Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / History / Colonialism / All Films

The Mbako Trial

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 12:17:53 GMT

The film begins in the north-east of the Belgian Congo in 1933. Following reports of mysterious deaths in the region over several years, the Belgian colonial authorities arrest and put on trial a group of men suspected of belonging to the Mambela sect and of being responsible for these deaths as Aniotos, men who kill like leopards. Among them is Mbako, ritual chief and presumed leader of the Aniotos or leopard men. As the film progresses, the role of the accused is reversed and the colonizers' disregard for traditional customary law, social structures and traditional leaders and chiefs, as well as their devastating impact on local traditions, are scrutinized.

The pioneer of African animation, Congolese stop-motion animator J-M Kibushi takes the Western imagination of the Anioto as a starting point for revisiting this episode in the history of today's Democratic Republic of Congo, challenging the racist and dehumanizing interpretation of the colonizers and the portrayal of leopard men as the ‘savage Other’. The Mbako Trial: Myth and Reality presents a post-colonial reinterpretation of the hearings and trial through animations, illustrations, a diorama, theatrical reconstructions, archive documents and interviews.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

FestIFIS Films Identitaires et solidaires à Nikki, Bénin, 2024

Millenium à Bruxelles, Belgium, 2024

Festival Mundial de Cine à Veracruz, Mexico, 2023

GZDOC/Guangzhou Int'l Documentary Film Festival, China, 2023

Luanda PAFF/Int'l Pan African Film Festival à Luanda, Angola, 2023

Kasseler Dok Fest à Kassel, Germany, 2023

Congo in Harlem, New York, 2023

Vues d'Afrique à Montréal, Canada, 2023

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We Are The Warriors

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 15:15:24 GMT

We Are The Warriors
Buy Now: $320.00

For nearly 70 years, students and alumni of Wells High School in Maine have called themselves the “Warriors.” Their yearbook, the Abenaki, was named for the Indigenous people the town’s settlers first encountered in the 1600s. And the school mascot was a stoic Native American head in profile with braids and feathered headband. When, in 2017, public allegations emerged that Warriors fans made “Indian” whooping calls and donned “war paint,” the community began a process to decide whether to keep or drop their long-held mascot. We Are The Warriors follows the proceedings of the school district’s Mascot Advisory Committee and draws on interviews with residents of Wells, Maine to paint a profile of one community’s process as they confront their history and identity, challenging long-held misconceptions about the meanings behind their team’s name.

The film’s Co-Directors, both graduates of Wells High School, gathered interviews and insights from residents of Wells and Wabanaki people from what is now Maine, Québec, and the Canadian Maritimes. Revelations about the town’s brutal colonial history and difficult conversations about the actual impact of the use of the mascot were key to changing hearts and minds of committee members. The film highlights evolving opinions of residents with a secondary focus on the history of the region. After months of informed consideration, the committee votes to recommend that the school board retire the mascot.

We Are the Warriors serves as a case study for how one community contends with the legacy of settler colonialism and speaks to national issues regarding misunderstandings about the role and place of indigenous people in American society.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Maine Public Television, USA, 2024

Vermont Public Television, USA, 2024

Port Jefferson Documentary Series, USA, 2024
Tourmaline Prize for Best Feature made in Maine, 26th Maine Int'l Film Festival, USA 2023

Global Peace Film Festival, USA, 2023
Monadnock Int'l Film Festival, USA, 2023

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Ophir

Fri, 6 May 2022 14:37:33 GMT

Ophir
Buy Now: $320.00

Ophir tells the story of an extraordinary Indigenous revolution for life, land and culture: a poetic and dramatic ode to the thirst for freedom, culture and sovereignty. The film sheds light on the biggest conflict of the Pacific since WWII, revealing the visible and invisible chains of colonisation and its enduring cycles of physical and psychological warfare.

Voiced entirely by the Indigenous people of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, the film deconstructs the mechanisms of exploitation through the colonisation of land and its people, who at the end of the 1980s were left with no choice but to revolt for their right to exist. A small group of islanders first armed with bows and arrows fought helicopters and guns. They defiantly defended the core principles that formed the basis of their society, in the face of absolute destruction of their mental, physical, and spiritual conception of what it means to be human.

It was a decade-long civil war which killed around 20,000 Bougainvilleans, wiping out approximately 10% of the island's population.

The people of Bougainville ultimately won in their fight against the colonial powers, in a bid to secede from their motherland Papua New Guinea, despite the government's support from Australia and one of the biggest of the mining giants, Rio Tinto.

“(5 out of 5 stars)...may be the best environmental documentary I have ever seen. It is rare to see an indigenous lead revolution succeed, and rarer still to hear about such success. This documentary gives the viewer a chance to hear the residents of Bougainville speak for themselves in their own words. They speak of colonialism and all of its faces. Beautiful poetry is used to drive this documentary from segment to segment, connecting the thoughts and ideas spoken by this film’s subjects to one another through cultural expression." – J. Zimmerman, Video Librarian

“Edifying... A remarkable reflection on the aftermath of an anti-colonial struggle.” – Christine Chaumeau, Télérama TTT

“It's just really an incredible film. It plays out like a Greek tragedy.” – Gabrielle Kelly, Guam IFF 2020 Jury Member

“The things that the filmmakers managed to see and film are quite exceptional.” – Eric Barbier, FIFO 2020 Jury President

Selected Screenings & Awards

Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, Toronto, 2023

Grand Prix, FIFO Int'l Documentary Film Festival of Oceania, Tahiti, 2020

Grand Prix ‘Sol de Oro’, Suncine Environmental Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain, 2020

Grand Jury Prize, Feature Documentary Competition, Guam Int'l Film Festival, USA, 2020

Grand Prix Rigoberta Menchú, Montréal First Peoples Festival, Canada, 2020

Audience Award, Noma Int'l Human Rights Film Festival, Portugal, 2021

Best Feature Film, All Living Things Environmental Film Festival, Panchgani, India, 2021

Best Foreign Film Award, AegeanDocs Int'l Film Festival, Greece, 2021

Film of the Year, FICA Festival Internacional de Cine Ambiental, Goias, Brazil, 2021

RAI Film Prize & Basil Wright Prize Nominee, RAI Film Festival, 2021

Silver Award, Millenium Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 2021
Grand Prix Best Feature Film, Cinema e Ambiente Avezzano, Italy, 2021
Special Jury Prize ‘Coup de Coeur du Jury’, Martinique Int'l Doc FF, Martinique, 2021
Special Jury Mention, Noma Int'l Human Rights Film Festival, Portugal, 2021
1st Special Jury Prize, Ecology of the Soul, Green Montenegro Int'l Film Festival, Montenegro, 2021
Best International Feature Film, PukaÑawi Int'l Human Rights Film Festival of Sucre, Bolivia, 2021
2nd Jury Prize, International Documentaries, Int'l Nature Film Festival Gödöllő, Hungary, 2021
Best Feature Film, Festiver Festival de Cine Verde de Barichara, Colombia, 2021
Benedetto Senni Award, Terra di Tutti Film Festival, Italy, 2021
Best Feature Film, Youth Jury, Serra de Estrela Int’l Environmental Film Festival, Portugal, 2021
Best Documentary Feature Film, Dili Int'l Film Festival, Timor-Leste, 2021
Best Environmental Film, Bogocine Bogota Int'l Film Festival, Colombia, 2021
Best Feature Film, Mallku Features, Arica Nativa Festival, Chile, 2021
Best Script, Filmambiente Festival, Brazil, 2021
Best Feature Film, Greenfest Belgrade, Serbia, 2021

Environmental Justice Award, Eugene Environmental Film Festival, USA, 2022
Best International Feature Film, Ecozine Film Festival, Spain, 2022

Best Feature Documentary Award, Gibara Int'l Film Festival, Cuba, 2022
Best Film, Best Feature Documentary, Int'l Documentary Film Festival of Ierapetra, Greece, 2022
Invited in Competition, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, 2022

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Life Is a Very Strange Thing

Tue, 2 Jul 2019 09:22:22 GMT

Life Is a Very Strange Thing
Buy Now: $320.00

Life Is A Very Strange Thing is an intriguing mosaic of post-colonial France revealed through four generations of a remarkable French family.

Australian filmmakers Les McLaren and Annie Stiven last saw Frédéric Duvelle in the 1970s when he was a rebellious teenager recording traditional music in remote villages of Papua New Guinea. Forty years later, a chance reunion became an opportunity to fill in missing decades and to discover his remarkable family history, from his Governor grandfather in colonial Indochina to the populist politics and terror attacks of contemporary France.

We meet Frédéric's parents: mother Elisabeth, a politically engaged textile artist who raised Fred and his two sisters in a working-class suburb of Paris; and composer father Charles who grew up in Laos and Cambodia, and became celebrated for his pioneering recordings of traditional music in Africa.

Frédéric's recounts his own unlikely journey from school dropout, to ethnomusicologist then executive of a multinational garbage enterprise. He is a wily raconteur and avid collector of brocante. Shadowed by his endearing ancient dog Punch, encounters with friends in Paris and Bordeaux unfold rich layers of French culture and identity: an enigmatic African artist discusses Cubism; a cameo family lunch with a menu of oysters, history and politics; a 93-year-old WW2 Resistance veteran who forgives; and an irascible brocanteur who can't forget.

The youngest generation confront issues at the heart of cosmopolitan France: Frédéric's niece is an activist with FEMEN who protest against conservative values as the populist right-wing National Front is on the rise, and his daughter has a near encounter on the night of the Bataclan terror attack.

Life Is A Very Strange Thing is part road movie, part meditation. Its unique mix – of observation, archive footage from PNGand Indochina, indigenous music and rich sound design – evokes a lyrical and compelling portrait of family, place, politics, and memory.

“The film crackles with energy, fueled by Duvelle’s irresistible charm and intelligence; as a character, he’s every director’s dream: irascible and an oddball; cuddly, endearing and benevolent. A complex man encapsulated in a film that’s impressive in scope yet full of heart as an intimate study of a storied, colourful individual.” – John Catania, Metro Magazine

“An unusually nuanced, subtle, and insightful foray into the culturalpolitics of contemporary France.” – Steven Feld, School for AdvancedResearch, Santa Fe

“I haven't seen such a brilliantly crafted film for a long time. The film shows us that the story of France is not only local but includes the stories of travellers throughout the colonial and post-colonial world. Yet at the same time it carries us into the life of metropolitan France today with an intimacy that is thoroughly enjoyable.” – David MacDougall, Filmmaker & Film Scholar, Austrailian National University

SELECTED SCREENINGS

Cinematographiques de Cannes, France, 2018

Rencontres - cinema des Antipodes, St Tropez, 2018
Brisbane International Film Festival, Australia, 2017
Antenna Documentary Festival, Sydney, Australia, 2017

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Divided Loyalties

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Divided Loyalties
Buy Now: $320.00

Divided Loyalties studies the stories of Greek and Turkish Cypriot refugees and nationals who seek to reconcile their fractured heritage from the history of the proud, yet divided island: Cyprus. Shot in 16 mm the film reveals both a visual and emotional landscape of the island. Structured around the chronological political legacy of Cyprus, award-winning director and cinematographer Sophia Constantinou explores the memories and personal histories of its natives, as well as her own family. Unknown to many, Cyprus, as of 2001, is one of the most densely militarized zones in the world. The United Nations, Turkey and Great Britain continue to hold strong military presences in Cyprus -severing the island into separate Greek and Turkish territories. Cypriots are constantly reminded of their disjointed identities by the military border zone physically splitting the island into North and South regions. Such turbulence resulted in the scattering of Cypriots around the globe, deunifying familial, individual and collective identities. Important for teaching international relations, middle eastern studies, anthropology, conflict resolution and identity.

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First Contact

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

First Contact
Buy Now: $320.00

The classic film of cultural confrontation that is as compelling today as when it was first released over 35 years ago.

When Columbus and Cortez ventured into the New World there was no camera to record the drama of this first encounter. But in 1930 when the Leahy brothers penetrated the interior of New Guinea in search of gold, they carried a movie camera. Thus they captured on film their unexpected confrontation with thousands of Stone Age people who had no concept of human life beyond their valleys. This amazing footage forms the basis of First Contact. Yet there is more to this extraordinary film than the footage that was recovered. Fifty years later some of the participants are still alive and vividly recall their unique experience.

The Papuans tell how they thought the white men were their ancestors, bleached by the sun and returned from the dead. They were amazed at the artifacts of 20th century life such as tin cans, phonographs and airplanes. When shown their younger, innocent selves in the found footage, they recall the darker side of their relationship with these mysterious beings with devastating weapons. Australian Dan Leahy describes his fear at being outnumbered by primitive looking people with whom he could not speak. He felt he had to dominate them for his own survival and to continue his quest for gold.

First Contact is one of those rare films that holds an audience spell-bound. Humor and pathos are combined in this classic story of colonialism, told by the people who were there.

Films in the The Highlands Trilogy

First Contact

Joe Leahy's Neighbors

Black Harvest

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The First Contacts

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

The First Contacts
Buy Now: $295.00

With the colonization of Brazil's mid-West in the 1950s and the construction of the Transamazônica and other highways in the 1970s, whites began to make large-scale contact with Indians, with disastrous results. Epidemics decimated populations of groups such as the Cinta-Larga, with the deaths amounting in some cases to veritable genocide. Groups of Indians were separated from relatives, their land parceled out to settlers under the auspices a colonial mythology that advocated "progress" over the rights of indigenous people. Archive footage shows the "pacification" of the Xavantes People, the Cinta Larga People in Rondônia, and the Parakanas in the south of Pará, and how this catastrophic contact decimated these populations. Even into the year 2000, a FUNAI crew works to find small, still-isolated groups that might be under threat from farmers and prospectors. In this video, the last survivor of an annihilated people refuses to make contact.

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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A Frontier Conversation

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:52:00 GMT

A Frontier Conversation
Buy Now: $320.00

A fascinating journey through the Top End of Australia to explore what history means to the traditional landowners.

A Frontier Conversation documents a unique collaboration between indigenous and white historians from Australia and North America. In September 2004, a diverse group travelled through the Top End of Australia meeting representatives of the traditional landowners, and engaging in a dialogue about indigenous history. The themes that emerged raised more questions than answers - from cultural appropriation and copyright, to land rights, the role of language and art, and what history means to indigenous communities in the current climate of cultural reclamation and survival. Narrated by Professor Ann McGrath, Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the Australian National University, A Frontier Conversation is a fascinating and thought-provoking account of a journey that breaks away from "the History Wars" and signals the first step in a new approach to the study of frontier history.

"A Frontier Conversation asks intriguing questions, and has some unexpected answers. At one level, it's a very simple and watchable film about a group of historians from Australia and the United States visiting Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, and talking with them about the importance of history. As the film progresses, we realise that its concerns are not simple at all. They are nothing less than the complex problem of the very different uses that history is put to in different cultural settings, and its varied meanings and consequences as a result. The film asks some difficult questions: such as how valuable can histories written by outsiders to any community be? What are the responsibilities of the historian, Indigenous or not, to the people whose stories he or she attempts to tell?"
— Ann Curthoys, Manning Clark Professor of History, Australian National University

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Homage to the Yaghans

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:27:00 GMT

Homage to the Yaghans
Buy Now: $295.00

Homage to the Yaghans was filmed with 16mm cameras in Tierra del Fuego and the Cape Horn area (Chile and Argentina) during the summer of 1987 and the winter of 1988. It was first presented in the United States at the New York Academy of Sciences in early 1990.

The video's purpose is twofold. The first is to achieve an understanding of certain episodes of western expansion, beginning in the early seventeenth century, which finally led to the extinction of the Yaghan people. The second is to gain an appreciation of the courage and fortitude of a people who had survived for thousands of years in one of the most inhospitable regions of the planet, but who had been judged by many Europeans as the most degraded human beings in the entire world.

Homage focuses on the personality and life of a Yaghan called "Jemmy Button" who was taken to England in 1831 by Captain Fitz-Roy and returned to his homeland two years later during Fitz-Roy's second expedition, in the company of Charles Darwin. Jemmy Button died in 1864, a victim of the first in a series of epidemics which decimated his people. The video ends with scenes of the four women who still speak Yaghan (as well as Spanish) and who live on Navarino Island, on the south shore of Beagle Channel in Chile. One of the four Yaghan-speaking women vividly remembers witnessing the last enactment of the great initiation ceremony, the Chiexaus, held on Navarino Island circa 1932.

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Hajari Bhand of Rajasthan

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:26:00 GMT

Hajari Bhand of Rajasthan
Buy Now: $320.00

Hajari Bhand of Chittorgarh, Rajasthan is renowned in the nearby courts, villages and towns of Mewar for his skill as a bahurupiya - a wandering mimic performing mostly comic routines. This videotape highlights Hajari Bhand's mastery of twenty different disguises and his performances of various routines in village settings, interspersed with interview material.

Wandering mimics such as Hajari Bhand perform their routines in the streets, courtyards, and market places of North India - particularly of Rajasthan. Their guises, mimicry and humor are all fashioned from a close study of the dress and behavior patterns of professional castes, character types, and figures from mythology. These mimics offer a comic census of known types – a vast assortment of gods and goddesses, tradesmen and rogues, noblemen and holy men, professionals and tribals, beggars and fools.

Bhands perform several functions for their society. Acting as wild cards in an otherwise carefully labeled deck, they entertain, they interpret behavior, and they diffuse tensions in conflict situations. The skill and humor of the Bhand's profession is evident in Hajari Bhand's performances and commentary.

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