A New Yorker journeys to the jungle in the Darien Gap of Panama to reconnect with an indigenous tribe he met and photographed 20 years ago. Their reunion highlights the profound power of photos and the human connection that transcends cultural barriers.
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.
Host Peter Greenberg explores the hidden gems of Turkey's Aegean coast. Some of the stunning destinations include Bodrum, Izmir and the ancient city of Troy.
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.
A portrait of Toronto, as defined by the spaces its queer residents inhabit and the memories they’ve created there.
As retailers, wholesalers, and negotiators, Asante women of Ghana dominate the huge Kumasi Central Market amid the laughter, argument, colour and music. The crew of this `Disappearing World' film have jumped into the fray, explored, and tried to explain the complexities of the market and its traders. As the film was to be about women traders, an all female film crew was selected and the rapport between the two groups of women is remarkable. The relationship was no doubt all the stronger because the anthropologist acting as advisor to the crew, Charlotte Boaitey, is herself an Asante. The people open up for the interviewers telling them about their lives as traders, about differences between men and women, in their perception of their society and also about marriage.
The darkness of the mine, invaded by the miners' light, by the noisy machines and the permanent and intense smell of ore in the air, leads us to an environment in which time and space become confused. A documentary film at Panasqueiras' Mine, between 2008/09. A reality captured by an eye-observer which does not interfere, but follows the compost that grows from the earth and is decomposed by man-machine.
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.
Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.
The film deals with the process of globalization based on the thought of geographer Milton Santos, who through his ideas and practices, inspires the debate about Brazilian society and the construction of a new world. Santos discusses his views on the importance of respecting difference and his belief that an alternative globalisation model could wholly enfranchise all citizens of the world. An illustrious presence in 20th century social sciences, the man dubbed as ‘geography’s philosopher’ eloquently elucidates a developing world perspective on the global age.
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
Sambesi - Quelle des Lebens
Travel across Vietnam on a breathtaking cultural and historical journey. Uncover ancient Chinese influences on Vietnamese traditions and striking examples of French Colonial architecture, and trace the impact of the Vietnam War in the north and south. Visit the country’s lively modern cities, taking in temples, floating markets, and the world heritage sites of Huế and Ha Long Bay.
Take an unprecedented visual journey into Planet Water. Water Life captures extraordinary locations and intimate animal behavior never before seen on film. Two years in the making, this groundbreaking series takes viewers on an unprecedented visual journey to aquatic ecosystems on five continents to reveal how water shapes and sculpts the landscape and provides food and refuge for an astonishing array of species. This epic series tells water's story as never before to engage viewers in vital discussions about how water must be conserved and preserved. Learn the impact of climate change, pollution and other factors that are changing the environment and affecting each and every one of us.
Un jour en Italie
This provocative and profound film documents the Choqela ceremony, an agricultural ritual and song of the Aymara Indians of Peru. By offering several different translations of the proceedings, the film acknowledges the problems of interpretation as an inherent dilemma of anthropology.
'Mod' is an attempt by the filmmaker at communicating with the young men who hang out at the ‘notorious’ water tank in her neighbourhood in Pratap Vihar, Ghaziabad. The water tank is a space that is frequented by the so-called ‘no-gooders’ of the locality, a place where they play cricket, play cards, drink and smoke up. When she enters the space with her camera, the boys are curious and at the same time wary of it and her. They sometimes resist, sometimes protest, and at times, open up. As the film unfolds we get a hint of the lives the boys lead and the fragile world they create for themselves at the water tank.
Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.
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.
A short film set in the mountainous province of Svaneti, documents the performance of polyphonic men’s funerary laments common to the region.