition.
Wylie, Jonathan, 1987. The Faroe Islands. Interpretations of History.
Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.
- VC.RA 255 Silk, Muthappar and VHS
Colour, 63 minutes, 1997
Filmmaker Ulrich Grossenbacher and anthropologist Damaris Luthi
The documentary, filmed during ethnographic
field research, shows three portraits of `ordinary' personalities
± Mala, a young weaver sharing a one-bedroom house with nine siblings;
Santa Cruz, once a fishtrader and now a healer and magician; and
Muthiah, a videographer of upper class weddings ± living in a neighbourhood
in Nagercoil, a south Indian town. The aim of the video is to show
the persons not as representatives of homogeneous masses,
but to acknowledge them as individuals who nurse their own specific
worries and strategies in a changing world. The protagonists thus
themselves comment about their own lives and actions.
- VC.RA242 SinSin Spirits on Stage
(SinSin: Le Theatre des Genies. La Dramaturgie Rituelle de Punang-Iraraj.)
By Charles MacDonald , Length: 34 minutes, Colour.
The film takes place in Punang, a small coastal area in the southern
part of Pulawan island, off the Phillipines. Here a young woman,
Miming, undergoes the first ceremony of her "sinsin" ritual
cycle . Through this performance, a state of grace and aesthetic
balance is sought in order to achieve protection for the land, good
health, peace and abundance.
- VC.RA217 Smoke (recommended with JOHN THE EEL TRAPPER)
Filmmaker: Maarten Rens. 1991. Length: 28 minutes.
The film deals with fish smoking in Monnickendam, a small town
twelve miles north of Amsterdam. Using archival footage, interviewing
old fishermen, and contrasting the traditional and the modern industrial
way to smoke fish, the film offers insight into changing life styles
on the Dutch coast.
- VC.RA232 Stockman's Strategy
By David and Judith MacDougall. 1984. Length: 52 minutes.
A film which explores the philosophy of teaching and learning of
Sunny Bancroft, manager of an Aboriginal cattle station in northern
New South Wales. It also tells the story of Shane Gordon, a 16-year-old
apprentice, as he takes his first steps towards becoming a stockman
under Sunny's guidance. The film develops as a series of episodes,
introduced by titles which act as chapter headings for what follows.
By turns dramatic, reflective and humorous, these scenes build up
a vivid picture of life on the station and of Shane's progress among
older and more experienced men.
- VC.RA208 Sundanese Popular Culture Alive
Filmmaker: Jean Hellwig. 1988. Length: 46 minutes.
Jaipongan is a new style of music and dancing which was `invented'
about a decade ago on Western Java, Indonesia. Drawing on more classical
Javanese music and taking elements from Japanese and Indian music
as well, Jaipongan has become widely popular. Dancers and musicians
explain the place of Jaipongan within Sundanese culture.
- VC.RA226 Taiga Nomads Part 1: Hundreds of Homes
VC.RA227 Taiga Nomads Part 2: The Skills You Passed On
VC.RA228 Taiga Nomads Part 3: The School and the Village
Director: Heimo Lappalainen. 1992. Length: 50 minutes each.
Taiga Nomads is a film series about the Evenki (previously the
Tungus), a nomadic people scattered all over eastern Siberia, and
living under harsh conditions in the taiga ± an area predominated
by coniferous/larch forests and swamp lands. This series gives a
picture of everyday life, during the four seasons the film crew
lived with the main characters, consisting of three generations
of members of the Archemku family.
The first part, Hundreds of Homes, relates the story of Sasha Archemku
and his family. He is the leader of Sovchos Brigade No. 6 which
actually consists of his closest family members and some temporary
helpers. They move throughout the taiga with their herd of reindeer
in the traditional Evenki way. Each year the family sets up "home"
in more than ten different campsites.
The Skills you Passed On, the second part, focuses on Nikolaj Pavlovich
Archemku. Old Nicholaj has experienced the very beginnings of Soviet
power, the World Wars, the collectivisation of reindeer husbandry
as well as the recent economic/political changes in Russia. During
the war he lost not only his leg, but also his children. Later on
he adopted Vasha, the son of a relative. Nickolaj is teaching Vasha
the old ways of living in the taiga, of reindeer husbandry, of everything
related to the Evenki's nomadic way of life ± of surviving in the
harsh taiga.
Beginning from their second year, the reindeer herder children
live away from their own family from September to May, for a period
of nine months. The children are brought by helicopter to live in
the not-so-local village boarding school. The third part of the
series, The School and the Village, is a film about the children
during their time away from home. What happens with their cultural
identity in the assimilation process; of learning the Russian language
and Russian village life?
- VC.RA214 A Tibetan New Year
Filmmaker: Jon Jerstad. 1987. Length: 45 minutes.
This outstanding documentary won the RAI Basil Wright Film Prize
in 1988. It is placed in Northern India among a group of Tibetan
refugees. They celebrate the New Year, following a ritual of their
religion, Bonpo, which is older than Buddhism.
- VC.RA245 To Get That Country
By David MacDougall. 1978. Length: 70 minutes.
An important historical film of events surrounding early meetings
of the Northern Land Council in 1977, where uranium mining, land
rights and Aboriginal leadership were the key issues.
- VC.RA212 Tracking the Pale Fox
Filmmaker and anthropologist: Luc de Heusch. 1983. Length: 48
minutes, 1983
This film tells with verve and a touch of self-irony the history
of research on the Dogon since the famous 1931 expedition of Marcel
Griaule. The film establishes the original expedition in the context
of French anthropology at the time. Jean Rouch, celebrated filmmaker
and less known as an anthropologist on the Dogon, narrates part
of the story, and interviews Dogon elders and veteran expedition-member,
Germaine Dieterlen.
- VC.RA222 Tuktu (joint use with MUKTUK recommended)
Filmmaker: Graham Johnston. 1985. Length: 47 minutes.
Tuktu is the Kuvanmiit Eskimo word for caribou. The film traces
the early evolution of Ambler, founded almost 30 years ago on the
Kobuk River in Alaska.
Change and development mark life now in this village near an old
caribou migration path. Subsistence values face rapid Westernization,
but the villagers' desire to combine their old way of life with
the new remains the strongest force.
- VC.RA254 Uncle John
By Juliet Jordan, 1997. Length: 25 minutes.
"Uncle John was a keen and prolific amateur filmmaker and
my father kept the reels of film and sound that John left behind
when he died. Using these images and recordings, and the memories
and speculations of my family, I try to find out what I can about
him. We see what John saw, through the eye of his camera - but how
possible is it to get to know someone from the objects they leave
behind?" -- Juliet Jordan.
- VC.RA249 A Velha / The Old Lady
By Janine Prins, 1992. Length: 58 minutes.
At 83, Maria do Carmo Gago still lives alone in the Portuguese
countryside. After a lifetime of adapting to change, she is used
to making her own choices, preferring the earthy contact of her
strenuous agrarian lifestyle to the luxury of an idle life at her
daughter's city home.
ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
50 Fitzroy Street
London W1T 5BT
RAI FILM AND VIDEO LIBRARY
administered by:
CONCORD VIDEO AND FILM COUNCIL LTD.
Rosehill Centre
22 Hines Road
Ipswich
IP3 9BG
United Kingdom
Telephone +44 (0)1473 726 012
Fax +44 (0)1473 274 531
email Sales@Concordvideo.co.uk
www.concordvideo.co.uk
(At present 16mm film bookings are restricted to the British Isles.)
Return to RAI Film page
Home