Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Business & Economics / Commodities & Exchange / All Films

El Field

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

International border crossing as a daily constant is an unusual life habit. Especially when Mexican urban dwellers do so to work as agricultural field laborers in the United States. In a time when immigration has taken the political center stage across the globe, El Field contributes to the discussion by providing a compelling portrait in motion of the life, work and industry of a forgotten section of the largest, busiest land transit border in the world. Shot in the Imperial Valley, California, and the Mexicali Valley, Mexico; El Field presents visual historic information that induces the audience to form their own impressions on migrant labor and the industry that employs them.

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First Film

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

First Film
Buy Now: $340.00

First Film was edited and narrated by Lorna Marshall and is comprised of footage shot in 1951 on the second Marshall family expedition to the Kalahari Desert. It is intimate in style, very carefully filmed, with a wealth of practical information about the material culture and structure of Ju/'hoan (!Kung Bushmen) hunter-gatherer society. The film allows viewers to see some of John Marshall's earliest film footage and provides an interesting comparison with the more sophisticated shooting found in his later work.

This film is part of the !Kung Series.

Orthography Note
The group of people depicted in these films are the Ju/'hoansi, speakers of the Ju/'hoan language. Ju/'hoan is part of the !Kung language group; the term !Kung was previously used by the Marshall family and others to refer to Ju/'hoansi. Although the term is outdated, it has been retained here for the sake of consistency with John Marshall's previously published work. The films and their related printed materials also employ antiquated spellings of names and places. For current Ju/'hoan orthography, please see the Ju/'hoan - English Dictionary, compiled by Patrick Dickens and the Ju/'hoan Peoples Literacy Committee.

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Fish Is Our Life

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fish Is Our Life
Buy Now: $295.00

This unusual documentary provides a fascinating profile of an important segment of the Japanese population rarely seen or studied in the West. It focuses on the small businessmen-proprietors who work the 1,100 family-owned businesses at Tsukiji Market, Tokyo's largest wholesale fish market. With its many small wholesalers and its seven large auction houses, Tsukiji is a small city in itself, with its own unique culture, work hours, and traditions. The video captures the vitality and earthy humor of a variety of people who work in the market, and examines how they, like all Japanese, are increasingly affected by the global market economy and by changes in the larger Japanese culture.

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Fishers of Dar

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fishers of Dar
Buy Now: $295.00

Samaki wa Dar es Salaam/Fishers of Dar is an ethnographic film about the fishermen and women of downtown Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It explores the continuity and integrity of traditional fishing practices in new, contemporary settings. Dar es Salaam is a metropolis of 3 million people yet the city's demand for fish is entirely met by equipment, methods and tools that have been used here for hundreds of years.

This film takes the viewer to the central fish market and pier in the city harbor, and to a small fishing community away from the market. It is structured between two sunrises and two sunsets: the story begins before dawn, with small lanteen sailed boats (ngawaalas) and bigger mashua boats (a diesel engine replacing the sail) leaving for fishing grounds close by or further out to sea, and continues with fishing at sea; coming back to unload and sell fish at the market; auctions and retail sales; fast food preparation and sale at the market; home-based work and leisure activities in the fishing community.

Eschewing commentary and voice-over explanation — similar to Forest of Bliss — the film shows the many hands the fish pass through before reaching customers. Hundreds of people make a living in the process. We see fishermen and women, boat builders, boat crews, auctioneers, laborers, vendors and market people of all kinds. Not the least are women who come with buckets, buy and clean small fish and then go back home by bus to sell fried fish in the hundreds of smaller markets of the city.

The film reveals how traditional methods articulate with modern demands. There are problems: a brief text at the end of the film points out that the market was recently demolished to make way for expansion of the harbor. The age old process continues but under difficult new conditions.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Documentary, Athens Ohio Film Festival, 2003

Juror's Choice, Black Maria Film Festival, 2003

Golden Dhow, Director's Choice, Zanzibar Int'l Film Festival, 2002

Best Cinematography, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2002

Northwest Folk Life Film Festival, Seattle, 2003

Rakumi Arts Film Festival, Seattle Museum of Art, 2003

Rhode Island Int'l Film Festival, Providence, 2003

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Fit Surroundings

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fit Surroundings
Buy Now: $295.00

Based on more than a decade of field research, this colorful report on the high-touch craft of shellfish diving, takes us to the coast of the Shima Peninsula in central Japan. Here most of the divers (ama) are women and many of them are older with an average age of 50. By taking you into different settings where the divers operate, the program allows you to sample a social environment in which fierce individual competition underwater is checked and balanced by a spirited colleagueship carefully nurtured among groups of divers as they relax on shore. The program is suitable for use at the secondary school level and above, for courses not only about Japan, but about gender, aging, and sustainable environments, or "fit surroundings." A study guide which includes additional information and suggested readings is available below.

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Floating Market

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Floating Market
Buy Now: $320.00

For many decades, hundreds of Venezuelan men in search of economic opportunity have sailed forty miles across the Caribbean from Venezuela to the island of Curaçao in small wooden boats to sell tropical fruits and vegetables in Curaçao's floating market, leaving behind their families in the coastal fishing villages of Venezuela for months at a time. Continuing a tradition passed down from father to son for generations, they form a Venezuelan community along the quays of downtown Willemstad, capital of Curaçao. They have created a vibrant and enduring market culture in Curaçao that helps support the Venezuelan villages, while providing fresh produce to this arid island. Floating Market follows the stories of several sailors and their families, from the perilous nighttime crossing, through the months the men spend living on their boats and selling produce to locals and tourists, to their joyful homecomings. It gradually delves beneath the bright surface of colorful boats floating in a picturesque tropical setting to explore the subculture of men, isolated on their boats, yet always on display. The men come as itinerant workers to this Dutch island. They are a part of Curaçao, yet set apart by language, customs, and culture. They form a brotherhood in Curaçao that gives them a sense of home and community, while they maintain ties with their families in Venezuela via supply boats that arrive daily to restock the boats with fresh produce, and to bring news, letters, and packages from home. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the men's wives run their households and raise their children alone without the support of their husbands during the eight months of the year that the men are away. Curaçaoans are divided between their love for the market's tradition and tourist appeal and their resentment of its problems - harbor pollution, smuggling, and frequent shipwrecks. Because of stiff competition from the recent proliferation of chain supermarkets, the future of the market itself is uncertain.

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On the Other Side

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

On the Other Side
Buy Now: $320.00

Each summer, Jamaican migrant farm workers flood the sleepy towns of rural Massachusetts, arriving to work the tobacco harvest—the staple crop of the region and the last to rely solely on manual labor. Traveling 3,000 miles, they spend up to eight months out of each year working amongst the vast sea of tobacco plants and suspended high above the rafters of the sheds where the plants are hung to dry.

On the Other Side, the first documentary from B-Line Films, follows this group of Jamaicans through the highs and lows of the tobacco season, where they must make the best of a life far from home and cope with the mundane and often unpredictable nature of farm work. After enduring 80-hour workweeks in the race to harvest the tobacco, their feelings of pride and accomplishment become short lived, as tensions rise when keeping steady work suddenly becomes difficult. Their journey culminates with the bittersweet end of the season, when returning home to their families means leaving behind the surrogate family they have been part of for so long.

Media coverage of migrant workers tends to focus on the sensational—inhumane working conditions, poor housing, or other forms of exploitation. The story we discovered is far more subtle. Told in the workers' own words, On the Other Side rises above the political to focus on the often-overlooked human face of migrant labor. What emerges is an inspirational story of sacrifice and love of family; of hard work and dedication; of bitter isolation and loneliness.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Opening Night Selection, New England Film and Video Festival, 2005

Roving Eye Film Festival, 2006

Society for Visual Anthropology/American Anthropological Association Conference, 2008

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Our Lives In Our Hands

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

Our Lives In Our Hands
Buy Now: $320.00

Our Lives In Our Hands examines the traditional Native American craft of split ash basketmaking as a means of economic and cultural survival for Aroostook Micmac Indians of northern Maine. This documentary of rural off-reservation Indian artisans aims to break down stereotypical images. Basketmakers are filmed at their craft in their homes, at work on local potato farms and at business meetings of the Basket Bank, a cooperative formed by the Aroostook Micmac Council. First person commentaries are augmented by authentic 17th century Micmac music.

"This documentary film, in which our voices are going to be heard and in which we show how we live, how we work, and ways we have chosen to continue the lives of our fore fathers and mothers, will make an important difference. The Aroostook Micmac Council has fully supported this project. The Micmac Indian community is thankful and proud to share our lives with all of you in the hope that this film contributes to a better understanding of who we really are."
-- Chief Donald Sanipass

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The Pearl Fisher

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:58:00 GMT

The Pearl Fisher
Buy Now: $320.00

The freshwater pearl industry once flourished along Indiana's inland waterways. The Wabash, flowing south from Lafayette to join the Ohio at Mt. Vernon, bustled with the shallow boats of such fishermen, with about 600 operating around Vincennes alone.

This film documents Barnett Bass as he fishes for fresh-water mollusks in the White River in southern Indiana, seeking gem-quality pearls and the mother-of-pearl lining of the shells. The film depicts the local jewelers, a pearl dealer, and a shell exporter. The Pearl Fisher explores issues of technological innovation, international trade, and resulting stresses on the environment. It suggests the traditional symbolic meanings of pearls: immortality, purity, virtue, and trust, as well as the role of romanticism in everyday life.

The use of incidental music from Georges Bizet's 1863 opera Les Pechers de Perls enhances the film's most compelling images: the fisherman on the river, a ballet of water spiders, the maneuvering of burdened poles from the quiet water.

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Perico the Bowlmaker

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:57:00 GMT

Perico the Bowlmaker
Buy Now: $320.00

This film considers the changing role of a traditional Andalusian craftsman and the social and personal factors that shape his occupation. Depicted are the techniques of carving and the problems of marketing the wares as well as the off-season tasks at cork harvest.

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