Director Hiroko Kawanami
Country/Production UK
Release 1996
Length 51 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Burma, Mandalay / Asia
Order No RAI-200.341
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In the Saigang Hills, 12 miles from the ancient capital of Mandalay are hundreds of pagodas, stupas, monasteries and nunneries which form a focal point of worship for Buddhism in Burma. In 1986 the filmmaker used to live for 15 month as a nun in the Thameikdaw Gaung nunnery. Some years later she is coming back for a visit in order to see what has changed. This is an intimate insight into the daily live of a nunnery as well a portrait of the monastic economy and its interactions with the society.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director André Singer, Louis Dupree, Akbar S. Ahmed
Country/Production UK
Release 1979
Length 49 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Asia
Order No RAI-200.293
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For more than a century Britain was engaged in war with the Pashtun tribesmen of India's North West frontier. It began with the bloodiest massacre in the history of the British Empire when, in January 1842, some 17,000 British soldiers, women and children died in Gandamark, en route to the Khyber Pass. ‘Khyber’ tells the story of how the British experience in the North West Frontier was part of the Great Game, as Rudyard Kipling called it. It was never a successful game and rarely took cognisance of the wishes of the Pashtun tribes that bore the brunt of the different resulting wars. Looking at the history up to the Soviet invasion in 1979, Khyber features the final interview with Sir Olaf Caroe last governor of the North West Frontier Province before partition, and with Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck, last commander of the British Army in India. The film looks at the different perspectives of the conflicts by both British and Pashtun and provides fascinating parallels to what is happening in Afghanistan today.
Director Gary Kildea, Andrea Simon
Country/Production Australia / USA
Release 2005
Length 110 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Papua New Guinea,New Britain, Pomio / Pacific
Prizes/Commendations Winner RAI Film Prize 2005
Order No RAI-200.339
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In ‘Koriam's Law’ Australian anthropologist Andrew Lattas meets his match in philosopher-informant Peter Avarea of Matong village, Pomio, Papua New Guinea. Motivated by their lively dialogue the film sets out to traverse that most misconstrued cultural phenomenon: the Melasanian ‘cargo-cult’. A local leader called Koriam founded the Pomio Kivung Movement in 1964. In the face of official condemnation its political and religious philosophy sought to uncover that path to a perfect existence which whites so convincingly seemed to have found and, so selfishly, monopolised. ‘Koriam’s Law’ concerns itself with the contemporary works and understanding of the Pomio Kivung. Its leader is keen to show that the movement has nothing to do with ‘waiting for cargo’. Rather, its mission is to prepare the way for the coming ‘change’ and, at the same time, to organise for a better society in the here and now.
Director Jouko Aaltonen, Antti Pakaslahti
Country/Production Finland
Release 2000
Length 69 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location India, Delhi / Asia
Prizes/Commendations Commendation Basil Wright Film Prize 2003
Order No RAI-200.320
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Kusum is a 14-year-old Indian girl. She lives and attends school in Delhi. Kaushal, her father, drives a motorised rickshaw and works his fingers to the bone to support his family. Sumitra, Kusum’s mother, is about to have a baby. Kusum’s family is poor, but their life isn’t too bad, until Kusum falls ill. She isolates herself, she has raving fits and she refuses to eat properly. Her family takes her to see a doctor, but no physical illness can be found. It’s evil spirits, say the neighbours. Kusum, Kaushal and Aunt Suman journey to the neighbouring town of Hapur, where Bhagat the healer lives. Bhagat is well-known throughout the region, and people travel hundreds of miles to see him. Bhagat’s methods include conversation, rituals and herbal treatments. Joint trance sessions in which spirits talk constitute the core of his methodology. Should a patient fail to enter a trance, Bhagat’s assistant Meena takes the spirits into herself and is entranced on behalf of the patient. Bhagat examines the family and orders treatment.
 Director Suzette Heald
Country/Production UK
Release 2010
Length 64 mins
Format Colour / DVD PAL / All region
Location Kenya, Africa
Order No RAI-200.260
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In 1998, a new movement swept through Kuria, in S.W. Kenya with dramatic effect. Cattle raiding fuelled by the increasing presence of guns had led to a situation of total insecurity, with all in fear of the thieves. In April of that year, a group of men in just one location, Bukira East, effected a new organisation merging ideas from the Tanzanian vigilante movement, sungusungu, with their own indigenous assembly, the iritongo. Within a year the movement had spread throughout Kuria and the District as a whole was at peace.
This film revisits the iritongo movement ten years later. In telling the story of its origin, and its current operation, it reveals a broad contrast between the areas where the iritongo still operates, though with some difficulty, and those where it has faltered and died. In these latter areas there has been a revival of clan raiding and warfare.
The film is observational in style, with the situation described through the words of the participants, emphasizing their agency. There is, thus, extensive use of sub-titles.
Bibliography
S. Heald, 2009. Reforming Community, Reclaiming the State: The development of sungusungu in Northern Tanzania. In D. Wisler and I.D. Onwudiwe (eds.) Community Policing: International and Comparative Perspectives. USA: CRC Press/Taylor and Francis.
S. Heald 2007 Controlling Crime and Corruption from Below: Sungusungu in Kenya. International Relations, 21(2): 183-99
S. Heald 2007 Making Law in Rural East Africa. Crisis States Development Research Centre Working Paper 12, series 2. www.crisisstates.com
S. Heald, 2006, State, law and vigilantism in Northern Tanzania. African Affairs 105: 265-283
S. Heald, Domesticating Leviathan: Sungusungu in Tanzania. 29 pages. LSE: Crisis States working paper, series 1, no 16. 2002. www.crisisstates.com
S. Heald, ‘Tolerating the Intolerable: Cattle raiding among the Kuria’. In G.Aijmer
and J.Abbink (eds.) Meanings of Violence. Pp 101-21. Oxford: Berg, 2000
S. Heald, ‘Agricultural Intensification and the Decline of Pastoralism: a Kenyan case study Africa 69 (2): 213-37. 1999
Director John Baily
Country/Production UK
Release 1986
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location UK, Bradford / Europe
Ethnic Group Indian, Asian
Comments Study guide available
Order No RAI-200.174
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A detailed study of musical enculturation within the Asian community of Bradford in northern England. Gulam Musa is the principal character and he is shown as a teacher and as a musician. The film gives a detailed account of this particular Indian music and music education, both in homes and at school. The filmmaker is an ethnomusicologist.
Director Andre Iteanu, Eytan Kapon
Country/Production France
Release 2002
Length 62 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Papua New Guinea / Pacific
Ethnic Group Papua New Guinean
Prizes/Commendations Commendation RAI Film Prize 2003
Order No RAI-200.331
Sale Info See Film Prices General Collection; Sale in France on request
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The film is about the encounter between tradition and modernity. In a small village of Papua New Guinea three exceptional men rival with each other in the field of rituals and artistic creation in order to win over their neighbours. They send a last letter to their dead who have abandoned them and who may have emigrated to a rich country from which the film-makers come.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Alex Reed
Country/Production UK
Release 1995
Length 25 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK, Manchester / Europe
Ethnic Group English
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3011
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"It was Star Trek that brought us together". John and Pauline are to be wed beyond the Final Frontier at a Star Trek convention in Manchester. Among the guests are Klingons and Hollywood stars.
Director Peter Loizos
Country/Production UK
Release 1974
Length 43 mins
Format B&W / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Greece / Europe
Ethnic Group Greek
Order No RAI-200.26
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A careful account of social change in a prosperous Greek Cypriot village, which follows four closely related families before the Turkish made them all refugees. Their lives reflect the possibilities available to individuals and families in the village society.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Amanda Hill
Country/Production UK
Release 2007
Length 22 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK, Manchester / Europe
Ethnic Group English
Language English
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3084
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Library spacescape. quiet, history, dreams, wisdom, structure, anomaly, affection, preservation, creation, galaxies, distraction and contemplation. An exploration of a changing world withinwithout the library. Manchester was one of the fist cities in Britain to open a public library. How will the Manchester Central Library evolve?
Director David MacDougall
Country/Production Australia
Release 1997
Length 86 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Australia / Pacific
Ethnic Group Aboriginees
Collection MacDougall
Order No RAI-200.143
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The filmmaker goes on the road with Link-Up, an organisation which re-unites Aboriginal families separated in earlier decades by the New South Wales government. As the film shows, being reunited with one’s family is only the first step in the journey. Then begins the difficult period in trying to come to terms with one’s new found family, a new environment, and one’s new identity. We learn something of the impact this ordinance had upon the children themselves, their families and the Aboriginal history of this century.
Series Granada Center for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Anna Waddell
Country/Production UK
Release 2005
Length 32 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK, London / Europe
Ethnic Group White British/Americans
Language English
Collection GCVA _Student
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3077; 209.2007.4
Sale Info Currently not distributed, contact RAI Film Officer
Hire Info Not for hire
Kristin, Mark and Bob collect things. The film explores attachment, possession and the way that objects inhabit their lives.
Director Dirk Dumont
Anthropologist Philip Hermans
Country/Production Belgium
Release 2003
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Belgium, Brussels/ Europe; Marocco / Africa
Ethnic Group Marocain
Language French (English subtitles)
Order No RAI-200.335
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When they emigrated to Europe in the 60’s and 70’s, Moroccans brought with them their culture and their “diseases” ( caused by the the jinn that inhabit some of them). In Europe, most North African families will include someone who is undergoing this kind of disorder, with diverse manifestations (asthma, paralysis, epilepsy, “crises”, sterility etc.) which, if left untreated, may be extremely serious and destructive, causing suffering and delinquent behaviour. In the film we follow two Moroccan women: Hind and Fatima who are looking to solve their problems caused by invisibles. They are visiting healers in Europe and Morocco. The healers “negotiate” with invisible forces and are using therapeutic rituals.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Leslie Woodhead, Barbara Hazard
Country/Production UK
Release 1983
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location China / Asia
Ethnic Group Chinese
Order No RAI-200.138
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These three films (`Inside China: Living with the Revolution' and `The Newest Revolution'; `The Kazakhs of China') present a valuable record of aspects of most recent developments in China. A. Jenkins Through the words and lives of two families, the first of these companion films examines change in two villages of southern China near Wuxi. One of these families, the Dings, are obviously influential members of the community and the parents have lived in the area of what is now called Big Ding Village all their lives. The other family, the Jues, live in the more traditional and rural Wong Jong Commune. Constantly the film compares life for these families before and after Liberation in 1949. Mrs Ding remembers her bitter childhood, the near infanticide of her fifth sister because as a girl the baby could only be a burden to the already over-extended family. Both the Dings and the Jues discuss the brutality of the Japanese, how the Japanese stole crops, how Mrs Ding's father hid her in the woodpile to save her from rape and possible murder by Japanese soldiers. The families recount their initial fear of the Communist Army, then their growing excitement for the ideals of the Party after Liberation. They discuss the factions and fear of the Cultural Revolution, and the one Ding son who joined the Red Guards remembers his excitement on seeing Mao. He doesn't discuss the violence he may have helped create during these months as a Red Guard, although Mrs Ding hints at the dangers of giving any criticism of government policy during that period. More intimate revelations broadcast over national television could have been dangerous for the interviewees; the film makers are to be commended for their portrayal, creating a balanced picture of the individual in China while at the same time protecting that individual's privacy. The historical perspective sets the stage for the current prosperity of the villages and the families. The film makers make clear the Wuxi, an area where prosperity and the success of the new policies after the Cultural Revolution are evident, was the Chinese government's choice not theirs, yet within that confine, they were given complete freedom in their filming. Individual memories compare a past of hunger and want, with present material consumption, a bride's dowry valued at 700.00 yuan, and new homes. The rights of women have improved: Mrs Ding is a Production Team Leader and a silkworm expert, while Mrs Jue makes money by working the family's alloted land. The interactions within each family are clearly drawn, and by the end of the film, we feel a closeness with these families, for all they have known and for the hope they have for their future. [See Inside China: The Newest Revolution for bibliography.]
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Johannes Sjøberg
Country/Production UK
Release 2001
Length 33 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Guatemala / America
Ethnic Group Guatemalan
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3043
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In 1992 the film-maker worked at an orphanage in Guatemala. Nine years later he returns to find out what has happened to the children that he once looked after. A personal testimony, the film faces up to some painful truths about the work of foreign volunteers.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Sebastian Eschenbach
Country/Production UK
Release 1999
Length 25 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Ireland, Aran islands / Europe
Ethnic Group English
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3029
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It is 60 years since Robert Flaherty made Man of Aran. How do the people of the Aran Islands remember the experience and what do they feel about the image the films gives of their land?
Series Turkana Conversations 1
Director Judith MacDougall, David MacDougall
Country/Production Australia / USA
Release 1977
Length 69 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Kenya / Africa
Ethnic Group Turkana
Comments Special rate for all three films 3 for 2
Order No RAI-200.89
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The Turkana are a group of semi-nomadic pastoralists who inhabit a harsh environment of dry thorn country in northwestern Kenya. Lorang’s Way focuses upon a Turkana elder. Having spent time away from home in the army, Lorang has gained the insights of someone who has viewed his culture from the outside, becoming aware of the changes wrought by the modern world.
Director Trevor Graham
Country/Production Australia
Release 1997
Length 87 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Australia, Murray Island / Pacific
Order No RAI-200.258
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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 The film 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, on Murray Island and in Australian history.
Director Rahul Roy
Country/Production India
Release 2001
Length 54 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Delhi, India
Ethnic Group Indian (Tamil)
Language Hindi with English subtitles
Order No RAI-200.355
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Aslam sells medicines for sexual problems on the pavements of Meena Bazar near Jama Masjid in Delhi. Khalifa Barkat presides over an wrestling gym (akhara) in the adjacent park and puts a group of young men through the moral and physical grind of wrestling. Through the park and the market pass hundreds of men every day. Majma explores the instability of working class lives and its impact on male sexuality and gender relations.
Series Granada Center for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Claudia Goldberg
Country/Production UK
Release 2009
Length 24 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Berlin, Germany
Ethnic Group German
Language German with English subt.
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3103
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In Berlin, self-employed workers live the alternative to a nine-to-five-job, where low rents and space for creative ideas are still available. A sewing café owner, a freelance journalist and two contemporary dancers give insights into their lifestyles.
Director Chris Owen
Country/Production Australia /PNG
Release 1990
Length 60 mins
Format Colour / currently out of stock
Location Papua New Guinea / Pacific
Ethnic Group Papua New Guinean
Order No RAI-200.307
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John Waiko is the first Papua New Guinean to reach the status of Professor. When John and his family decided to put on a dance drama to welcome his return and celebrate his accomplishment, they were met with challenge and scepticism. Johan had little knowledge of ritual and no customary wealth or list of favours and alliances.
 Director Karen Waltorp and Christian Vium
Country/Production Denmark
Release 2010
Length 54 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location South Africa / Africa
Language Afrikaans & English (English sub)
Prizes/Commendations Winner of the 2010 Basil Wright Film Prize
Order No RAI-200.361
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Manenberg is a coming-of-age story about two young 'Cape Coloureds' struggling to make sense in the ruins of a post-apartheid South African township. Manenberg is a suburb outside Cape Town, which was constructed during the apartheid-regime to house coloured families with low incomes. Today it is a worn-down and overpopulated ghetto-area with enormous social problems, where the chances of becoming a gangster are greater than the chances of creating something new in the ruins of the past - but it is also an area with strong ties between the inhabitants in the claustrophobic houses. Based on 5 years of ongoing anthropological research in the area, the film invites the audience behind the headlines and into the lives of Warren and Fazline and their families. It is an intimate film about coming of age amidst difficult surroundings, about families, about life and its conflicts. It is a film about everyday life and dreams of the future.
Manenberg is the debut documentary film by directors and anthropologists Karen Waltorp and Christian Vium, who have lived and done extensive research in Manenberg since 2005.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Carlo A. Cubero
Country/Production UK
Release 2006
Length 49 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Puerto Rico, Culebra / America
Ethnic Group Culebrenses, Puerto Ricans, Trinidadians, Cruçans
Language Spanish/English (English sub)
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3081; 209.2007.10
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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. This film was shot in the course of doctoral fieldwork.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Chris Curling
Anthropologist Melissa Llewelyn-Davies
Country/Production UK
Release 1975
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location East Africa / Africa
Ethnic Group Masai
Order No RAI-200.29
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This film was made after Masai Women and in the same area. Together the two films provide a vivid view of Masai men and women and their place in Masai society. The Masai are pastoral nomads in the East African rift valley with a social system which differentiates sharply between men and women and between age-sets. A particularly crucial distinction is made between men who are moran (`warriors') and more senior men classed as elders. After circumcision men live in the forest on the fringes of Masai society as moran debarred from marriage and excluded from crucial decision-making procedures. The film is focused on the life of the moran and on the dramatic eunoto ceremony which marks the important transition from warriorhood to full social maturity and the responsibilities of elderhood. The moran are given an opportunity in the film to talk about warriorhood and they sensitively strive to explain their ideals to the anthropologist. Their words are effectively translated in sub-titles. There is much valuable information in the film on the events leading up to the eunoto ceremony – including a fascinating sequence on the joking abuse directed by the moran at their mothers – and on the ritual procedures involved in the rite de passage itself. This may well be the last eunoto ceremony ever to be held as the pressures on the Masai to change their way of life are increasingly strong, and the film is important for the way in which it conveys the drama of the events and their significance both for the participants and for the Masai social system. H. A. Fosbrooke, 1948. `An Administrative Survey of the Masai Social System'. Tanganyika Notes and Records, 26, pp. 1–50. G.W.B. Huntingford (ed.), 1972. `Masai – Kenya, Tanzania'. In T. Stacey (editorial director), Peoples of the World, Vol. 2, Africa from the Sahara to the Zambezi. Tom Stacey and Europa Verlag, [London]. J. La Fontaine, 1975. Review of the film. RAIN, 9, p.6. M. Llewelyn-Davies, 1978. `Two Contexts of Solidarity amongst Pastoral Masai Women'. In P. Caplan and J. Bujra (eds.), Women United, Women Divided. Tavistock, London. M. Sharman, 1979. People of the Plains. Evans Brothers Ltd., London. (A 32-page booklet on the Masai, in the series Kenya's People, intended for use in schools.) P. Spencer, 1976. `Opposing Streams and the Gerontocratic Ladder: Two Models of Age Organisation in East Africa'. Man, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 153–175. P. Spencer, 1977. Age and the Paternal Yoke among the Masai (an unpublished manuscript deposited by Dr. Spencer in the Library of the Museum of Mankind). R. Waller, 1976. `The Masai and the British 1895–1905'. Journal of African History, pp. 529–553. For rich and detailed material on a similar society see: P. Spencer, 1965. The Samburu: A Study of Gerontocracy in a Nomadic Tribe. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Chris Curling
Anthropologist Melissa Llewelyn-Davies
Country/Production UK
Release 1974
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location East Africa / Africa
Ethnic Group Masai
Order No RAI-200.30
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The Masai are cattle herders living in the East African rift valley: they grow no crops and are proud of being a non-agricultural people. Cattle are the all-important source of wealth and social status, and Masai love their cattle, composing poems to them. However, it is the men who have exclusive control over rights to cattle, and women are dependent, throughout their lives, on a man – father, husband or son – for rights of access to property. A woman's status as `daughter', `wife' or `mother' is therefore crucial and this film examines with depth and sensitivity the social construction of womanhood in Masai society, concentrating upon women's attitudes to their own lives. The film details a series of events in women's lives, from their circumcision ceremonies which mark their transition from girlhood to womanhood, to the moment when they proudly watch their sons make the transition to elderhood in the eunoto ceremony. This is one of the most admired of the Disappearing World films, not least because of the skill and sensitivity with which these non-literate Masai women are interviewed; the lucidity of their replies provides insights into what it is to be a Masai woman, in a manner which enriches the visual material. The commentary spoken by the anthropologist is detailed without overburdening the image, and the subtitled translations of women's songs – which express their desire for children and the love they feel for their moran – contribute to making this one of the high points of the series. T. O. Beidelman, 1976. Review of the film. American Anthropologist, Vol. 78, pp. 958–959. P. Spencer, 1975. Review of the film. RAIN, 6, pp. 10–11 (title given as `The Masai; see also letter by M. Llewelyn-Davies in RAIN, 8, p.16) For other references see the list under Masai Manhood.
Director George Milner
Country/Production UK
Release 1989
Length 65 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Samoa, South Pacific
Ethnic Group Samoan
Order No RAI-200.179
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The film is a valuable treatment of archival footage that George Milner shot while conducting fieldwork in 1955 and 1959. The footage (18 minutes of the total film) focuses on the traditional Samoan way of life. Then the footage is discussed and analysed by Christina Toren, a South Pacific specialist, and Reverend Lalomilo Kamu, a Samoan scholar. The interview gives a rare opportunity to hear a scholar from the filmed group comment on and explain the symbolism behind the pictures.
Series Granada Center for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Johanne Haaber Ihle
Country/Production UK
Release 2009
Length 22 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Yemen
Ethnic Group Yemeni
Language Arabic with English subt.
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3104
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The film explores how ancient traditions of poetry are still used in contemporary Yemen to discuss social and political problems.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Andrew Tucker
Country/Production UK
Release 2003
Length 27 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Venezuela / America
Ethnic Group South American
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3063
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During the celebration of the Feast of San Juan Bautista in the village of Chuao, on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, an image of Jesus appeared on a drinks tray. The community is trying to find out whether this is a miracle and what it could mean. Whilst some believe it is a message from San Juan himself, others think is it is just a series of stains. This film is about the foundations of popular religious belief and the development of cults.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Yasmin Fedda
Country/Production UK
Release 2004
Length 25 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Syria / Asia
Ethnic Group Syrian
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3069
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This film follows the lives and choices of two monks living at Mar Musa, the Abyssinian Monastery in the desert of Syria. Through their daily lives, the issue of dialogue with Islam emerges.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Brian Moser
Anthropologist Owen Lattimore
Country/Production UK
Release 1975
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Mongolia, Altai Mountains / Asia
Ethnic Group Mongols
Order No RAI-200.95
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Mongolia is a country the size of Western Europe with under 1.5 million people but over 23 million head of livestock. This film concentrates on life in the great plains of Mongolia, at the foot of the Altai mountains, where the ancient skills of the Mongol horsemen coexist with the new methods of the socialist revolution of 1921 which brought collective farming to the steppes. Professor Owen Lattimore, who serves as commentator, is the West's leading authority on Mongolia; he first crossed the Gobi in 1926. The Granada film crew were the first documentary unit allowed in from the West, during summer 1974 and winter 1975. C. R. Bawden, 1965. `Mongolian Review, October 1965'. Royal Central Asian Journal. Vol. LII, Parts III and IV, pp.287–298. C. Humphrey, 1974. `Inside a Mongolian Tent'. New Society, 31 October. O. Lattimore, 1962. Nomads and Commissars: Mongolia Revisited, Oxford University Press. O. Lattimore, 1975. Mongol Journeys. AMS Press, New York. U. Onon, 1972. My Childhood in Mongolia. Oxford University Press. U. Onon, 1976. Mongolian Heroes of the 20th Century. AMS Press, New York. A.J.K. Sanders, 1968. The People's Republic of Mongolia. A General Reference Guide. Oxford University Press.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Brian Moser
Anthropologist Owen Lattimore
Country/Production UK
Release 1975
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Mongolia, Ulan Bator / Asia
Ethnic Group Mongols
Order No RAI-200.96
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The second of two films on Mongolia made by Granada Television in 1974–75 looks at life in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia and home of a quarter of the population. The city celebrates the 53rd anniversary of the socialist revolution with parades, festivals, wrestling and archery contests, and a remarkable horse-race. (The child jockeys are usually between 7 and 12 years old.) The film returns to a shepherd's camp on a collective for the traditional celebration of Tsagan Sar, the lunar New Year festival now known as the Herdsman's New Year. (For references see Mongolia: On the Edge of the Gobi.)
Director Graham Johnston
Country/Production UK
Release 1983
Length 40 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Mackenzie Delta in Canada’s North-West / America
Language Innuvialluit Eskimo
Comments Joint purchase with Tuktu recommended
Order No RAI-200.219
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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.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Leslie Woodhead
Country/Production UK
Release 1991
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Ethiopia / Africa
Ethnic Group Mursi
Prizes/Commendations Winner RAI Film Prize 1992
Order No RAI-200.288
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The proper time for a man to go through the Age Set Ceremony, the nitha, is just as he reaches physical maturity. But many years may elapse from one nitha to the next, so it is inevitable that some men will be well past this stage before they become "adults". Thus the occasion of this nitha, performed by the Mursi of Southwest Ehtiopia, gives adulthood to an entire generation for the first time in thirty years. The ceremony affirms individual identities as adults as well as their group identity as Mursi. The ceremony is performed admidst fears that this may be the last nitha. The continuing attacks on the tribe by the Bume and other neighbouring enemies using automatic weapons and the constant threat of drought and famine all undermine the existence of the Mursi.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Leslie Woodhead, David Turton
Country/Production UK
Release 1991
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Ethiopia / Africa
Ethnic Group Mursi
Prizes/Commendations Winner RAI Film Prize 1992
Order No RAI-200.287
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A further visit to the Mursi of Southern Ethiopia with whom contact was established 17 years ago, for an important coming of age ceremony which has had to be postponed many times. An elder of the Mursi faces his last and most important challenge -- to arrange this ceremony. The date has been finally set but life has been very difficult for the Mursi over the past few years owing to attacks by hostile tribes, drought, famine, disease and cattle raiders and even now the ceremony may not take palace. There was a meningitis epidemic from which many people died until a vaccination and treatment programme ended it. This time we visit the South, the heartland of the Mursi, but everyone is fearful for the future.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Rachel Greenwood
Country/Production UK
Release 2002
Length 29 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location South Africa / Africa
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3050
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Through his clothing, a young South African fashion designer of mixed race urges freedom and unity in post-apartheid South Africa. His message is reaching not only his fellow South Africans, but also the young people of Europe.
Director David MacDougall, Judith MacDougall
Country/Production Australia/USA
Release 1970
Length 20 mins
Format B&W / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Uganda / Africa
Ethnic Group Jie
Language Jie with English subtitles
Collection MacDougall
Comments on same dvd as Under the Men's Tree
Order No RAI-200.37A
Sale Info See Film Prices General Collection; Not for Sale in the USA
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This classic ethnographic documentary, by the renowned filmmaking team of David and Judith MacDougall, explores the nomadic life of the Jie of Uganda. During the dry season the jie leave their homesteads in large numbers and take their cattle to temporary camps (nawi) in western Karamoja District, where water and grass are more abundant. The film shows the preparations for the 60-mile trip and scenes from the slow journey, including the herding and care of the cattle, bathing at the waterhole, resting under trees, and spending the evening within a thornbush kraal. Includes a number of Jie herdsboys' songs.
Series Indonesia Series, ANU, DVD 3
Director Anthony Forge
Country/Production Australia
Release 1973
Length 17 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Indonesia, Bali / Asia
Ethnic Group Indonesian
University Australian National University
Order No RAI-200.272B
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In 1993, Anthony Forge filmed the cremation of an older woman from an affluent ‘commoner’ family. As her body was moved from her family compound to the cremation tower, men of the ward seized the body and began to fight over it, as was traditional in that part of Bali. Forge juxtaposes his recording of this event with Gregory Bateson’s 1937 footage of a ngarap and footage of Balinese paintings. The video is based on an unfinished version Forge was working on with Patsy Asch before his death.
Series Sudan Trilogy by Arthur Howes, 2
Director Arthur Howes
Country/Production UK
Release 1989
Length 53 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Sudan / Africa
Ethnic Group Nuba
Comments Special price for series, 3 for 2
Order No RAI-200.270
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Ten years after he made Kafi's Story, director Arthur Howes returns to the Sudan to find the members of the Nuba who featured in his earlier documentary film. Soon after he had left the Sudan, the mountain area they had been living in became the battlefield of the civil war that has been destroying much of the Sudan ever since. With a government that is attempting to gain absolute control, the people of Nuba have been persecuted, deported, and deprived of much of their land. Children have been put into camps, many of them brainwashed in the military. Many of their fathers have voluntarily joined the army and are now being forced to fight their own people, as they have not been able to find any other way of making a living. Some of the Nuba people have fled to other countries, such as Ethiopia and Kenya. Groups of women have withdrawn further into the mountains. Howes, who had a great deal of difficulty obtaining a visa for the Sudan, manages to find several of the Nuba men and women he filmed back in the late eighties, and their testimonies are, without exception, revealing. He succeeds in organizing secret screenings of Kafi's Story, which they have never seen before, and the contrast between their lives then and now is shocking. It is rare to hear stories collected from so deeply within a community. Howes gives his personal perspective during much of his commentary.
Series Strangers Abroad, Programme 4
Director André Singer, Bruce Dakowski (writer and presenter)
Country/Production UK
Release 1986
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL or NTSC / All region
Location various
Comments Special price for series, 6 for 5
Order No RAI-200.278
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Central Television’s major documentary series looks at the first anthropologists to stop ‘armchair theorising’ and go out to live among the peoples who so interested them.
Bronislaw Kaspar Malinowski was born into an aristocratic family in Poland in 1984. It was the chance reading of Frazer's Golden Bough that put him on the path of his future career. He pursuit anthropological training at London School of Economics and was awarded a doctorate for work on Australian Aborigines, based on data provided by Spencer and Gillen. Following a first field study among the Mailu off the New Guinea cost, using the well-tested formula of his predecessors, Spencer and Rivers, he moved 1915 to the Trobriands. There he abandoned the veranda and developed his style of fieldwork, which came to be called participant-observation: speaking the language, living in the community and becoming part of it, making a detailed record of all aspects of native life. Malinowski's intimate experience with Trobriand society generated a growing awareness of the myriad of links that hold society together.
Series Granada Center for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Gabriel Merrun
Country/Production UK
Release 2009
Length 27 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Ceuta, Morocco
Ethnic Group African refugees
Language English
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3105
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On the North African coast in Ceuta, illegal migrants wait and hope to eventually continue onto the Spanish peninsula where they can attain asylum. Whilst waiting there, they are caught bewteen the borders.
Series Disappearing World Series
Director Bruce MacDonald
Anthropologist Wendy James
Country/Production UK
Release 1993
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Sudan / Africa
Ethnic Group Uduk
Order No RAI-200.290
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Granada Television’s major documentary series looks at various aspects of societies from around the world.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Peter Lutz
Country/Production UK
Release 1993
Length 38 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Sweden / Europe
Ethnic Group Bosnian
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3006
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The war in Bosnia in the early 1990s drove Nerma and Mavis from their homes. Having found refuge in Sweden, they learn to cope with a new situation.
Series Granada Center for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Maria Mariwether
Country/Production UK
Release 2009
Length 27 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Liverpool, UK / Australia
Ethnic Group Aboriginees
Language English
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3106
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For the Ngarrindjeri people, the living and the dead are connected through shared land and heritage. The preservation of this connection is at the heart of the community’s effort to repatriate the bones of their ancestors.
Director Juana Schlenker
Country/Production UK
Release 2004
Length 23 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK, London / Europe
Ethnic Group Spanish migrant
Language Spanish, English (subt.)
Collection Goldsmiths, University of London
Order No RAI-200.4002
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Pepe is a Spanish immigrant who came to England more than forty years ago to work as a waiter. After working in several restaurants and hotels, he retired two years ago and now he fills his days with daily routines that keep him occupied. This film offers an insight into the daily life of a retired person in London. As the spectator discovers, behind the repetitive routines that fill up his days lies a rich personal story. The film is a visual exploration of the spaces where the character moves, his memories and desires.
Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Charlie Clay
Country/Production UK
Release 1992
Length 30 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Papua New Guinea / Pacific
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
Order No RAI-200.3005
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The post-colonial period in Papua New Guinea has seen resurgence in tribal warfare. Pepsi War follows the story of a fight between two clans, which developed from a dispute over cola bottles.
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