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Following the Thread

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 15:16:10 GMT

Following the Thread
Buy Now: $295.00

Following the Thread provides a critical view of the delicate balance Indigenous communities of fabric makers face as they struggle to maintain age-old artisanal practices in a globalized market economy.

In the Peruvian Andes, textiles are omnipresent in the lives of indigenous people; they are both eminently practical and stunningly beautiful as generations of weavers have applied their creativity to invent techniques and designs found nowhere else in the world. Textiles still form a powerful part of identity. But this identity is at risk. Indigenous people still face racism on a daily basis. And a globalized market economy that produces cheap, machine-made products destroys respect and interest in the hand-made. Infringement on the intellectual rights of native peoples only makes this worse.

The Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) was established by Andean weavers and their supporters to aid in the survival of Cusqueñan textile traditions and to provide support to the indigenous people who create them. This short film presents some of the communities affiliated with the Center and includes special celebrations and ceremonies, rituals with the animals (llamas and sheep), natural dying processes, weaving and knitting demonstrations, and much more.

Selected Screenings & Awards

Best Documentary Short, Berlin International Art Film Festival, 2022

Best Documentary Short, Roma Shorts Film Festival, 2022

Best Documentary Short, Miami Indie Film Awards, 2022

Best Documentary Short, San Diego Art Film Festival, 2022

Best Documentary Short, Santa Barbara Film Awards, 2022

Honorable Mention, Toronto International Women Film Festival, 2021

Semi-finalist, Berlin Shorts Award, Berlin Shorts Festival, 2022

Semi-finalist, Best Documentary Short, Dublin World Film Festival, 2022

International Manhattan Film Awards, 2022

Toronto Indie Shorts, 2022

8 & HalFilm Awards, 2022

Amsterdam Short Film Festival, 2021

Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, 2021

North Dakota Human Rights Film Festival and Summit, 2021

Tokyo Liftoff Festival, 2021

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Fireland Dogs

Fri, 10 May 2019 10:31:52 GMT

Fireland Dogs
Buy Now: $320.00

Fireland Dogs (Perros del Fin del Mundo) addressesArgentina's feral dog population and raises important questions about the humanrole in domestication and neglect of animals. For decades, dog owners have beenabandoning their pets throughout the rural countryside of Tierra del Fuego,where sheep farming sustains much of the local economy. Without proper care andcontrol, the dogs run rampant throughout the island's towns and farms, killinglivestock, causing public health concern, and threatening its ecosystem andwildlife.

The film includes interviews with farmers, veterinarians,and activists who are working to combat the dog's increasingly problematicpresence. Their efforts to curb the situation include public education schemes,responsible adoption and neutering initiatives, and in the most extreme cases,legislating to categorize the dogs as an invasive species which allows them tobe hunted and killed. While some invoke animal ethics and advocate for anon-violent approach, others insist that sheep deserve as much protection andcare as the dogs.

Fireland Dogs expertly broaches attitudes about pets, thehuman footprint, and our inclination to place more value on certain animalsover others. Addressing economic, health, and environmental concerns, the filmultimately concludes that the future of Tierra del Fuego will be at risk untila sustainable, community-led solution is determined.

"Fireland Dogs is a heartbreaking film detailing the economic, ecological and public health devastation caused by these growing dog packs. This film is highly recommended for academic libraries, as well as public library collections for adults."
-Kimberly A. Plassche, Map Librarian, Liaison to Geography, University at Buffalo

SELECTED SCREENINGS AND AWARDS

Earthvision Feature Award, Santa Cruz Film Festival, 2018

Cine Ambiental de la Patagonia, 2018
Puerto Madryn International Film Festival, 2018
National Broadcast, Argentina, 2018

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Forsaken Fragments

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 12:58:00 GMT

Forsaken Fragments
Buy Now: $340.00

This collection of short films and “uncompleted” fragments made by renowned filmmaker Robert Gardner spans his life and career, and reflects his interests, from ethnography to the art world. Though presented as a set, the pieces stand on their own as riveting cinematic experiences, offering insight into Gardner’s personality and curiosity.

Among the works on the DVD are finished pieces broadcast on local television, such as Gardner’s “non-commercials,” focusing on ordinary life and created as a challenge to broadcast audiences. Other works are unfinished fragments, cherished by Gardner for capturing a tone or a moment. Yet other pieces are constructed from footage gathered while working on other films. These include Supplicating Women and Life Keeps On Passing, which were filmed in Benares while making Forest of Bliss, and The Old Lady, which was filmed while working with the Marshall family in Namibia.

The DVD comes packaged with a full-color 28-page booklet and extra features including selectable director's commentary tracks and an audio recording from Gardner's in-person appearance when an earlier incarnation of Forsaken Fragments screened at the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge MA in October, 2010.

“Because of Gardner's wide range of fascinations, the sequence of 'fragments' creates considerable cinematic surprise. Several reveal dimensions of Gardner's filmmaking that even some familiar with his career might not be aware of; others reference Gardner's better-known films or offer additional insight into earlier work. Altogether, this is an engaging compilation that exceeds the implications of its title; each film is less a fragment than a cine-haiku; and if these pieces were 'forsaken' during the busy-ness of Gardner's production career and his years of teaching at Harvard, they are not forsaken now."

– Scott MacDonald, Hamilton University

Includes the following films:

The Old Lady, aka A Human Document (4 min, 1958)
In 1957, Gardner visited the Kalahari with John Marshall to help film The Hunters. This short, observing an elderly !Kung woman, was made by Gardner alone while there.

Tide (6 min, 1966)
In the late 1960’s, Gardner visited the tidal flats of Nova Scotia where he filmed this short piece. The film follows an elderly farmer as he directs his horse and carriage across the beach, eventually stopping to fish a weir.

The Photographer (3 min, 1966/2007)
While traveling in Nova Scotia in 1966, Gardner and still photographer Len Gittleman found an old view camera which proved the inspiration for this short homage to the silent film era.

Salt (3 min, 1966)
While traveling northeastern Ethiopia in 1968, Gardner rode with a caravan of Afar camel herders plying the salt trade between the highlands and the salt flats of the Dallol Depression, which he called a “wondrous environment of unbearable heat and intense color.”

Creatures of Pain (5 min, 1968)
Gardner visited Nigeria in 1968, hoping to make a film about sheepherders. Civil war intervened, and he was only able to film this short piece about the “sharo” ritual in a small village near Kano.

Three Non-commercials: Policeman, Lobsterman, Farmer (4 min, 1973)
In the 1970’s, Gardner was involved in the programming of WCVB, an ABC affiliate TV station in Boston. He took this opportunity to make what he called “non-commercials” – short vignettes of people in their ordinary lives – to be shown between programs.

Anthem (2 min, 1973)
In the days of Gardner’s involvement with Boston Broadcasters, Inc and Channel 5, TV stations stopped transmitting for the night – sometime in the early morning. Traditionally stations “signed off” with a clip of the American flag waving as the national anthem played. Bob asked filmmaker Richard Rogers to make a more interesting variation on this theme. Channel 5 declined to use it.

Healing (9 min, 1978)
This film arose from a trip to Ladakh, India, as Gardner searched for a shaman. There, he encountered this tradition of Buddhist healing, which involved trance and music.

Supplicating Women (3 min, 1985)
While shooting in Benares for Forest of Bliss, Gardner stumbled upon a temple frequently visited by women who suffered from ailments including love sickness and familial problems. This fragment details their pleading for healing.

Life Keeps on Passing (4 min, 1985)
Also filmed while on location for Forest of Bliss, this short was Gardner’s attempt to see and hear what local poets had to say about their surroundings. This beautiful short recounts some of their thoughts.

Hauling Sharks (10 min, 1988)
Upon returning to Ethiopia in 1988, Gardner visited the coastal Danakil. There he filmed communities who had developed an environmentally suitable way of netting sharks far out at sea, which they exported to southern Arabian states.

It Could Be Good, It Could Be Bad (6 min, 1997)
In 1997, Gardner joined his friend Robert Fulton to shoot aerial photography in the Southern Chilean Andes. Microphones were rigged to record their conversations as they flew among these extraordinary formations.

Deus Ex Boltanski (11 min, 2010)
In 2010, Gardner and photographer Michael Hutcherson travelled to Paris to make a film about French artist Christian Boltanski as he installed a piece entitled PERSONNES within the immense confines of the Grand Palais.

Still Journey On (20 min, 2010)
In his last years, Gardner worked at intervals constructing a film intended to weave together threads of thought and meaning that ran through his life and films. He took the title from “Keep Right On Till the End of the Road” a song by the Scottish singer, Harry Lauder – a favorite song of Robert’s father, who would play it on the record player every year as the family left the island in Maine where they spent much of the summer. Still Journey On remains a fragment.

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40 Years of Silence

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 09:18:00 GMT

40 Years of Silence
Buy Now: $320.00

40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy tells the story of one of the largest unknown mass-killings of the 20th century. In 1965-66, an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 people were secretly killed when General Suharto began a bloody purge of suspected communists throughout Indonesia. For decades, the Indonesian government repressed all memory of this event, and the world looked away.

Based on the research of prominent anthropologist Robert Lemelson and edited by two-time Academy Award winner Pietro Scalia, this film follows the compelling testimonies of four individuals and their families from Central Java and Bali, as they break their silence for the first time. Told in understated detail, the cumulative effect of their stories is heartbreaking, profound and ultimately redemptive.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Winner, Best Asian Documentary, Endeavors Documentary Film Festival, Singapore, 2013

Nominee, Best Editing in a Documentary Film, St. Tropez International Film Festival, Nice, France, 2013

Winner, Award of Excellence, Canada International Film Awards, 2013

Winner, Best Foreign Feature, Oregon Film Awards, 2012

Winner, Award of Excellence, International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration & Equality, Indonesia, 2012

Nominee, Most Innovative Production, History Makers Awards, 2011

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From the Inside Out

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 09:18:00 GMT

From the Inside Out
Buy Now: $295.00

In the Navajo language there is neither a word for religion nor art. The only word that could be used to describe both is "hozho" – beauty, balance, order and harmony.

Navajo history is turbulent, and in order to survive the Navajo had to adapt. Baskets are a part of this history, changing throughout time and adapting with the people. They contribute to the balance, harmony, and beauty of Navajo life. Inititally purely functional pieces, baskets gradually became integrated into various ceremonies, elevating them to sacred and symbolic levels.

Oppression, trade, and technology eventually led to dwindling numbers of basket weavers, but beginning in the 1970s Navajo basketry experienced a renaissance led by a group of families in the Douglas Mesa region of the Utah reservation.Secularized basketry is now a thriving part of Navajo trade and traditional baskets continue to be an important part of Navajo ceremonial life.

In intimate detail, From the Inside Out depicts both the new and old roles baskets play in the lives of contemporary basket-weavers.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Durango Film Festival, Colorado, 2005

First Place - Educational Films, Broadcast Education Association Faculty Contest, 2005

Contemporary Native America Screening, Lesley University, MA, 2005

Northeastern Anthropological Association Ethnographic Film & Video Festival, NY, 2005

Heard Museum Film Festival, Arizona, 2005

19th Pärnu International Film Festival, Estonia, 2005

SVA/AAA Conference, Washington DC, 2005

Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, TX, 2006

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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Faces of Change: Afghanistan

Fri, 7 Sep 2018 09:20:00 GMT

Faces of Change: Afghanistan
Buy Now: $495.00

Shot in 1972, these five films present a portrait of Afghan life in the last months before the Russian invasion.The films capture the daily economic and social exchanges in the market town of Aq Kapruk, an area inhabited by Tajik and other Central Asian peoples, 320 miles northwest of Kabul.

Situated along Balkh River, this agricultural community depended primly on wheat farming and a pastoral economy. These films offer a window into an Afghanistan on the cusp of change, and serve as a record of the culture and life ways of its rural people.

"These five films portray different aspects of technology, economic arrangements and social life in the village of Aq Kupruk in northern Afghanistan. The area is hilly, intensely arid, the elevation is about 2000 feet, the population consists mainly of Tajikagriculturalists. There is a substantial bazaar at Aq Kupruk and the valley lies on the migration track of Pushtun pastoral nomads. Clearly the area comprises the three main segments of Afghan society: the bazaar sector, the farmers, and the nomads."
— Asen Balikci, American Anthropologist, 1977

Films in the Afghanistan series

About the Faces of Change Collection

Faces of Change is comprised of 25 films that examine five cultures selected for their distinct geographic locations: starting with the China Coast at sea level and moving up to Taiwan, then to Afghanistan, Kenya and finally to the mountains of Bolivia. Each location is examined through five themes: Rural Society, Education, Rural Economy, Women, and Beliefs.

This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.

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Faces of Change: Bolivia

Fri, 7 Sep 2018 09:20:00 GMT

Faces of Change: Bolivia
Buy Now: $495.00

Faces of Change: Bolivia includes a series of six short films about Andean peasant life. Film in 1973, the Bolivian expedition took an educational film crew into remote Muñecas Province east of Lake Titicaca, some 10 road hours from La Paz. The area is populated by Aymara and Quechua speaking Indians and people of mixed Spanish-Indian descent.At an altitude of over 12,000 feet, people survive on a mixed economy of potato farming, other high altitude vegetables, and small animal husbandry. Conflicts over land ownership, age-old control by rich "mestizos"(still referred to as "conquistadors"), poor health facilities, and a struggling education system makes this prize winning collection invaluable to teachers and those interested in Latin America.

The filmmaker Hubert Smith has returned to the area on two occasions to help build a better school system, which in the 1990s was recognized as a national school of excellence by the Bolivian government.

"The Bolvian Aymara series (comprising six films, rather than five like the others) is one of the most thorough-going documentations of Andean peasant life yet made or available. One can think of a number of topics not overtly dealt with but the knowledgeable observer can quickly find other themes interwoven with the main topic. Each film follows the lives of the peasants of the highland communities of Ayata and Virochocha, Bolivia, in a direct, cinema verité fashion. The AUFS team has achieved a degree of sophistication with the technique that invariably draws the student ever deeper into the culture.

The sound picks up the Aymara dialogue effectively and the English subtitles are very well done, providing a direct and forceful translation which is easily followed. Through the camera eye the viewer can become the ethnographer or indeed, with the sound, the linguist as well. Students can use the films as field study documents and take notes from them as observers."
— Paul Doughty, University of Florida, American Anthropologist, 1977

Films in the Bolivia series

Andean Women
The Children Know
Magic and Catholicism
Potato Planters
The Spirit Possession of AlejandroMamani
Viracocha

About the Faces of Change Collection

This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.

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Faces of Change: China Coast

Fri, 7 Sep 2018 09:20:00 GMT

Faces of Change: China Coast
Buy Now: $495.00

The fishermen and the island farmers of the Soko Islands in the South China Sea typify coastal harbor communities that have existed for centuries along the China coast, controlled by mainland China or for many decades alien governments in Hong Kong and Macau.

The five films portray two independent cultures that rely on each other in complex ways, the boat people providing fish, transport to markets, and the necessities of survival on the island; the island farmers providing food, a school for boat children and labor when needed on boats and harbor facilities. The day-to-day lives of boat people and island people in this maritime culture three hours from Hong Kong are studies in mutual support, although historically discriminatory between a mainland farm family and boat people, who are seen as second class citizens who floated beyond "civilization."

After the filming in 1973, the entire population, farmers and boat people, were moved by government decree. The farmers were settled in nearby Lantau Island, the fishermen allowed to find harbors where they could. The initial government action was to accommodate refugee boat people from the Vietnam war era, the second to find harbors in Hong Kong's Aberdeen or nearby Cheng Chau where some had relatives and part-time work could be found ashore.

"These films are all set primarily in the Soko Islands, under British rule in Hong Kong territorial waters. They provide an interesting and valuable ethnographic picture of the lives of Chinese islanders and fishermen. Somewhat greater emphasis is given throughout to the fishing families, whose lives are spent almost entirely on their boats, broken only by brief visits to shore to fetch fresh water from a well or buy supplies in a market town.All are visually excellent, providing fascinating studies of details of daily life. In three of the five films narration is kept at a minimum, with direct simultaneous translation of interviews used effectively to provide verbal information, along with occasional translation of small talk and conversation among the Chinese as they go about their work." — Judith Strauch, American Anthropologist, 1977

Films in the China Coast series

China Coast Fishing
Hoy Fok and the Island School
The Island Fishpond
Island in the China Sea
Three Island Women

About the Faces of Change Collection

This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.

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Faces of Change: Kenya

Fri, 7 Sep 2018 09:20:00 GMT

Faces of Change: Kenya
Buy Now: $495.00

The Boran are desert pastoralists in Kenya and Ethiopia who traditionally followed the rains in search for grass and water. Since the 1960s many Boran have elected to settle in a few market towns, such as Marsabit, the district capital in northern Kenya. Those who settle are in contrast to those who pursue the traditional lifestyle, particularly in terms of work, education, and social interaction with the outside world. Since 2015, the region has been on the western fringe of the on-going conflict between Kenya and the Al Shaba movement in Somalia. The films provide a backdrop to the harsh realities of this region of Kenya and the lifestyles of the residents.

"The core of this series is Kenya Boran 1 and 2, each designed to stand alone, but which together complement one another in a most useful and informative fashion. Their common subject matter is the development problems posed for rural Boran herdsmen and their families by the encroachment upon their once-isolated grazing lands of a growing town (Marsabit) and a major road (the new Nairobi-Addis Ababa Highway). These are shown in Kenya Boran 1, as two fathers and their sons discuss difficult choices between old and new ways of responding to the complexity of changes occurring around them, each emphasizing different aspects of the problem and different strategies for confronting them which, in turn, promote view speculation as to the appropriateness and the outcome of their divergent ways of dealing with change.Kenya Boran 2 expands upon these themes by focusing on the life of Peter Boru, a 16 year old former herdsboy who has gone to the government boarding school in the town; his expression of his hopes, fears and aspirations is adroitly contrasted both with those of his unschooled neighbors in the rural cattle camps and with the bleak employment opportunities facing him in the modern sector, in the course of which some of the difficulties of existing national educational practices in promoting development are isolated and explored.The hallmark of both films is their earnest commitment to permitting the Boran to define the issues that confront them in their own vernacular terms, expertly subtitled without the imposition of directed interpretative commentary… The overall result is a series of remarkably intimate and realistic scenes, attractively films with an absence of conspicuous staging or obvious show-biz; indeed, they move with a natural rhythm and pace that engenders an authentic sense of the problems, and of the sorts of ideas and feelings that individual Boran bring to bear in deciding on appropriate response to change.The prevailing tone of both films is their seriousness and deliberate instructional intent to provoke analytic responses from viewers. Their principal value lies in presenting the evidence in such a fashion as to force viewers to arrive at their own conslusions about the course of action that seems most appropriate based on the film/essay evidence." — Alan Jacobs, Western Michigan University, American Anthropologist, 1977

Films in the Kenya series

Boran Herdsmen

Boran Women
Harambee: Pull Together
Kenya Boran

About the Faces of Change Collection

This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.

Visit F to see additional products in this category.

Faces of Change: Taiwan

Fri, 7 Sep 2018 09:20:00 GMT

Faces of Change: Taiwan
Buy Now: $340.00

Shot in 1973, these five films present a portrait of life in Taiwan by following the daily economic and social exchanges in Tsao Tun (also known as Tsaotun, or Caotun) Township, an area inhabited by farmers, in Nantou County 130 miles southwest of Taipei. This agricultural community depend primarily on wet rice and other mixed vegetable farming. Pigs and poultry, too, are important farm products. These films offer a window into Taiwan during a time of economic and social change, and serve as a record of the culture and life ways of its rural people as they stand on the cusp of tradition and modernization.

Films in the Taiwan series

A Chinese Farm Wife
People are Many, Fields are Small
The Rural Cooperative
They Call Him "Ah Kung"
Wet Culture Rice

About the Faces of Change Collection

This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.

Visit F to see additional products in this category.