Documentary Educational Resources - Indigenous Studies / Ancestry & Family / All Films

Goodbye, Captain

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 14:42:23 GMT

Goodbye, Captain relates the story of Brazil's indigenous Gavião people and their efforts to maintain their language, livelihood, and identity throughout a half-century of upheavals. At the center of this historical narrative is "Captain" Krôhôkrenhum Jopaipairé, leader of the Gavião community in the south of Pará. Krôhôkrenhum shares the history of his people and details his commitment to restoring the community’s cultural traditions.

Krôhôkrenhum’s tells filmmaker Vincent Carelli the history of his community, beginning with the wars of the “brave Indian” and the terrible devastation that began with contact with the kupen or white man, who brought with them new diseases and left few survivors scattered around the region. Further encroachment of the kupen resulted in the loss of Gavião lands and resources, including the nut trees that offered them economic independence, the imposition of slave labor, and a generation raised outside of their culture and language.

As the story continues, strategic alliances with other Gavião groups enable Krôhôkrenhum and his people to rebel against harmful government policies and ultimately gain control of their plantation and obtain financial autonomy. Contact with other Gavião groups also inspires Krôhôkrenhum and the community to revitalize the Gavião language and ceremonies.

Woven throughout this history is the relationship between the captain and Vincent Carelli, who began filming the community using a VHS camera in 1987. The film opens with Carelli’s return of an audio-visual archive to the Gavião community and the promise of fulfilling Krôhôkrenhum’s wish to maintain the memory of his people.

Selected Screenings & Awards

Prix Mondes en Regards, Jean Rouch International Ethnographic Film Festival, France, 2023
Sheffield International Documentary Festival, United Kingdom, 2022

Doclisboa International Film Festival, Portugal, 2022

IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival), Amsterdam, 2022

It’s All True - International Documentary Festival, Brazil, 2022

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Oyate

Mon, 20 May 2019 09:47:00 GMT

Oyate
Buy Now: $320.00

Oyate is a time capsule of moments, gestures, and events that took place on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during the summer of 2015. The narrative, pieced together mainly from the day-to-day activities of two Lakota families, anchors the viewer among the rhythms and sounds of everyday life.

While not an outwardly politicized film, Oyate is an unmistakably political one; a film that keenly and quietly positions a collection of seemingly commonplace events (a conversation in the back of a truck, a group of young girls lighting off fireworks, a birth, a wedding reception) as deeply felt occurrences of purpose, faith, and love in an often difficult world.

"This tightly packed and intimate documentary gives a rare glimpse into a forgotten world we only hear about in passing. One of the most important DOCS of the year."

-Devin Negrete, Film Note Magazine

“Unlike so many other documentaries about Pine Ridge that focus on the poverty and deprivation of Lakota residents, this film interrupts that narrative to celebrate families and the intimacy of their day to day lives." - Danette Pachtner, Librarian for Film, Video & Digital Media and Women's Studies, Duke University

SELECTED AWARDS & SCREENINGS

Artistic Vision Award, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, US, 2017
Regard Neuf Finalist, Visions du Réel, Switzerland, 2017

EthnoKino, Switzerland, 2018

Duluth Superior Film Festival Indigenous Screening Series, US, 2018

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, US, 2017
Independent Film Festival Boston, US, 2017

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The Living Maya

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 13:21:00 GMT

The Living Maya
Buy Now: $340.00

This series documents life in a Yucatan village, focusing on one family over the course of a year. The films explore the ancient agricultural and religious customs that ground contemporary Maya life in traditional values – even as modern Mexico comes to the village.

Part 1Introduces the village of Chican and the Colli-Colli family, and examines the structure of Maya agricultural and village life.

Part 2Hard-pressed by an illness in the family, the Colli-Colli face financial and emotional challenges using traditional solidarity to muster resources and comfort. Drought threatens the village's crucial corn crop.

Part 3As the Colli-Colli resolve their difficulties and the village harvests a mediocre corn crop, viewers are left with an understanding of the underlying rationales of Maya life and with questions about their own assumptions, priorities, and values.

Part 4The Colli-Colli's two youngest sons plead to be placed in school in Merida – the first of their family to reject traditional life.

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Imaginero - The Image Man

Tue, 9 Oct 2018 15:11:00 GMT

Imaginero - The Image Man
Buy Now: $320.00

Imaginero is an ethnobiography of Hermógenes Cayo, a self-taught woodcarver and painter who lives on the high Andean plateau of Argentina. The film portrays Hermógenes, his wife Aurelia Kilpe, and their children in their Andean lifestyle, as well as Hermogenes' passion for painting, carving, building, and his devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Devout, austere and dedicated to craftsmanship, he can make anything from religious figures carved from cactus wood to a working harmonium. Inspired by a trip to Buenos Aires to advocate for land rights, Hermógenes has labored to replicate the style of the capital's grand cathedral and shrine to the Virgin with resourcefulness and skill.

A respected member of his community, the image-maker's wedding ceremony brings music, costumes and dancing, while Prelorán films life, festive and ordinary, on the coldest part of the plateau. Hermógenes and his family live much as their ancestors have always done, raising sheep and weaving cloth, but a train now makes the rest of the world closer; “the children play differently now that they have been to town,” he notes.

The film does not follow a traditional narrative structure, transitioning between themes and revisiting earlier themes later. In this way the film weaves a portrait of Hermógenes Cayo, the craft of image making, an indigenous Catholicism, as well as portraying the lifestyle of a solitary Andean family braving the harsh conditions of their surroundings. The relationship between individual and culture, as well as cultural change, is artfully expressed by Prelorán.

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Changa Revisited

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Changa Revisited
Buy Now: $320.00

Changa Revisited is the story of Tanzania Maasai elder Toreto ole Koisenge and his family, seen from two points in time across a thirty year divide. His life has drastically changed since anthropologist Peter Biella first visited his home thirty years ago. Then he had six hundred cattle. Now disease has reduced his herd to twenty. The world of Maasai pastoralists has gotten smaller and smaller since the Tanzania government forced them to live in permanent villages and end the seasonal cattle migrations. “The world is upside-down…what can you do except change?” says Toreto. The film draws on hundreds of photographs and audio recordings taken in 1980 by Peter Biella. These images, woven with contemporary video footage, create a deeply personal portrait of the unfolding of a family's life through three decades of tumultuous change.

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Cree Hunters of Mistassini

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Cree Hunters of Mistassini
Buy Now: $320.00

For thousands of years, the Cree Indians of James Bay inhabited the northern Quebec forests - originally gathering wild rice, and later hunting, fishing, and trapping. Traditionally, small groups of families spent the winter months together in the bush, subsisting on moose, beaver, deer, wild geese and caribou. In 1973 a film crew joined three families in their annual move to the north. In this film we come to know the Blacksmiths, the Jollys, and the Voyageurs: building a one-room lodge floored with pine boughs, hunting, trapping, preparing food and skins, and living together in the bush.

Disclaimer on Naming:
Please be aware that this documentary may include outdated or potentially offensive language. Such terms are not endorsed by DER but are presented in their original context to promote awareness, education, and discussion. Learn more about DER’s efforts to use reparative language and honor the preferred names of Indigenous communities by clicking here.

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Duka's Dilemma

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Duka's Dilemma
Buy Now: $320.00

Duka is a married woman and mother of five young children, living in Hamar, Southern Ethiopia. Ever since her husband married a beautiful, young, second wife, Duka has been in a state of emotional turmoil. Among the Hamar, who live with herds and cultivate small fields of sorghum in their remote, bush-covered country, men are allowed to marry more than one wife, but only a few men ever do so. Duka wonders why her husband married again; did he find her too old, or was he turned off because of her chronic malaria? Also, she doesn't know what to make of the new wife who is silent and never expresses her feelings except in rage? And on top of this, her mother-in-law keeps making trouble and is angry with her son for marrying a second wife behind her back. Personal and intimate, the film follows the drama of this family in crisis, the high points of which are the birth of the new wife's child, and nine months later, a heated dispute between the mother-in-law and her son, which leads to the building of a new house. Duka, her husband, her mother-in-law and the second wife voice their different points of view as events proceed and the crisis finally gets resolved. The language of the film is Hamar, and is translated by subtitles. There is no need for extra commentary from the filmmakers, whose presence and close relationship to the people are always evident.

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Dancing with a Dog

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Dancing with a Dog
Buy Now: $295.00

In Dancing With a Dog we experience the rhythm of daily life on the Rio Amônea. Kowire and his wife Withawo get up early to take care of their eight children, preparing food and making handcrafts for sale. Kowire is helping his son to build a house, and after work for the day is finished there is fish and cassava root for dinner.

On weekends, the Piâretsi celebration is full of with drinking, dancing and soccer. Everyone is fully at ease in the presence of the cameraman; there is plenty of joking and Kowire goes home a little drunk on caissiema beer.

Films in the Indigenous Video Makers series

Dancing with a Dog
From the Ikpeng Children to the World
Kinja Iakaha, A Day in the Village
The Living Forest
Moyngo
Nguné Elü
One Must Be Curious
A Path to Live
The Rainy Season
Shomõtsi
Trainees for the Future
Wapté Mnhõnõ, The Xavante's Initiation
Wai'á Rini, The Power of the Dream

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From the Ikpeng Children to the World

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

From the Ikpeng Children to the World
Buy Now: $295.00

Four Ikpeng children introduce us to life in their village. They show their families, their toys, and their celebrations with grace and lightheartedness. We meet the characters that make up their everyday world - from baby chickens to the village chief - and we see the children helping with chores, learning to hunt, going to school and playing games.

Often comparing and contrasting themselves to earlier generations, they are aware of their cultural heritage and how it has changed since their grandparents' time. Engaging and candid, the Ikpeng children are full of curiosity and ask that people of other cultures send their own video-letters.

Films in the Indigenous Video Makers series

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Her Name Came on Arrows

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:27:00 GMT

Her Name Came on Arrows
Buy Now: $295.00

In the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, French anthropologist Maurice Godelier invites five of his Baruya friends and informants to his house to discuss Baruya kinship and rules of marriage. As Godelier poses questions, the kinship rules that provide the cohesive fabric of Baruya culture are brought to life. Abstract terms are given practical meanings as Godelier investigates Baruya customs of stealing wives, exchanging sisters for wives, stealing names and exchanging 'food for blood.'

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