A short film on Gnawa trance shot in south Morocco.
Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.
Sons of Haji Omar
1978
0
Bomb Hunters is an engrossing examination of the micro-economy that has emerged in Cambodia from untrained civilians harvesting unexploded bombs as scrap metal. The film explores the long-term consequences of war and genocide in an attempt to understand the social, cultural, and historical context and experiences of rural villagers who seek out and dismantle UXO (unexploded ordnance) for profit. Part of a global economy, these individuals clear UXO from their land in order to protect their families from harm and to earn enough money to survive. Bomb Hunters is an eye-opening account investigating the on-going residual, persistent effects of war experienced by post-conflict nations around the globe, and the complex realities of achieving "peace".
Bomb Hunters
0
Inside the Khmer Rouge takes an in-depth look at the history, domination, and current status of the Khmer Rouge (a Communist regime) in Cambodia. The film features revealing interviews with soldiers of both the modern Khmer Rouge and those who fight in opposition. A comprehensive timeline of the regime's five-year occupation in Cambodia is dissected and includes a review of key individuals, ideologies, and locations where devastation hit hardest. Following this, the film takes a look at the effects on the Cambodian citizens upon the retraction of Vietnamese forces. Inside the Khmer Rouge continues to investigate the current tactics the modern Khmer Rouge implement and their attempts to persuade followers in order to rebuild and expand their regime. Oppositely, local forces or "jungle soldiers" discuss their devices for assuring the destruction and atrocities once caused by the Khmer Rouge never happen again.
Inside the Khmer Rouge
0
An unprejudiced portrait of Spanish folklore and a crude analysis in black and white of its intimate relationship with atavism and superstition, with violence and pain, with blood and death; a story of terror, a journey to the most sinister and ancestral Spain; the one that lived far from the most visited tourist destinations, from the economic miracle and unstoppable progress, relentlessly promoted by the Franco regime during the sixties.
Lejos de los árboles
1972
5
Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.
N/um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen
1969
0
This comprehensive documentary chronicles the underground rave culture in Southern California, one of its first American strongholds. With roots in a tribal past, this movement attempts to format the future of a truly global community by combining elements of electronic/percussive music, the psychedelic imagination, and mass dancing. From warehouses to mountain retreats to the deserts of the Mojave, an unseen world comes into clear focus; with kinetic camera work and candid interviews, this slice of visual anthropology probes the underbelly of a worldwide subculture with the help of some of electronic music's most acclaimed DJs, a technomusicologist, and a county sheriff. Open your mind to this moving entertainment experience and intimate portrait of a modern counter-culture that follows its own electronically induced beat.
Synergy: Visions of Vibe
1999
0
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
Congo
1972
5
John Bishop and Naomi Bishop present a portrait a peculiar life style of the Himalayan indigenous Sherpa people in their documentary , the Himalayan Herders. The 76 minutes long film is about the diverse culture and life style of herders community near Mt. Everest region of Nepal.The film was made in 1997 as a part of Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology Series.
Himalayan Herders
1997
0
Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.
The Shaman's Apprentice
2001
0
In GLOBAL METAL, directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn set out to discover how the West's most maligned musical genre - heavy metal - has impacted the world's cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world's emerging extreme music scenes; from Indonesian death metal to Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal. GLOBAL METAL reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who aren't just absorbing metal from the West - they're transforming it - creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass-consumerism.
Global Metal
2008
7
"Heart of the Country" is the story of Shinichi Yasutomo, the extraordinary principal of a rural elementary school in Kanayama, central Hokkaido, Northern Japan. Yasutomo is a man driven by his vision for learning and his passion for educating the heart as well as the mind. The film follows Yasutomo, his teachers and staff, students and their families over the course of one entire school year. The film is also the story of the families of Kanayama. Parents and elders of this once impoverished town embrace Yasutomo's vision, but not without wary glances back to the past. This small community, bound together by love for its children, is also defined by its journey through the cultural upheavals of postwar Japan.
Heart of the Country
1997
0
Inspired by Steven Blush's book "American Hardcore: A tribal history" Paul Rachman's feature documentary debut is a chronicle of the underground hardcore punk years from 1979 to 1986. Interviews and rare live footage from artists such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, SS Decontrol and the Dead Kennedys.
American Hardcore
2006
6
One of the most significant cases in European archaeology is the grave of the shaman woman of Bad Dürrenberg, a key finding of the last hunter-gatherer groups. From a time when there were no written records, this site was first researched by the Nazis, who saw a physically strong male warrior from an ‘original Aryan race’ in the buried person. It was, in fact, the most powerful woman of her time. The latest research shows that she was dark-skinned, had physical deformities, and was a spiritual leader. The documentary – using high-end CGI and motion capture – compares the researchers of the Nazi era, who misrepresented and instrumentalised their findings, to today’s researchers, who meticulously compile findings and evidence, and use cross- disciplinary methods to examine and evaluate them. It also substantiates the theory of the powerful roles women played in prehistoric times. The story of this woman, buried with a baby in her arms, still fascinates us 9,000 years after her death.
Das Grab der Schamanin - Ein Geheimnis aus der Steinzeit
2024
8
Children and teenagers throw sticks, berries, and leaves at each other from perches in a large baobab tree.
Baobab Play
1974
0
In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.
Toorumi Pojad
1989
0
"Shaman" was filmed on July the 16th, 1977 in the northernmost corner of Eurasia, on the Taymyr Peninsula, at the Avam river, concurrently with the shooting of the documentary "The Winds of the Milky Way". The Nganasan Shaman Demnime (1913-1980) was 64 years old at the time. The documentary about Demnime's incarnation ritual was completed 20 years later. The fifth and final documentary in Lennart Meri's "Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Gentium Fenno - Uricarum" series.
Šamaan
1997
0
In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scientific community supported Nazism, distorted history to legitimize a hideous system and was an accomplice to its unspeakable crimes. The story of the Ahnenerbe, a sinister organization created to rewrite the obscure origins of a nation.
Sciences nazies : la race, le sol et le sang
2019
7
IN THE LAND OF GIANT PYGMIES, a diary of Aurelio Rossi's 1925 trek into the immense Belgian Congo, preserves a long-gone-Colonial-era wonder at natural resources, "primitive" tribes, customs and costumes in Europe's cast African possessions, and implies that the "dark continent" could benefit from the "civilizing" influences of home.
In the Land of Giants and Pygmies
1925
6
Séfar (in Arabic: سيفار) is an ancient city in the heart of the Tassili n'Ajjer mountain range in Algeria, more than 2,400 km south of Algiers and very close to the Libyan border. Séfar is the largest troglodyte city in the world, with several thousand fossilized houses. Very few travelers go there given its geographical remoteness and especially because of the difficulties of access to the site. The site is full of several paintings, some of which date back more than 12,000 years, mostly depicting animals and scenes of hunting or daily life which testify that this hostile place has not always been an inhabited desert. Local superstition suggests that the site is inhabited by djins, no doubt in connection with the strange paintings found on the site.
Séfar, Une Cité Peuplée De Mystères
2021
10
The film discusses the traits and originators of some of metal's many subgenres, including the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, power metal, Nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, black metal, and death metal. Dunn uses a family-tree-type flowchart to document some of the most popular metal subgenres. The film also explores various aspects of heavy metal culture.
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
2005
7