Royal Anthropological Institute

Director David MacDougall, Judith MacDougall
Country/Production Australia /USA
Release 1984
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Australia, New South Wales / Pacific
Ethnic Group Australian
Collection MacDougall

Order No RAI-200.232
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A film which explores the philosophy of teaching and learning of Sunny Bancroft, manager of an Aboriginal-run 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.

Series Strangers Abroad, Programme 6
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 Africa
Comments Special price for series, 6 for 5

Order No RAI-200.280
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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. 

University professor Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard taught that our own ideas have many features in common with other cultures and are just as weird and wonderful. He was the first trained anthropologist to do work in Africa, where he lived among the Azande and studied their belief in witchcraft. Later he worked with the Nuer tribe in the Sudan.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Dominic Elliot
Country/Production UK
Release 2002
Length 32 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Malawi, Blantyre / Africa
Ethnic Group African
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester

Order No RAI-200.3054
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Through combining their own dramatic reconstructions and real life observation, this film tells the story of children who run away from their homes in search of a better life on the streets of Blantyre, Malawi.

Director Jean Hellwig
Country/Production UK
Release 1988
Length 46 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Indonesia, Java / Asia
Ethnic Group Indonesian

Order No RAI-200.208
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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.

Director David MacDougall, Judith MacDougall
Country/Production Australia
Release 1986
Length 86 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Australia, New South Wales / Pacific
Ethnic Group Australian
Collection MacDougall

Order No RAI-200.296
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A true story of a country family’s gradual involvement and growing passion for ‘picnic racing’. Sunny Bancroft is an Aboriginal cattle-station manager in New South Wales. With his non-Aboriginal wife Liz, two daughters and Liz’s mother ‘Tex’ he searches for a winning horse to triumph on the local circuit — but things don’t always go his way. Filmed as it happened, the events were later fashioned into a narrative in Sunny’s distinctive story-telling style. A film about Australian rural society and one Aboriginal man’s determination to succeed.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Simone Clifford-Jaeger
Country/Production UK
Release 2004
Length 29 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK, Norfolk / 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-200.3074
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Suspension of the living body from hooks has been practiced in various cultural contexts and places in the past, but today forms part of a growing global interest in body modification. This film joins a group of contemporary British practitioners at a week-end meeting in Norfolk, examining what the experience of suspension means to them, and particularly its role in their understanding of the relationship between their selves, their bodies and the world.

Director John Baily, Afghanistan Music Unit, Goldsmiths
Country/Production UK
Release 2001
Length 58 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL or NTSC / All region
Location California, Fremont, USA / America
Ethnic Group Afghans

Order No RAI-200.328
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Ethnomusicologist John Baily visits Fremont, California, the new home of the large community of exiled Afghans. He is joined by Kabuli master-musician, Ustad Asif Mahmoud, who plans to open a small private music school to teach traditional tabla drumming to young Afghans. However, Fremont is also a centre of musical innovation, with electronic keyboards and their built-in drum machines. In a series of in context performances we witness the co-existence of traditional and modern Afghan music and the dancing that goes with them both.

Director David MacDougall, Judith MacDougall
Country/Production Australia
Release 1980
Length 90 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Australia, Queensland / Pacific
Ethnic Group Aurukun Aboriginals, Australians
Collection MacDougall

Order No RAI-200.142
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On March 13, 1978 the Queensland Government announced its intention to take over management of Aurukun Aboriginal Reserve from the Uniting Church. The people of Aurukun complained bitterly, fearing that the state was merely seeking easier access to rich bauxite deposits on their Reserve. When the Federal Government took the side of the Aborigines the stage was set for a national confrontation, which soon became front-page news across Australia.

Director Felicia Hughes-Freeland
Country/Production UK
Release 1996
Length 30 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Indonesia, Java / Asia
Ethnic Group Indonesian

Order No RAI-200.314
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Once a year a ritual is held in a Javanese village. After a distribution of food, men dance with professional female dancers. Their allegedly sexual ethos makes these ‘tayuban’ unacceptable as national culture, but the dancing is a gift to the protective spirit in exchange for well-being, and represents community identity.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Dan Bruun
Country/Production USA
Release 2006
Length 32 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location USA, New York / America
Ethnic Group West Indian
Language 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-200.3082; 209.2007.166
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This film deals with the culture of Jamaican dancehall music as it exists in New York. It follows one young dancehall participant who makes his living performing and promoting dancehall music.

Director David MacDougall
Country/Production Italy / Australia
Release 1993
Length 100 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Sardinia / Europe
Ethnic Group Sardinian
Collection MacDougall
Prizes/Commendations Basil Wright Film Prize 1994

Order No RAI-200.311
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This film depicts the characters, and social dilemmas of three generations of Sardinian mountain shepherds. Although born roughly 20 years apart, Franchiscu (62), his son Pietro (17) and their friend Miminu (43) are united by ties of family, friendship and common experience. But increasingly these ties are being pulled apart by social and economic circumstance. The youngest, still a schoolboy, is likely to leave shepherding because he has more choices than the two older men have had. They have been committed to their way of life, but for one it has meant celibacy, and for the other, other kinds of hardships.The film makes clear aspects of the transformation of pastoral communities by the squeeze of falling prices for produce, coupled with the attraction of social mobility out of pastoralism via education, or the shorter hours of conventionally waged jobs.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Nadja Marin
Country/Production UK
Release 2008
Length 30 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Brazil / America
Ethnic Group Brazilian
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester

Order No RAI-200.3095
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In a village inside the world’s fifth largest and tough city, São Paulo, a young Guarani created a children’s choir to raise money for his community. Filled with beautiful sounds, the film is a portrait of the choir called ‘Tenonde’i’ and shows the struggle of this young man to deliver his message to the non-indigenous society.

Series Doon School Project
Director David MacDougall
Country/Production Australia
Release 2004
Length 87 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location India, Dehra Dun, Uttaranchal / Asia
Ethnic Group Indian
Collection MacDougall
Comments Not for sale in North America (Special rate for ordering whole Doon School Series - £ 200 / EURO 300 / $ 380)

Order No RAI-200.304
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In this fifth and final film in the Doon School quintet, MacDougall focuses on the life of one student whom he discovers at the school. The film was made in parallel with The New Boys and intersects with it at several points. However, instead of looking at the group, it explores the thoughts and feelings of Abhishek, a 12-year-old from Nepal, during his first days and weeks as a Doon student. This is at once the story of the encounter between a filmmaker and his subject and a glimpse of the mind of a child at “the age of reason.” This is the most intimate and interactive film of the series.

Director Neil G. Munro, the Royal Anthropological Institute
Country/Production UK
Release 2001
Length 27 mins
Format B&W / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Japan / Asia
Ethnic Group Ainu

Order No RAI-200.1
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The RAI has reedited the original film of this ceremony among the Ainu people of Japan. In the bear ceremony, now no longer performed, a specially reared bear was reverently killed and its flesh and blood eaten by the participants. The film shows a series of ritual acts with some commentary on their meaning.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director David Wason, Berit Backer
Country/Production UK
Release 1991
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Albania, Rrogam / Europe
Ethnic Group Rrogamis

Order No RAI-200.286
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With the fall of the Stalinist regime in Albania, one of the poorest countries in Europe, the people of a remote mountain village, Rrogam, are faced with the dilmma of how to re-allocate the land and flocks after 40 years of collectivism. For the first time they have to make their own decisions in the face of an uncertain, changing future, and eke out an existence without the direction from above to which they have become accustomed. Rrogam is a small Catholic village more than 3,000 feel above sea level in Northern Albania. Closed to foreigners since the second world war, the Disappearing World team were the first outsiders to fully explore this area in the north. Traditional Northern Albanian society stressed honour and etiquette. Today these traditional codes have been replaced with Albanian law, effecting the Rrogamis deeply. But Northern Albanians still follow their own rules for interpersonal relations and stick to traditional behaviour when it does not conflict with new Albanian law. Durham, Edith, 1985 (reprint). High Albania. Virago, London. Logoreci, Anton, 1977. The Albanians. Gollancz, London.

Director Judith MacDougall, Kathy Zhang
Country/Production Australia
Release 2007
Length 60 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location VL ChinaPRC, Kunming / Asia
Language Chinese, English (Chinese, various dialects) (English sub)
Collection MacDougall - Judith
University Centre for Cross Cultural Research, Canberra

Order No RAI-209.2007.20
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Photography is known in China as the “Art of Regret”. In the rapidly changing city of Kunming, people are ambivalent about whether they want photography to be a medium of preservation and evidence, or of transformation and fantasy. While old photographs are cherished, digital technology can now make old people look young again. At computerized stalls in department stores, faces and clothing can be instantly transformed. An old-established studio digitally enhances the images made on their wooden 19th century portrait camera. Choices about how to regard history, reality, and material culture constantly confront everyone in contemporary China.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director Leslie Woodhead, Sandra Ott
Country/Production UK
Release 1987
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location France, French Pyrenees / Europe
Ethnic Group French Basques

Order No RAI-200.186
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In her book `The Circle of Mountains' Sandra Ott provided a fascinating analysis of social reciprocity.... The film highlights the village's contemporary dilemmas and thereby complements rather than visualises the arguments in Ott's published ethnography.... The approach is to be applauded since the book and the film now make excellent companion pieces that can usefully be employed in any course on European ethnography. William Douglass. This film follows the lives over one year, shot during three intervals, of two Basque shepherding families who live in Santazi, a village in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. The film is the only Disappearing World film made in western Europe and it focuses on the continuity and change in the community. Change has come to the village of Santazi in recent years along the avenues of introduced roads and improved communication systems with the outside world. The effects stretch from people's relationship with the Catholic religion to inheritance customs. Television has of course also entered these villagers' homes. The traditional life of shepherding is also changing amidst the conflict of interest between those who have formed a syndicated in an effort to maintain the viability of shepherding and the sons who have taken jobs as linemen for the electricity company. This film shows the rationality behind the choice the villagers are making. This film is recommended for courses in anthropology, sociology, culture change, and European communities. W. Douglass, 1987. Review of the film. Anthropology Today, Vol. 3, No. 5 pp. 17–18. S. Ott, 1981. The Circle of Mountains. Oxford University Press, Oxford. S. Ybarrola, 1988. Review of the film. American Anthropologist, Vol. 90, pp. 1045–46.

Director Carlyn Saltman
Country/Production UK
Release 1997
Length 29 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Togo, Banjeli / Africa
Comments Study guide available

Order No RAI-200.180
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The filmmaker and two historians went into the village of Banjeli in 1985 to recreate for the film the traditional iron smelting techniques (which are no longer used) of the area. By focusing on the traditional technology the film offers fascinating insights on the society as a whole, and in particular the gender relations. The film also contains some early footage of the village.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Caroline Allward
Country/Production UK
Release 1998
Length 30 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK / 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-200.3022
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Wayne has left school, sweet 16, disillusioned, with no qualifications. He is briefly distracted by Becka, the girl next door, and the discovery of his father's porno movie. But all he really wants is to find the right girl. An unlikely poet, he reveals his hopes and fears as he tries to woo Kimberley, his dream woman

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Amanda Ravetz
Country/Production UK
Release 2000
Length 49 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location UK / Europe
Ethnic Group UK
Language English
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester

Order No RAI-200.3111
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In the late 1990s, when BSE was conclusively linked to vCJD, a number of British farmers went out of business whilst others faced an uncertain future. But for the Bracewells, a hill-farming family renting a 160-acre holding in the Pennines, the crisis was one more reason to maintain links with the past. Watch as the two generations of the Bracewells run the farmland as well as the meat stall in the nearby market town of Todmorden.

Director Susi Arnott
Country/Production UK
Release 1988
Length 44 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Papua New Guinea / Pacific

Order No RAI-200.220
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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

Director Rahul Roy
Country/Production India
Release 2003
Length 78 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Sunder Nagri, India
Ethnic Group Indian
Language Hindi with English subtitles

Order No RAI-200.356
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Sunder Nagri (Beautiful City) is a small working class colony on the margins of India’s capital city, Delhi. Most families residing here come from a community of weavers. The last ten years have seen a gradual disintegration of the handloom tradition of this community under the globalisation regime. The families have to cope with change as well as reinvent themselves to eke out a living.

The City Beautiful is a story of two families struggling to make sense of a world, which keeps pushing them to the margins. Radha and Bal Krishan are at a critical point in their relationship. Bal Krishan is underemployed and constantly cheated. They are in disagreement about Radha going out to work. However, through all their ups and downs they retain the ability to laugh.

Shakuntla and Hira Lal hardly communicate. They live under one roof with their children but are locked in their own sense of personal tragedies.

Director Peter Getzels, Harriet Gordon, Penny Harvey
Country/Production UK
Release 1989
Length 56 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Peru / America
Ethnic Group Peruvian
Prizes/Commendations Basil Wright Film Prize 1990

Order No RAI-200.216
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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.

Director Felicia Hughes-Freeland
Country/Production UK
Release 1988
Length 44 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Indonesia, Java / Asia
Ethnic Group Javanese
Comments Study guide available

Order No RAI-200.184
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Javanese palace dancing has long attracted outsiders by it exotic costumes and effortless grace of movement. These first impressions belie the physical and philosophical rigours which are the reality of the tradition for those who create it. The film goes beyond appearances, and introduces the dance through the performer, Susindahati, and the connoisseur, Pak Seno; providing two perspectives on dance from the inside.

Director Kim Longinotto
Country/Production UK
Release 2002
Length 92 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Kenya / Africa
Ethnic Group African
Collection Kim Longinotto
Comments Consultants: Fardhose Ali Mohamed, Eunice Munanie N'Daisi Kwinga

Order No RAI-200.329
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The documentary explores the local dimensions of the female circumcision debate in Kenyan societies. In a region of Kenya that is home to Muslims, Massai and Somali and crosscut by Christian evangelists, recently passed legislation makes it illegal for a girl to be circumcised without first consenting to the procedure. The film begins with Fardhosa a nurse on a tireless campaign to open people's eyes to the dangers of circumcision, both physical and mental. Next, Simalo, a Maasai runaway girl returns from Nairobi to confront her mother, who was responsible for her mutilation and young marriage. Finally the film shows how a group of Marakwet schoolgirls have successfully challenged their parents and centuries-old tradition in a court of law.

Director Paul Henley
Country/Production UK
Release 1987; Remastered from the negatives 2011
Length 41 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Venezuela, Cuyaga / America
Ethnic Group Afro-Caribbean

Order No RAI-200.183A
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The men of the Afro-Caribbean population of Cuyagua enact a ritual that occurs 60 days after Easter. The film is a portrait of two men who direct the devil dancing. They tell the history of the village, the organisation of devil dancing, and stories associated with the Devil. The film also focuses on the intriguing ritual of the dancing itself.

Director János Tari
Country/Production Hungary
Release 2006
Length 56 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Hungary / Europe
Ethnic Group Hungarian Roma, Slovakians, Germans
Language (English sub)
Collection NA
Prizes/Commendations Commendation Material Culture & Archaeology Film Prize 2007

Order No RAI-209.2007.156
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The everyday life of migrant fun fair operators is the filter through which we view the social and economic factors of the 20th and early 21st century that define the life and work of this social group. Hungary's accession to the EU has presented new challenegs and difficulties to them continuing their traditional trade and lifestyle. Interest in their services has decreased considerably, so this once thriving form of business is now on the decline.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Eirik Sandberg
Country/Production UK
Release 2003
Length 25 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Norway / Europe
Ethnic Group Norwegian
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester

Order No RAI-200.3060
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Arne Bakke Mælen lives alone on the small family farm he inherited on the edge of a fjord. The farm is no longer viable economically and, like many small farmers in Norway, he has not found a woman to share this life. But for Arne, the landscape is suffused with memory and he does not wish to leave. Instead he dreams of making a living as a wood sculptor, distilling the intensity of his feelings into works of art.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director Michael Grigsby, Hugh Brody
Country/Production UK
Release 1977
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Canada, North Baffin Island / America
Ethnic Group Igulingmuit

Order No RAI-200.67
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.For the Eskimos of Pond Inlet - a new village in North Baffin Island in which they have been settled by the Canadian Government – the life of the semi-nomadic hunter has given way to that of wage-labourer, in what appears as a pre-fabricated `township'. Although hunting provides an important supplement to the Eskimos' income, it is now a part-time activity, and since 1975 (ten years after the start of the government's housing programme) nobody has lived all year round in hunting camps. For the older inhabitants of Pond Inlet, the old way of life is still vivid (in 1935 only 37 Eskimos lived in the village) and their reminiscences and recollections form part of a powerful statement about the present situation. These statements take the form of monologues, or comments addressed to friends and family about the effects of fifty years of contact with whites. Apart from these `interviews' with the Eskimos, the film accompanies one family – grandfather, father, mother and children – as they go out hunting seals and jigging for fish. The visual contrast between the splendours of the open spaces of snow and water and the township of Pond Inlet is a startling one which reinforces the Eskimos' statements. We also see one member of this family selling seal skins in a trade store, and captioned information is given about the cost of maintaining the hunter's equipment and what he can expect to earn in any one year. The material was filmed during a seven week period in June and July 1975. A sophisticated `observational' style is used, with long takes, few pans, no commentary or formal interviews and full subtitling. Caption cards are used to good effect, conveying necessary information without intruding on the narrative. These `technical' factors have important consequences for the film's anthropological value, not least because one of the aims was to enable the Eskimos to `speak for themselves'. Although it would be naive to suggest that the `people's voice' manages to override the exigencies of making such a film for a 52 minute television slot, the Eskimos did have a say in the making of the film, and one of them was also involved in the editing. The striking oratorical style of the Eskimos awakens the viewer to the point that in this film they are addressing the Whites, voicing their distrust, having overcome the fear with which they first encountered these `visitors' to the people's land. H. Brody, 1975. The People's Land: Eskimos and Whites in the Eastern Arctic. Penguin, Harmondsworth. H. Brody, 1975. `Seeming to be Real: Disappearing World and the Film in Pond Inlet', Cambridge Anthropology, Special Issue on Ethnographic Film, pp.22–31. D. Riches, 1976. Review of the film. RAIN, 13, p.7

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Chris Christodoulou
Country/Production UK
Release 2008
Length 24 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Japan / Asia
Ethnic Group Japanese
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester

Order No RAI-200.3090
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‘The Gaijin’ tells the story of an individual negotiating his identity in a foreign country. It follows Luke Jonathan Driscoll - an American who has been residing in Japan for nearly 3 years and who makes a living predominantly from English speaking related jobs

Director Hasse Wester
Country/Production Sweden
Release 2008
Length 58 minutes
Format Colour / DVD / Pal / All region
Location India
Language Halakki Kannada, Swedish, English (English sub)

Order No RAI-200.392
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A small group of farmers belonging to the Halakki Gowda tribe live near a small beach in a valley in southern India. When the Swedish film maker Hasse Wester was first there twenty years ago the farmers had little contact with the outside world. Hasse lived with the farmers for more than a year. He learned their language and developed a close friendship with a man called Maneshwara. Today life in the valley has changed drastically. There are plenty of cafes and hotels, and white tourists in bikinis are sunbathing on the beach. In the film we follow the farmers' encounter with the white tourists, and Hasse's friendship with Maneshwara over a period of twenty years.

Director Kim Longinotto, Clare Hunt
Country/Production UK
Release 1992
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Japan, Tokyo / Asia
Ethnic Group Japanese
Collection Kim Longinotto

Order No RAI-200.308
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Kazuko Hohki goes back to Tokyo with her band, the ‘Frank Chickens’, after living in England for 15 years. This wry and delightful film records her re-experiencing of Japan after a long absence, examining traditional attitudes to women and those of Kazuko’s friends who are trying to live differently.

Director Anne Laure Folly
Country/Production France
Release 1991
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Togo, Lome / Africa
Ethnic Group African

Order No RAI-200.213
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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.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Ruth Hammill
Country/Production UK
Release 1992
Length 37 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Jamaica, Negril / America
Ethnic Group Jamaican
Collection GCVA, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester

Order No RAI-200.3003
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Griffiths takes his responsibilities seriously and works very hard as a taxi driver in Negril, Jamaica, to support his family. His sense of obligation extends to his siblings, his ageing father and even his deceased mother. As Griffiths recalls a decision made long ago which played a part in his entire family becoming squatters, this film examines the tensions and repercussions that continue to affect his life and his relationships.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director John Sheppard, Caroline Humphrey
Country/Production UK
Release 1989
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location USSR, Tuva / Asia

Order No RAI-200.188
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The Tuvinians live deep inside the Soviet Union, at the very centre of Asia. Tuva is geographically closer to Peking than to Moscow. It only entered the USSR in 1944 and was closed to foreigners until 1988. The last British visitors were members of the Carruthers expedition in 1910–11. With `glasnost', the new openness, the Disappearing World film crew was given permission to film the nomadic yak-herders of Mongun-Taiga, a rugged district on the border with Mongolia. Mongun-Taiga or `sacred wilderness' is, even at its lowest point, 6.000 feet above sea level. Two huge mountains dominate the landscape and provide a stunning backdrop for the film, accompanied at times on the film sound track by the traditional throat singing. Arable farming is impossible and the inhabitants are dependent on the nomadic herding of yak, sheep, goats and horses. Families live alone or in groups of two to three felt tents (yurts). Following the seasons and the pastures they move camp several times each year. The film looks at the methods the herders use to protect their children from destructive spirits. A girl, dressed in a traditional frock, is revealed in the film to be a boy. This cross-dressing of the sexes continues until a child is three or four, when it is believed that its soul is more firmly attached to its body and not so easily stolen by spirits. Shamanic beliefs continue, despite state disapproval, and now include worship of the spirits of mountains, purification by the water of sacred springs, sacrifice, and the use of animals in exorcism, omens and divination. The opportunities for modern Soviet life which attract many young people are countered by the pull of an independent Mongolia, which is much closer to the Tuvinians in culture and way of life. Under Gorbachev, new systems of herding have been introduced which allow families to work for themselves as well as the state farms. The herders, however, still have reservations about the new ways. `How are you doing with perestroika?' asks the daughter of Chugluur-Ool, a herder. `Perestroika's doing all right,' he replies. Part of what makes this film interesting is the filmakers' admission of the material they were not able to obtain. Continually throughout the film, the narrator mentions the confusion and frustration the filmmakers felt. This gives a refreshing honesty to the film as a whole. D. Carruthers, 1913. Unknown Mongolia. Vols. 1 and 2. Hutchinson, London. C. Humphrey, 1989. `Perestroika and the Pastoralists: The Example of Mongun-Taiga in Tuva ASSR.' Anthropology Today, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 6–10. S. Vainshtein, 1980. Nomads of South Siberia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Director Judith MacDougall
Country/Production Australia /USA
Release 1980
Length 45 mins
Format Colour / VHS / PAL / All region
Location Austalia, Cape York Peninsula / Pacific
Ethnic Group Australian

Order No RAI-200.295
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When Geraldine Kawanka’s husband died, she and her children left their house at Aurukun on Cape York Peninsula. In earlier times a bark house would have been burnt, but today a ‘house-opening’ ceremony — creatively mingling Aboriginal, Torres Strait and European elements — has evolved to deal with death in the midst of new living patterns. Although sometimes suggesting a party, its underlying purpose is serious. This film records the opening of the house and Geraldine’s feelings about it in her informative and personal commentary.

Series Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Student Film
Director Ellie Ford
Country/Production UK
Release 2004
Length 29 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL / All region
Location Columbia, Cali / 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-200.3068
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Cali in Colombia is celebrated for salsa music and beautiful women and is also the base of the Internet Bride agency, 'Latin Best' with 900 women on its files. Accompanying the British and American men who arrive at the agency, the film-maker meets the potential brides and discovers their motivations for leaving the past behind and following the dream of a life elsewhere.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director John Sheppard   Anthropologist Peter Parks
Country/Production UK
Release 1990
Length 60 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Pakistan / Asia
Ethnic Group Kalasha

Order No RAI-200.283
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The Kalasha are a tribal people, 3,000 strong, who live in the high valleys of the Hindu Kush mountains in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.  The Kalasha are unique as a pagan people in this Islamic Republic.

Joshi, their three day festival of song and dance, rituals and sacrifice and the re-telling of legends celebrates the coming of spring and encourages chivalrous romance between the sexes.  All this provides a colourful focus for this film which explores the life and customs of the Kalasha.

Before the menfolk depart to the high mountain pastures for the goats’ summer grazing they present the women with goats’ milk and bread that has been ritually purified.  The women sing their thanks, praise and food and clamour for more.  Whilst the men are away, the women stay in the narrow valleys, tending their tiny terraced fields of wheat, maize and millet.

The Kalasha are worried that their way of life is under threat.  The naively mortgaged land and walnut trees to their Chitrali Muslim neighbours, often in exchange for paltry loands.  The Chitralis now covet the profits to be made from exploiting the cedar and holm oak which grow in the Kalasha valleys.

The Pakistan government is aware of the problems and would like to safeguard the Kalashas’ existence as a flourishing minority culture and tourist industry.  But a future as a ‘zoo people’ within a tourist park does not appeal to the Kalasha.  They are happy to welcome tourists at their festivities and they appreciate interest in their customs, but they are pragmatic about its value to them.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director Charlie Nairn
Anthropologist Andrew Strathern
Country/Production UK
Release 1974
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Papua New Guinea / Pacific
Ethnic Group Kawelka

Order No RAI-200.23
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Series Disappearing World Series
Director Michael Beckham
Anthropologist Terence Turner
Country/Production UK
Release 1987
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / PAL / All region
Location Brazil / America
Ethnic Group Kayapo

Order No RAI-200.189
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This film focuses on the conflicts and determination of a group of people trying to survive and maintain their ethnic identity in the face of almost overpowering odds.  The film contrasts the reactions of two groups of Kayapo to outside influence.  The Kapot have opposed contact and resisted both non-indigenous Brazilian settlers and gold miners.  The Gorotire, by contrast, were invaded by gold miners who strip-mined their land and polluted their rivers.  The miners paid the Gorotire very little for the destruction until 1985 when the Gorotire forced the miners to raise the commission by 5% when 200 warriors seized the airstrip.  This commission amounts to two million dollars per year for the tribe and the tribe is learning to cope with the money, both with the problems it brings and the power it gives.  They have trained several of their number to deal effectively with the outside world on behalf of the rest of the tribe and they now run a plane (and hire a pilot) to patrol their land against intruders.

The Kapot, in their own way, are also trying to assert their identity and independence.  This portion of the film shows the Kapot in the traditional activities of building and dismantling a hunting camp. The hunters returning with the tortoises they have caught are a particularly impressive sight.  The now famous Chief Rop-ni is featured as a leader of the Kapot and he states eloquently his opposition to the Gorotire's acceptance of the gold miners.  Despite their adherence to tradition, however, the Kapot use modern technology – video, radios, etc. – to protect their interests and record their rituals.

This is a political film and would be excellent for courses in anthropology, Latin American studies, ecology, development, and international politics.

Bibliographie:

V. Lea, 1986. Nomes e Nekrets KayapÌ: Uma Concepcao de Rigueza. PhD thesis (3 vols.), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro

S. Nugent, 1989. Review of the film in Anthropology Today Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 18–19.

D. Posney, 1988. `Kayapo Indian Natural Resource Management'. In C. Padoch and J. Denselo (eds.) Peoples of the Rainforest. University of California Press. pp. 89–90.

T. Turner, 1978. `The Kayapo of Central Brazil'. In A. Sutherland (ed.) Face Values. BBC Publications, London. pp. 245–279. [`The Kayapo of Central Brazil' and `The Social Skin' are written for a general audience, the former dealing with social and political structure and the latter with social values and the cultural constitution of the person (thus touching on many of the same themes as the Jaguar film). For those interested in pushing further with the ideas raised in the Jaguar film, see T. Turner, 1980 `Le Dénicheur d'Oiseaux en Contexte', Anthropologie et Sociétés, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 85–115, and articles by Gustaaf Verswijver.]

T. Turner, 1979. `The Gê and Bororo Societies as Dialectical Systems'. In D. Maybury-Lewis (ed.) Dialectical Societies. Harvard University Press.

T. Turner, 1979. `Kinship, Household and Community Structure among the Kayapo'. ibid. T. Turner, 1980. `The Social Skin'. In J. Cherfas (ed.) Not Work Alone. London.

T. Turner, 1985. `Animal Symbolism, Totemism and the Structure of Myth'. In P. Urton (ed.) Animals, Myths and Metaphor in South America. University of Uta Press. pp. 49–107.

T. Turner, 1990. `Visual Media, Cultural Politics, and Anthropological Practice. Some Implications of Recent Uses of Film and Video among the Kayapo of Brazil'. C.V.A. Review, Spring 1990, pp. 8–13. [In this article Turner discusses the context in which The Kayapo and The Kayapo – Out of the Forest were made.]

Series Disappearing World Series
Director Michael Beckham
Anthropologist Terence Turner
Country/Production UK
Release 1989
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD / PAL or NTSC / All region
Location Brazil / America
Ethnic Group Kayapo

Order No RAI-200.190
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Early in 1989 the Kayapo rallied other Brazilian Indians to attend a reunification of the tribes at Altamira«the proposed site of a massive hydro-electric dam, that will flood large parts of the Xingu valley. The gathering also served as a media event as the Kayapo and their allies demonstrated their case to the assembled international press. The film focuses on the Kayapo's ability to manipulate the media, including Chief Rop-ni stage-managing his entrance to arrive with the pop star Sting. However, much of the power of this film, made for Granada Television's Disappearing World series, comes from the tensions that revolve around the intricate planning behind the Altamira meeting. A Kayapo warrior, Pakayan, brings together previously hostile and warring factions in a common cause. Tension mounts when, only days before the conference, he is rushed to hospital for major surgery, and must force himself from his hospital bed to ensure the survival of the alliance he has carved.

Bibliography:

V. Lea, 1986. Nomes e Nekrets KayapÌ: Uma Concepcao de Rigueza. PhD thesis (3 vols.), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro

S. Nugent, 1989. Review of the film in Anthropology Today Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 18–19. D. Posney, 1988. `Kayapo Indian Natural Resource Management'. In C. Padoch and J. Denselo (eds.) Peoples of the Rainforest. University of California Press. pp. 89–90.

T. Turner, 1978. `The Kayapo of Central Brazil'. In A. Sutherland (ed.) Face Values. BBC Publications, London. pp. 245–279. [`The Kayapo of Central Brazil' and `The Social Skin' are written for a general audience, the former dealing with social and political structure and the latter with social values and the cultural constitution of the person (thus touching on many of the same themes as the Jaguar film). For those interested in pushing further with the ideas raised in the Jaguar film, see T. Turner, 1980 `Le Dénicheur d'Oiseaux en Contexte', Anthropologie et Sociétés, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 85–115, and articles by Gustaaf Verswijver.]

T. Turner, 1979. `The Gê and Bororo Societies as Dialectical Systems'. In D. Maybury-Lewis (ed.) Dialectical Societies. Harvard University Press.

T. Turner, 1979. `Kinship, Household and Community Structure among the Kayapo'. ibid. T. Turner, 1980. `The Social Skin'. In J. Cherfas (ed.) Not Work Alone. London.

T. Turner, 1985. `Animal Symbolism, Totemism and the Structure of Myth'. In P. Urton (ed.) Animals, Myths and Metaphor in South America. University of Uta Press. pp. 49–107. T. Turner, 1990. `Visual Media, Cultural Politics, and Anthropological Practice. Some Implications of Recent Uses of Film and Video among the Kayapo of Brazil'. C.V.A. Review, Spring 1990, pp. 8–13. [In this article Turner discusses the context in which The Kayapo and The Kayapo – Out of the Forest were made.]

Series Disappearing World Series
Director André Singer, Shirin Akiner
Country/Production UK
Release 1983
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL or NTSC / All region
Location China, Sinkiang / Asia
Ethnic Group Kazakhs

Order No RAI-200.136
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The Kazakhs of Xinjiang (Sinkiang) are one of the fifty-five national minorities that now live within the borders of the People's Republic of China. The policy of the Chinese Communist Party toward these people has been one of Sinofication, a neutralization of `reactionary' local leaders and an alliance of Han Chinese with the indigenous culture. Xinjiang is a particularly sensitive area for the Chinese because of the traditional ties of the Kazakh with the Soviet Union. In 1962, some 50,000 Kazakhs and other non-Han peoples sought refuge in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Since then, the Sino-Soviet border has been closed, and until recently the entire area was off-limits to non-Chinese outsiders. This film offers unique ethnographic material about the Kazakh, as well as about Chinese policies in the years following the Cultural Revolution.The film follows the movement of the family of Abdul Gair, illustrated the cycles and tensions of present day Kazakhs, mixes detail of their traditional life as herders with suggestion of the effect of Chinese rule. The Chinese government allowed the filmmakers freedom to choose the subjects and people for the interviews and action sequences. Because of this, the film expresses, to a great extent, the view of the filmmaker, not of the Chinese government. Against a background of the Tienshan Mountains, the Kazakhs are shown branding yaks, milking mares, drinking kumis (fermented mare's milk), making their yearly move from winter to summer quarters, and setting up their felt-covered summer tents. Then, through the trip of Ahmed the production team leader to the brigade headquarters, the film portrays the relations between Kazakh and Han, showing the brigade's authority. Rather than livestock, formerly a mark of wealth being owned for individual profit, production and gain is now controlled by the brigade leaders. Women are given more freedom within the community. Kazakh children now have an opportunity for education in the Kazakh language, but the teaching is largely Party doctrine; they have health care, but this again is Chinese. Yet, despite pre-1977 restrictions on local religion and nomadic culture, and although Abdul Gair is himself a Party member, the Chinese do not, as yet, control the Kazakh. The Kazakh have retained their horses, not only as wealth, but as a means of freedom. Here, as in other cultures where a strong centralized government controls a minority, the continued cultural independence of the Kazakh is an open question. The Chinese policy is currently to move as many Han as possible from the overcrowded central areas of China to the less populated border areas such as Xinjiang. This film gives an understanding, not only of a Kazakh society, but also insights into current change, of the conflicts of domination and independence. S. Akiner, 1984. Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union. Kegan Paul International, London. E. Bacon, 1966. Central Asians under Russian Rule: A Study in Culture Change. Cornell University Press, Ithaca N.Y. Fei Hsiao-tung, 1981. Towards a People's Anthropology. New World Press, Beijing. S. Feuchtwang, 1983. Review of the film. RAIN, No. 57, p. 10. A.E. Hudson, 1938. Kazak Social Structure. Yale University Press, New Haven. L. Krader, 1966. Peoples of Central Asia. Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 26, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. G. Moseley, 1966. A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou. East Asian Research Center, Cambridge, Mass. H.G. Schwarz, 1984. The Minorities of Northern China. Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington. [Bibliography mostly in Chinese; relevant pages for Kazakhs of China pp. 17–26 and pp. 259–63.] A. Singer with L. Woodhead, 1988. Disappearing World: Television and Anthropology. Granada Television Ltd., Boxtree.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director Charlie Nairn, Nazif Shahrani
Country/Production UK
Release 1975
Length 51 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location Afghanistan / Asia
Ethnic Group Kirghiz

Order No RAI-200.294
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The Kirghiz of Afghanistan are a group of some 2,000 pastoralists living on a bleak mountain plateau in a narrow isthmus of land between the borders of the Soviet Union and China. For nine months of the year heavy snows cover the ground, which was formerly used only by the Kirghiz for their summer pastures before the borders were closed, virtually terminating the contact of this group with other Kirghiz communities. Although the film shows dramatically the ten-day journey which lowland traders must make to reach this remote people, as well as scenes of a Kirghiz wedding and the traditional Central Asian sport of `buzkashi' – demonstrating the horse-riding skills of the people – there is very little about the pastoral economy and society of the ordinary Kirghiz. The main reason for this is that the film focuses on the remarkable wealth and authority of their leader – the Khan – by far the wealthiest pastoralist on the plateau. Ninety-five Kirghiz families work for him as shepherds and herders. The film's principal concern is to show the way in which the Khan wields his power (using interviews with him and illustrative scenes) which thus turns The Kirghiz into a study of oppressive paternalism in this remote corner of the world. There is, however, some disagreement over the interpretation of the Khan's role (see correspondence in RAIN listed below). R. Dor, 1975. Contribution à l étude des Kirghiz du Pamir Afghan. Publication Orientalistes de France, Paris. R. Dor and C. Naumann, 1978. Die Kirghisen des Afghanischen Pamir. Graz, Austria. N. Shahrani, 1976. `Kirghiz Pastoralists of the Afghan Pamirs', Folk, Vol. 18, pp. 129–143. N. Shahrani, 1979. The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan. University of Washington Press, Seattle. A. Singer, 1976. `Problems of Pastoralism in the Afghan Pamirs'. Asian Affairs, Vol. 63, Pt. 2, pp. 156–160. N. Tapper, 1976. Review of the film. RAIN, 13, p.6. See also correspondence in RAIN, 16, pp.10–11.

Series Disappearing World Series
Director Leslie Woodhead
Anthropologist David Turton
Country/Production UK
Release 1979
Length 52 mins
Format Colour / DVD or VHS / PAL / All region
Location South-Eastern Ethiopia / Africa
Ethnic Group Kwegu

Order No RAI-200.140
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`The Kwegu' is an entirely tasteful and dignified presentation of the harsh realities of subsistence living, and it may help us understand how, even in stateless societies, dominated groups come to accept their domination as part of the natural order. A. Southall The Kwegu are hunters and cultivators who live along the banks of the River Omo in Southwestern Ethiopia. They are experts on the river, manipulating their dugout canoes through a swift current where falling overboard could mean delivery into the jaws of a crocodile. The Mursi are cattle herders and cultivators who live with the Kwegu for several months of the year. This film is about the relationship between these two groups of people. The Mursi number about 5,000 and the Kwegu about 500. Both groups cultivate flood land along the Omo during the dry season, when the Mursi may also bring their cattle to the river. But the Kwegu keep themselves separate from the Mursi; they speak their own language among themselves, although they are bilingual and communicate with the Mursi only in Mursi. When the Mursi and Kwegu share a village, the Kwegu houses usually form a separate cluster.When a Kwegu marries, a vital part of the bridewealth is livestock. But since the Kwegu do not keep cattle, a system of exchange has developed whereby the Kwegu perform services in exchange for Mursi cattle. In addition to providing bridewealth cattle, the Mursi patron protects `his' Kwegu from other Mursi and acts on his behalf in bridewealth negotiations. In return the Kwegu provides his patron with honey and game meat and is available to ferry him and his family across the Omo when needed. This is a vital economic service, since the Mursi cultivate on both banks of the river and yet do not, unlike the Kwegu, live at the Omo all the year round. The Kwegu are therefore `guardians' of the canoes as well as ferrymen. There is some debate about the nature of the Mursi-Kwegu relationship. The anthropologist advisor for the film, David Turton, sees the relationship as one of domination. The Mursi depend economically on the Kwegu more than the Kwegu do on them, and yet the Kwegu see themselves as dependent, in a different, more extreme sense, on the Mursi: they cannot marry without the aid of Mursi patron. The Mursi exploit the economic services of the Kwegu through their control of Kwegu marriage. Jean Lydall, in her review of the film in RAIN (June 1982), suggests another interpretation for the exchange of services. She wonders if indeed the Kwegu are not making the Mursi ¡pay through the nose¬ for the services they require. This film suggests that far from being second-class citizens, the Kwegu are sharp manipulators who have acquired protection and material wealth by making their services indispensable to the Mursi. Turton defended his interpretation in a reply to Lydall (RAIN, No. 51, pp. 10–12) and has more recently provided a more detailed description and analysis of the Mursi-Kwegu relationship, following the same argument as developed in the film but including much additional ethnographic information (Turton, 1986). The Kwegu won the Grand Prix du Festival at the Festival International du Film de Grand Reportage in Paris. This film is the second part of a trilogy, In Search of Cool Ground (see entry). The film is particularly recommended for courses in anthropology, African studies, patron–client relationships, ethnicity and multi-cultural studies. D.J.J. Brown, 1983. `The Kwegu' (letter). RAIN, No. 55, p. 12. J. Lydall, 1982. Review of the film. RAIN, No. 50, pp. 22–24. A. Singer with L. Woodhead, 1988. Disappearing World: Television and Anthropology. Granada Television Ltd., Boxtree. A. Southall, 1984. Review of the film. American Anthropologist, Vol. 86, pp. 512–13. D. Turton, 1977. `Response to Drought: The Mursi of Southwest Ethiopia'. In J.P. Garlick and R.W.J. Keay (eds.) Human Ecology in the Tropics. Taylor and Francis, London. (Reprinted in Disasters, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1977). D. Turton, 1982. `The Kwegu' (letter). RAIN, No. 51, pp. 10–12. D. Turton, 1986. `A Probl

Director Becky Payne
Country/Production UK
Release 2007
Length 31 minutes
Format Colour / DVD / Pal / All region
Location UK
Language English
University School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology 

Order No RAI-200.3130
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This film is a glimpse into the life of the Landmatters Co-operative, a community of 11 adults and 4 children living in benders and yurts in rural Devon as they develop a permaculture project. The 42 acres of land was originally for an agricultural purpose, which means they do not have planning permission for residential use. The film follows the group as they fight for permission to live on the land in order to create a self-reliant way of life for a future that doesn't depend on fossil fuels. The film also explores concerns of some local residents in the nearby hamlet who object to the 'hippies' living next door.