This first co-production of the Soviet and Indian cinematographers is dedicated to the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin who in 1466-1472 blazed the trade way from Europe to India. The film is based on Nikitin’s travel notes. Starring in the film are popular Russian actor Oleg Strizhenov and India’s 1950s movie star Nargis.
Short ethnographic documentary showing some everyday life scenes based upon footage shot by director Luc de Heusch in Congo in 1954 reassembled by Damien Mottier (Université Paris Nanterre) and Grace Winter (CINEMATEK).
A man demonstrates a human-powered water wheel that irrigates a rice field.
A young woman in traditional Japanese attire fixes her hair and kimono while her servants assist her.
Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.
An actuality film showing a Buddhist festival in Kyoto. The procession includes Buddhist monks, geishas, and others dressed coordinately to the Japanese tradition.
David and Judith MacDougall are exploring the marriage rituals and roles of Turkana women in this ethnographic documentary. The film's biggest part is taken up by talks between the Turkana people. As one of the first ethnographic documentaries "A Wife Among Wives" subtitles these talks so that the viewer can get a better and probably more personal understanding of the life of the Turkana.
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
A group of people setting out to find a previously assumed land and upon reaching it, not knowing how to deal with the customs of the place, have to deal with all the consequences.
The film was made on the basis of the literary version of events in the life of the famous Russian ethnographer, anthropologist, biologist and traveler who studied the indigenous population of South-East Asia, Australia and Oceania.
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
A meditative stroll through Sacramento landmarks, from the gentrified to the urban.
Travellers, nomads and salesmen make their way along a dam next to the Nile.
Saint Anthony, Abbot of the Desert, protector of animals, is a central figure in the Italian countryside, where fortune depends on the health of the animals. To heal his donkey, Antonio asks the village priest to bless the sick animal. Faced with his refusal, the young farmer confides directly in the Saint, hoping that he will perform a miracle.
Two parallel stories about unhappy marriages that take place during inter-war period in the Banat village within Romanian ethnic minority in Serbia.
“One of the principal features at the Pan-American Exposition is the Alaskan or Esquimaux Village. In this most interesting exhibit, scenes are enacted just as they take place in the far away frozen North. In this subject we depict a large number of Esquimaux clothed in their native costumes and seated on their sleds, which are drawn by spans of four Esquimaux dogs. They are engaged in a race and are to be seen running over the ice and snow at a high rate of speed. There is a pond in the foreground of the picture on the shores of which the home stretch of the race takes place. The picture is perfect photographically, and the figures stand out clear and sharp, throwing a most perfect reflection on the pond.” (Edison film company catalog)
“The picture [shows] a number of Esquimaux picking nickels from cracks in a board with their dog whips, in which sport they are very expert. In the background will be seen one of their "Topeks," a sealskin tent in which they live during their short summer.” (Edison catalog)
Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo, Benin and Senegal). The nonlinear structure of NAKED SPACES challenges the traditions of ethnographic filmmaking, while sensuous sights and sounds lead the viewer on a poetic journey to the most inaccessible parts of the African continent: the private interaction of people in their living spaces.
