Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Identity Studies / Body Ornaments & Clothing / All Films

Deep Hearts

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Deep Hearts is a film about the Bororo Fulani, a nomadic society located in the central portion of the Niger Republic of Africa. The title is a reference to an important aspect of these people's thought and demeanor. The Bororo are immensely beautiful. They are also extremely envious of each other's looks. This envy accounts for their truly suspicious nature; one which leads quickly to feelings of fear. They are particularly fearful of being 'devoured' by both the eyes and mouths of those around them with whom they compete as beautiful creatures. The concept of a deep heart is useful because it accommodates their fears by providing a metaphysical space in which to hide their true feelings.

Deep Hearts describes the Gerewol, an occasion during the rainy season when two different and competing lineages come together at a designated watering place to choose the most 'perfect' Bororo male. It is close to being a physical and moral beauty contest in which the winner, selected by a maiden of the opposing lineage, is acclaimed the 'bull.' The film is also an attempt to let this ceremony of the Bororo be a way of speaking to the larger question of choice itself, something which confronts all human beings at all times.

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Fashioning Faith

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fashioning Faith
Buy Now: $295.00

When most Americans think of the Islamic veil, the image of Afghan women in blue burkas or the black chador of the Islamic Republic of Iran may come to mind. But what about the Muslim-American woman who easily combines her headscarf with jeans or haute couture gowns?

Fashioning Faith takes a behind the scenes look at the emerging world of Islamic fashion and US-based clothing designers who make it possible. The film interweaves interviews and verité footage from a diverse array of Muslim women with one goal in common – to express their faith through fashion.

Nzinga Knight is a young Brooklynite who has won fashion accolades for her modest evening dresses – a first for the Islamic style market in America. Jenneh Williams has been in the Islamic retail business for decades, recently opening up her own boutique in Queens that caters to the growing number of black converts to Islam. Sabrina Enayatulla is a blogger fashionista with a mission – to change negative stereotypes of Islam through stylish creations. Brooke Samad hopes that her pious clothing collection will hit home with young professional Muslims looking for new alternatives to traditional garb, while the designers of the Eva Khurshid label seek to attract all Americans — regardless of creed — to their stylish clothing by making modesty the new mainstream.

Through these women's stories, Fashioning Faith takes viewers on a colorful exploration of a world where fashion and faith fuse with often surprising results.

“An excellent film for introductory anthropology courses. At one level, Fashioning Faith is a primer on Muslim women in the United States and the fact that they actually freely choose to wear modest clothing. But at a deeper level, for anthropology courses this film offers teachers an opportunity to explore more deeply how gender empowerment does not necessarily equate to encouraging women to compete with men. …Fashioning Faith shows us how gender segregation sanctions women's economic empowerment through means that most Americans would mistakenly consider singularly repressive.”
— Carolyn Rouse, Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. 3 (June 2012), pp. 368-366

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Framing the Other

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Framing the Other
Buy Now: $295.00

The Mursi tribe resides in the basin of the Omo River, in the east African state of Ethiopia. Mursi women are known for placing large plates in their lower lips and wearing enormous, richly decorated earrings, which has become a subject of tourist attraction in recent years. Each year, hundreds of Western tourists come to see the unusually adorned natives; posing for camera-toting visitors has become the main source of income for the Mursi. To make more money, they embellish their “costumes” and finery to appear more exotic to the outsiders. However, by exaggerating their habits and lifestyle in such a manner they are beginning to cause their original, authentic culture to disintegrate.

Framing the Other portrays the complex relationship between tourism and indigenous communities by revealing the intimate and intriguing thoughts of a Mursi woman from Southern Ethiopia and a Dutch tourist as they prepare to meet each other. This humorous, yet simultaneously chilling film shows the destructive impact tourism has on traditional communities.

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Jungle Secrets

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

Jungle Secrets
Buy Now: $295.00

In Jungle Secrets, Waiãpi Indians perform and narrate four tales about cannibal monsters. "We have made the video," say the Waiãpi, "to teach people to be more careful with monsters they never heard about. Even a white man can be eaten as he goes into the forest."

"Kanha Makui" – the secret of the invisible. A monster gives a man a secret powder that can make him invisible, but once he drunkenly reveals the monster's secret, the powder loses its magic. In "Akukusian," a cannibal monster takes revenge on some hunters who have been greedily killing howler monkeys, but their relatives kill Akukusian in return. "Aja Tapie" tells the story of a shaman who accidentally revives a monster from death; in return the monster gives him a magic arrow that can track game. "Anyrao" is about a monster that steals and eating children.

Through the use of video cameras, costumes, props, masks and special effects, the Waiãpi real create real movie versions of the monsters their ancestors saw and feared.

Films in the Video in the Villages series

Daritidzé, Trainee Healer
The Girl's Celebration
Jungle Secrets
Pemp
The Spirit of TV
Video Cannibalism
Video in the Villages Presents Itself
Video in the Villages

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Meeting Ancestors

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Meeting Ancestors
Buy Now: $295.00

This video documents an encounter between two groups of indigenous Brazilian people. Wai-Wai, a Waiãpi leader, takes a trip to meet the Zo'é, a group only recently contacted by outsiders. Both tribes speak Tupi-Guarani dialects and share many cultural traditions; a rapport quickly develops between Wai-Wai and the Zo'é as they take on the roles of anthropologists, questioning one another about hunting techniques, crafts, and forms of dress.

Having had more experience with white society, Wai-Wai is able to warn the Zo'é about the potential danger of gold prospectors. He also introduces video technology, to everyone's fascination, and makes videos of his trip to show to everyone at home.

Films in the Encounters series

Meeting Ancestors

We Gather as a Family

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Tighten the Drums

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Tighten the Drums
Buy Now: $320.00

In the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, the Enga people have developed the art of body decoration as a visual language. Using earth paints, tree oils, bird plumes, human hair, and a variety of plants, the Enga turn the body into a medium for an expressive and dramatic symbolism. Tighten the Drums shows the diverse forms of body art in both daily life and ritual in Enga village society.

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(un)veiled

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

(un)veiled
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(un)veiled introduces the audience to ten Muslim women from various backgrounds who now live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Their discussion about hijab, the headscarf, revolves around a lecture on the same topic that was banned last minute but delivered anyway. In a time when Islam and especially Muslim women are represented as monolithic and beset by backwardness, the women in (un)veiled show the diverse, lively, argumentative debates in Muslim societies about the meanings of modernity, emancipation, and feminism.

Dubai, where the filmmaker lived for eight months, becomes a character in itself, showing the complex face of a contemporary Arab city.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Second Jury Prize, Black Maria Film Festival, 2008

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, 2008

MESA Film Festival, 2008

Women's International Film Festival, Miami, FL, 2009

Days of Ethnographic Film, Slovenia, 2009

University of British Columbia Ethnographic Film Festival, Canada, 2009

American Psychological Association Convention, Toronto, 2009

American Sociological Association Film & Video Festival, San Francisco, CA 2009

Open Frame 2009, New Delhi, India

Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, MA, 2009

Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival, CO, 2009

International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia, 2009

3rd Women's Film Festival, Chennai, India, 2010

Luminato - Toronto Festival of Arts & Creativity, Canada, 2010

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Wandering Warrior

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:26:00 GMT

Wandering Warrior
Buy Now: $320.00

In 1983, at the age of 19, Maasai warrior Mpeti Ole Surum left his homeland in Southern Kenya. He left his cattle, sheep, and goats. He moved from the community where he lived among other warriors to attend school and learn the English language; an opportunity unknown to others in his village.

Mpeti had met American tourists who were on a safari in Kenya. Their talk of the "outside world" interested him; they encouraged Mpeti to think about education. But his father beat and put a curse on him at the mention of school. Only after Mpeti persuaded the chief of his village to speak on his behalf, did his father concede. Mpeti entered the first grade at 19, changed his name to "Tom" and graduated three years later with an eighth-grade education, able to read and write in English.

The Maasai people possess great pride and self-respect. Their life within a rigid social structure maintains the harmony that has sustained them for thousands of years in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya. According to Maasai tradition, the warrior earns privileges by performing special duties. Tom underwent a series of rituals during his development as a warrior, including circumcision at age 15. The most honorable achievement for a warrior is the slaying of a lion. Tom killed two.

Tom took a job at Keekorok Lodge, a resort owned by the United Touring Company (UTC), Kenya's largest tourist agency located in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. He worked as a groundskeeper, room steward, a salesman, and a manager in the gift shop. But he made an impression on the guests when he began speaking about Maasai culture. In hopes of attracting others to Kenya, UTC sent Tom to entertain in London, England. Within months the nomadic warrior had become a sought-after lecturer, entertainer, and talk show guest.

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When Visitors Come

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:26:00 GMT

When Visitors Come
Buy Now: $295.00

A film about the relationship between anthropologist Rina Sherman and an Omuhimba family with whom she lived for seven years, filming and photographing aspects of their everyday and ritual lives. Halfway through her tenure in the field, Sherman presented a multi-media exhibition, entitled The Ovahimba Years: Work in Progress in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. A group of young people from the community of Etanga traveled to Windhoek to participate in the exhibition.

The film explores the evolution of this relationship that lead to the exhibition, shows the group of young people discovering the presentation of their cultural heritage at the exhibition, holding performances as part of the programme presented, and shows the resulting discussions and consequences of the exhibition, once everyone is back in Ovahimba country. When Visitors Come is a film about an anthropologist in situ, and evokes several notions central to fieldwork, such as the nature of the bond between the observer and the observed, the observed observer, participant-anthropology and emotion as possible vector or hindrance in fieldwork.

Films in the Ovahimba Years series

Keep The Dance Alive

Shake Your Brains

When Visitors Come

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Yanomamö of the Orinoco

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:26:00 GMT

Yanomamö of the Orinoco
Buy Now: $295.00

Made in conjunction with seventh grade geography teachers in Wayland, Massachusetts schools, this film uses footage from the extensive series of Napoleon Chagnon and Timothy Asch to show land use in a South American rain forest. It depicts many of the daily activities of the Yanomamö Indians such as slash-and-burn gardening, body decorating, gathering firewood, bathing in the river and preparing for a feast. This program can be used with the Holt, Rinehart Databank Curriculum or tailored to individual teaching in content areas of geography, world cultures and anthropology.

"The process of collaboration between classroom teachers and DER allowed us access to a vast collection on the Yanomamö. It was a pleasure to create a video meeting the needs of our students rather than modifying classes to correlate with an existing film." — Maureen Moran, John L. Daly, Geography Teachers, Wayland (MA) Public Schools

Films in the Yanomamö series:

Arrow Game *†

The Ax Fight †

Bride Service

Children's Magical Death *†

Climbing the Peach Palm *†

A Father Washes His Children *†

The Feast

Firewood *

Jaguar, a Yanomamö Twin Cycle Myth

Magical Death †

A Man and His Wife Make a Hammock *†