Movies: Anthropology

The subject is two grotesque-looking human beings who are sitting on the deck of a ship. The two weird individuals sit cross-legged and do the bidding of a man in oriental costume. The point of the film seems to be directed at the fact that the bone ...

About the "concheros", dancers in México City that keep aztec traditions alive....

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 thousa...

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific ...

Mankind from Space is an epic journey of discovery. Using mind-boggling data and CGI, it traces humankind’s story from hunter-gatherer to dominant global species. Seen from the global perspective of space, this special shows the breath-taking extent ...

Women from three separate Ju/'hoan bands have gathered at a mangetti grove at !O to play an intense game in which under-tones of social and personal tensions become apparent....

A documentary about the histoy and linguistic ties of the Finno-Ugric, and Samoyedic peoples. Speakers of the Kamassian, Nenets, Khanty, Komi, Mari, and Karelian languages were filmed in their everyday settings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. T...

A celebration of the diversity of Ethiopia's culture and wildlife. It journeys from North to South - spanning mountains, rainforests and the hottest place on Earth. It documents Muslims mixing with Christians as they have for over a millennia and the...

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, ...

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...

Marianne Lehmann, born in Switzerland in 1936, married a Haitian and moved to Port-au-Prince in 1957. Fascinated by voodoo cult objects, she began with buying them to avoid their scattering abroad. Over the years it became the largest collection in t...

This film depicts a moment of flirtation between N!ai, the young wife of /Gunda, and her great-uncle /Ti!kay. The two share a "joking relationship," a Ju/'hoan kin relationship which provides opportunities for casual intimacy, emotional release, and ...

How do humans and animals see each other? Dominique Loreau captures astonishing exchanges of “views” between people and animals who coexist in the city, in farms, slaughterhouses, zoos, museums, or in a dance rehearsal room. In The Eyes Of A Beast qu...

Mr. Burbridge's party slew three giant gorillas, one weighing something like 450 pounds. Two of these were sent to the Belgian Government and one to the Smithsonian Institution. The explorer also brought away with him three young gorillas, one of whi...

Raymundo Gleyzer's documentary on o community of Pottery Makers in the west of Cordoba province in Argentina who create pieces to sell to the tourists....

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 nigh...

Five stories about dignity in the capital of Peru. A local leader looking for someone to leave the post of her complex work, a tourist guide who is a patron of the architectural heritage and Creole music, an ex-delinquent rescued by the Evangelical C...

"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 he...

...

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 G...