Documentary Educational Resources - Indigenous Studies / Government & Politics / All Films

Ophir

Fri, 6 May 2022 14:37:33 GMT

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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The Disappearing of Tuvalu

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

The Disappearing of Tuvalu
Buy Now: $320.00

A detailed overview of contemporary life in the tiny South Pacific country of Tuvalu, this film documents the earth's first sovereign nation faced with total destruction due to the effects of global warming.

With a population of about 11,000 living on a total landmass of only 20 square miles – less than Manhattan – spread over nine low-lying atolls 600 miles to the north of Fiji, Tuvalu has been inhabited for over four millenia. The warm-spirited and highly community-oriented people of this ex-British colony struggle to survive economically while confronting the likelihood of having to evacuate their homeland en masse within the next 50 years.

As the industrial world just begins to address the threat and causes of global warming, rising seas and increasingly violent changes in climate have already left their marks on this poor island nation. The government of Tuvalu and other concerned organizations are directing their pleas for solutions to the wealthy countries whose high pollution emissions could be the central human contribution to this phenomenon.

Observation, narration, and interviews with Tuvalu citizens from various walks of life flesh out a full portrait of a unique community confronting a dubious future on the front lines of a global environmental assault.

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Diary of a Maasai Village, Part 4

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Diary of a Maasai Village, Part 4
Buy Now: $320.00

Two Journeys is the fourth episode in the Diary of a Maasai Village series. This episode contrasts the journey of Miisia's new wife back to his village with that of Tipaia's to sell cattle for Rerenko's legal fees.

About the Diary of a Maasai Villageseries

Thisseries of five films by Melissa Llewelyn-Davies looks at daily life among theMaasai. The films are presented as a diary of a 7-week visit to a singlevillage. The structure is episodic and the content dependent on various eventsor stories, some of which are developed through more than one film. The tapescan be used independently or together, to give an in-depth sense of Maasailife. The series includes the following five films:

Part 1: The Prophet's Village

Part 2: Two Ways Of Justice

Part 3: Two Mothers

Part 4: Two Journeys

Part 5: Nine Cows And An Ox

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Free-For-All In Sararé

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Free-For-All In Sararé
Buy Now: $295.00

More than six thousand gold and mineral prospectors have invaded the Nambiquara reserve of Sararé, Brazil, while loggers raid the area's mahogany rich forests. Only pressure from the World Bank, with whom the government of Mato Grosso is negotiating a loan, promises to bring an end to the gross environmental degradation. The government gives the prospectors 60 days to leave the area; the situation becomes increasingly tense as the state police are brought in to evacuate. Poor and desperate for a livelihood, the prospectors don't believe in the Indians' right to have a reservation, asking, "What are they going to do with all that land?"

Films in the Conflicts in the Amazon series

Free-For-All In Sararé

It's Now or Never!

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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Himalayan Herders

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:27:00 GMT

Himalayan Herders
Buy Now: $320.00

Himalayan Herders is an intimate portrait of a temple-village in the Yolmo valley of Central Nepal where Tibetan Buddhists consult shamans, married life begins by kidnapping the bride, and the nearest road is a two-day walk away. The community drama of marriage, death, and rituals is juxtaposed with the rich texture of daily life, both in the village and the surrounding mountains and forest where these pastoralists herd zomo, a cross between a cow and a yak, which thrives in middle altitude pastures between 8,000 and 14,000 feet. Cultural change, in the form of a government primary school, incorporation into a national park, and circular migration for wage labor outside Nepal, is discussed by residents in interviews.

A twenty-five-year-long collaboration between an ethnographer and a documentary filmmaker, the film provides rich material for examining gender, cultural change, religion, pastoralism, South Asia, and the cultural ecology and economics of mountain populations. An ethnography, Himalayan Herders, published by Harcourt Brace in fall 1997 as part of the Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology Series, provides a companion volume to the film.

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Gogodala

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:26:00 GMT

Gogodala
Buy Now: $320.00

This film examines the implications of the Australian colonial era for the Gogodala people of the Fly River Delta, Western Papua New Guinea. Excessive missionary zeal, tolerated and encouraged by the government, contributed to the almost total destruction of Gogodala art and culture. More recently, an indirect grant from the Australian government has enabled the people to reconstruct a traditional longhouse, along with a new meaning and function: as a cultural center.

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A Kalahari Family, Part II

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

A Kalahari Family, Part II
Buy Now: $340.00

It is 1978, and in End of the Road, John Marshall is reunited with Toma's family. Like a majority of Ju/'hoansi, they have settled at Tjum!kui, an administrative post run by the South African government. They came looking for water, jobs and an easier life, but found poverty, malnutrition and violence. Desperate for a more stable existence, the family heads back to their traditional water hole, /Aotcha, with shovels, cattle, and plans to start farming.

About A Kalahari Family

A Kalahari Family is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Ju/'hoansi of southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. These once independent hunter-gatherers experience dispossession, confinement to a homeland, and the chaos of war. Then as hope for Namibian independence and the end of apartheid grows, Ju/'hoansi fight to establish farming communities and reclaim their traditional lands. Through depiction of their efforts of the Ju/hoansi to participate as farmers in the contemporary economy and advocate for their rights to do so, the series challenges stereotypes of primitive and unchanging "bushmen."

The five films in the series are:

Part One: A Far Country
Part Two: End Of the Road
Part Three: Real Water
Part Four: Standing Tall
Part Five: Death By Myth

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Environmental TV Series, FICA - International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil, 2003

Special Prize: Homage to the Films of John Marshall; Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 2003

Grand Jury Award, Best in World Cinema, DC Independent Film Festival, Washington DC, 2003

Basil Wright Film Prize, RAI 8th Ethnographic Film Festival, England, 2003

Jury Award, Athens Film Festival, 2003

Environmental Anthropology Prize, CineEco Festival, Portugal, 2003

Best Film, Jury Award, XII International Festival of Ethnographical Films, Nuoro, Italy, 2004

Visit the A Kalahari Family Microsite for more detailed information.

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The Last Yoik in Saami Forests?

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:41:00 GMT

The Last Yoik in Saami Forests?
Buy Now: $320.00

Made for the United Nations, this documentary chronicles the logging damage that has taken place in the forests of Finnish Lapland over the past 50 years. Home to the indigenous Saami peoples, these Northern old growth forests are essential to Saami reindeer herding, a traditional way of life that the Saami hope to continue into future generations. Population growth in Finland has created economic pressure - prompting migration to the Saami lands in the North. The resulting forest cutting severely depletes the lichen necessary for free reindeer grazing, and logging infrastructure disrupts the entire forest ecosystem. A tense conflict emerges between the alliance of Greenpeace and Saami activists, who in 2005 set up a "Forest Rescue Station" in the woods to stop the cutting, and logging workers, worried about losing their jobs, who create their own "anti-terror camp" in response. The situation becomes dramatic as those in the "anti-terror" camp continually assault the Greenpeace workers with noise and threatening behavior. Last Yoik in Saami Forests? implicates the state-owned logging company Metsahallitus in the exploitation of Saami resources, and shows that the Finnish government has done little to preserve this natural resource. The film explores possible economic alternatives to logging, such as tourism, as well as more efficient uses for Lappish timber than paper pulp, fuel or railways stocks - the wood is an excellent building material that could be commanding a higher price. The issue of indigenous land rights is the heart of the problem, and as of the completion of this film in 2007, it remains unresolved.

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Magical Death

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Magical Death
Buy Now: $320.00

The shaman plays a vital role in Yanomamö society, for it is he who calls, commands, and often is possessed by spirits, or hekura. "Like myriad glowing butterflies dancing in the sky," the hekura come down invisible trails from the mountain tops when they are summoned. A powerful shaman such as Dedeheiwä, who is known even in distant villages, manipulates not only the spirits of the mountains but also those that live within his own body. The body is a vehicle for the hekura: lured by beautiful body paint, they enter the feet and eventually settle in the chest.

In 1970, Dedeheiwä's village Mishimishi-mabowei-teri was visited by leaders of the village Bisaasi-teri. After twenty years of hostilities, the visitors wished to establish an alliance with Mishimishi-mabowei-teri, and they came to invite their former enemies to a feast. One of the visitors stayed behind when the others had left, and Dedeheiwä asked him: "Brother-in-law, do you have any enemies you want us to kill with our hekura?" The visitor replied that indeed the Mahekdodo-teri had killed his older brother, and he asked Dedeheiwä to send hekura to destroy the souls of this enemy's children.

For two days following this request, a shamanic drama is enacted, led by Dedeheiwä. Dedeheiwä and other shamans prepare by taking hallucinogenic drugs which enable them to speak to and become the spirits. Dedeheiwä calls a "hot and meat-hungry" hekura to devour the children's souls with fire. Then the shamans become their victims, as they writhe like dying children in a pile of ashes. Becoming hekura spirits again, they devour the ashes representing the dead children. The first day's drama ends when Dedeheiwä himself falls unconscious, attacked by a magical hook sent from another enemy. The second day, the elaborate drama resumes, as Dedeheiwä becomes a young man from the enemy village who dodges the shamans' attacks but eventually is destroyed.

Three weeks later, men from Dedeheiwä's village visited their new allies and participated with them in a raid on another village. The new alliance, strengthened by the shamans and their spirit manipulation, was reaffirmed, momentarily, by this act of war.

The film is an exceptionally vivid portrayal of shamanic activity, as well as an exploration of the close connection between politics and shamanism in Yanomamö culture.

Magical Death was restored by DER with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival

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 *†

A Man Called Bee: Studying the Yanomamö †

Moonblood: A Yanomamö Creation Myth †

Myth of Naro, as told by Dedeheiwä

Myth of Naro, as told by Kaobawä

New Tribes Mission

Ocamo is My Town

Tapir Distribution *

Tug-of-War, Yanomamö *

Weeding the Garden *†

Yanomamö: A Multidisciplinary Study

Yanomamö of the Orinoco

* included on the Yanomamö Shorts compilation
† included in the Yanomamö Films: Remastered, Vol. 1 set

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Nuhoniyeh

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

Nuhoniyeh
Buy Now: $320.00

This powerful film, produced from a Native perspective, has won many awards in recognition of its exploration of the history and current circumstances of the Sayisi Dene, a people of the ecological and cultural borderlands between tundra and forest in Canada.

While specific to the Sayisi Dene, the film provides an excellent introduction to complex issues of politics, land rights, cultural ecology and processes of cultural destruction and rebirth that are of widespread concern in the circumpolar Arctic.

It is a well-integrated film using historical photographs, archival material and contemporary film records that, together with the strong testimony of the Sayisi Dene people themselves, combine to provide a positive statement of human potential."

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Society for Visual Anthropology, commendation 1993

Honorable Mention, Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Video Festival, 1993

Silver Apple Award, National Educational Film & Video Festival, 1994

34th Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy, 1993

Best of Category: Native Peoples Perspectives, International Wildlife Festival, 1993

Gottingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, (IWF),Germany, 1994

Yorkton Film Festival, Canada, 1994

Gemini Award: The Canada Award 1996

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