Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Asia / India / All Films

Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:35:56 GMT

Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold
Buy Now: $320.00

Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold: Transformation is the first in a series of experimental ethnographic films that draw from Richard K. Wolf’s research with the Kota people of South India over the past 35 years. The series title alludes to the dual orientation in Kota ritual and everyday life toward death and divinity: dried millet plays a central role in multi-day secondary mortuary ceremonies, while gold-colored offerings are pasted in the shape of a face on the ancient pillars of Kota temples. As an indigenous community with a population of fewer than 2,500, the Kotas have, in their own telling, weathered periods of enormous loss—death through disease, the trauma of forced migration, and disruptions in transmission of traditional knowledge. The Kotas recognize their own long, fragile history. Indeed, the roots of the Kota language predate the separation of the Tamil and Malayalam languages more than 2,000 years ago. Today, as modern Indians, the Kotas are largely a village-based, peasant society, though their members also include professionals and workers in major Indian cities.

This first film is presented as a time capsule, addressed to Kota people 100 years in the future and narrated in Kota by Wolf’s Kota collaborator Duryodana, whose narration connects the on-screen action to both himself and to Wolf. The Kotas have long been known in the ethnographic record for their roles as craftspeople and musicians serving other communities in the Nilgiri Hills. Wolf’s research, however, has focused on the more elaborate artistic and ritual activity by and for members of the Kota community themselves.

The film thematizes music and the transformation of materials, bodies, and spiritual entities, moving from making pottery and musical instruments to their use in multiday mortuary ceremonies. Incorporating Wolf’s own footage in multiple formats transferred to film, as well as anthropologist David G. Mandelbaum’s archival movie footage and cylinder recordings from 1938, the film provides striking impressions of village life over time, viewed from the perspectives of researchers and the Kotas themselves.

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Sama in the Forest

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:42:00 GMT

Sama in the Forest
Buy Now: $320.00

In a creative collaboration with local community members in Madhubani, India, this hybrid documentary highlights the tale of Sama, a young princess who wanders into the forest and befriends a young man, only to be slandered by a muckraking confidante of the king, and subsequently cursed and banished by her father, Lord Krisna.

The film combines footage of women telling different versions of the tale, the making of elaborate narrative paintings, a dramatization of the story, a yearly festival that celebrates Sama, and in-depth conversations about the morals and meanings of this and other traditional tales. The girls and women at the heart of the film are students and teachers at the Mithila Art Institute, a small school for young aspiring artists. Additional participants — community members of different genders, castes, and generations — help paint a complex picture of the social tensions evident in Mithila today.

The festival of Sama Chakeva is both unique to the Mithila region, and special in several of its qualities – notably, in its multi-caste, non-priestly, female-centric, playful and even bawdy nature. This festival is celebrated by groups of women and girls, who join together to enter the mythical world of Sama in song and ritual. They bond in teasing and torturing the muckraking character, to ensure the devotion of their brothers for years to come, and arguably to shine a critical light on some of the patriarchal aspects of their own culture.

The painters of the three paintings included in the film are all trained in the Mithila Art tradition that derives originally from a domestic, ceremonial form of expression and for which the region is renowned. Finally, another key element of the film, intricately interwoven with the others, is an enactment of the Sama story by the very same people who are also interviewed in the film. The workshopping in preparation for the enactment provided an opportunity for collaborative meaning making and personal reflection on the significance of the story in their lives today. And the filmed enactment itself enables the filmmakers to deliver these meanings to a wider audience.

Selected Screenings & Awards

Best Feature, Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, Canada, 2023

51st Annual Conference on South Asia, Ethnographic and Documentary Film Screenings, USA, 2023

South Asian Studies Speakers Series, Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2023

Contemporary Arts of Mithila Radford University Int'l Symposium, USA 2023

Signs Film and Video Festival, India, 2023

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Threads

Tue, 8 Mar 2022 15:35:22 GMT

Threads
Buy Now: $320.00

Threads explores the relationship between traditional weavers and fashion designers in India.

After decades of decline in a demand for legacy fabrics, collaborative relationships between designers and artisans (communicated and negotiated between social economic classes from different social positions) have led to fashion designers now recognizing the autonomy of artisan designers and the need to work with them. A highly regarded Indian designer reflects by saying, “artists [weavers] will not stop for my work, the craft is their lifestyle, if I change their lifestyle, it reflects in their work. Now I work according to them instead of according to me.”

In contemporary India, fashion houses strive for engagement with their weavers which is mutually beneficial for more than financial reasons, “we are going to create together, it’s what India wants.”

"Threads is a beautifully composed and thoughtful meditation on the stakes of collaboration among those from different social and professional backgrounds. The film suggests that designers can work sustainably and contribute to development by engaging with artisans' technical knowledge and social and aesthetic preferences." – Matthew Raj Webb, New York University, Anthropology of Work Review

"Through the visually stunning threads of India, Katherine Sender and Shuchi Kothari shed the light on the need of both past and present to create a solid textile industry for the future. By showing us how India is redefining its crafts and how crafts have revolutionized design, they provide possible solutions for makers losing their jobs, and for designers looking for inspiration.

If anything, Threads tells us that traditional textile makers must welcome the future, and contemporary designers must embrace the past, for both to preserve their livelihoods and lifestyles. In the process, thousands of families survive and we get to keep our roots in the face of faceless screens and social alienation." – Yasmine Dabbous, Kinship Stories/Espace Fann

Selected Screenings & Awards
Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia, 2022

Jaipur International Film Festival, India, 2022

New Delhi International Film Festival, India, 2022

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Pleasing God Series

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

Pleasing God Series
Buy Now: $755.00

The Pleasing God film series is comprised of three documentaries about how Hindus worship - Loving Krishna, about the worship of Krishna and the meaning of devotion; Sons of Shiva, a sustained attempt to film a four-day ceremony concerned with the worship of the God Shiva; and Serpent Mother, about devotion to the Goddess of Snakes and the importance of divine female power in West Bengal Indian life.

These films are studies of the devotional practices associated with three major deities of the Hindu pantheon. They were made in the small, historic town of Vishnupur, West Bengal - a town of temples, crafts and markets, the center of an old kingdom, and a place where daily life and worship are closely intertwined.

Films in the Pleasing God Series:

Loving Krishna

Sons of Shiva

Serpent Mother

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Close Encounters of No Kind

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Close Encounters of No Kind
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Close Encounters of No Kind follows the Rabari, camel and sheep herders of Saurastra, India. Their nomadic lifestyle requires them to move herds of sheep and camels across the Saurastrian landscape to seek grazing and water. This practice has been going on for hundreds of years and during that time the Rabari have developed close working relationships with many groups and deeply adverse relations with other groups.

Traveling with the Rabari through the region of Jhalavad for a period of two months as they drift eastwards on their out migration, the film consists of a series of conversations with different caste groups about the Rabari way of life and their relations with the Rabari. It is a culture of tension and distrust; all of the interdependent caste groups are wary of the Rabari and of each other. While there are no actual encounters between the groups in the film, they accuse each other of inappropriate conduct and irresponsible character in their conversations with the filmmaker. He is not spared either; they accuse him of profiteering from this filmic exploration.

This film is then a traverse of two landscapes: the physical arid region of Jhalavad and the internal and imagined world of Rabari intercaste relations with Hindu and Muslims castes who are their partners in life. The film addresses issues related to social relations, pastoralism, ecology and land resource management. It would be useful for ethnographic and documentary film classes where the approach for conversational engagement as a tool for understanding social dynamics is prioritized and where new presentation of subtitling to differentiate different voices in group conversations is presented.

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Coding Culture

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Coding Culture
Buy Now: $320.00

The Indian software outsourcing industry has emerged as a key node of the global economy. The series of ethnographic films, Coding Culture, explores the cultures of outsourced work and the moulding of a new workforce to cater to this global high-tech services industry.

Each of the three films focuses on a single company, representing one of the major types of software company found in Bangalore: a medium-sized Indian-owned company software services company (Mphasis: The 'M' Way); the offshore software development centre of a U.S.-based IT company (Sun Microsystems: Fun@Sun); and a small 'cross-border' startup company that produces its own software products and markets them to global customers (July Systems: July Boys). All three companies are engaged in the production of software products or services for markets outside of India, but the nature of their work and their position in the global economy differ, producing significant variations in their cultures of work.

Each film revolves around a distinct theme that is central to the outsourcing industry as a whole, but that also has wider sociological significance: the systems of time and people management that are typical of these new global workplaces; the functioning of multicultural 'virtual teams' and the absorption of Indian software engineers into a global corporate culture; and the new identities that are emerging in this highly transnational sector of the Indian economy.

Fun@Sun: Making of a Global Workplace (29 min)

An inside look at work and work culture in the software development centre of a large American multinational company, Sun Microsystems, located in Bangalore (Indian Engineering Centre, or IEC). The film highlights the multiple ways in which 'culture' operates as a management tool in the new global economy. In offshore centres such as IEC, work is organised through 'virtual teams' comprised of software engineers and managers located in Bangalore and Santa Clara, U.S.A. To integrate their employees and sites across cultural and geographical space, Sun attempts to initiate the Indian software engineers into Sun's corporate culture. The film depicts the techniques through which this American-style work culture is transplanted into the Indian subsidiary, such as induction programmes and 'soft skills' training programmes. The film also points to the contradictory ways in which 'culture' is invoked in the global corporate workplace: while cultural sensitivity training programmes validate cultural difference, Indian software engineers are expected to conform to the dominant model of global corporate culture by learning appropriate communication and behaviourial styles.

The 'M' Way: Time + People = Money (30 min)

The 'M' Way was shot inside MphasiS-BFL Limited, a medium-sized Indian IT services company that typifies this highly competitive business, in which the provision of high quality and low-cost service is key to attracting and retaining customers. The film focuses on two teams - a software development team and a quality control (testing) team - that work on a project for a U.S.-based customer. The candid footage and interviews convey the high-pressure work atmosphere that prevails in this industry, especially due to the need for tight control over the work process and for coordination of activities within and between teams and with the customer site. Two main themes are foregrounded in the film: the complex systems of time and quality control through which software projects are managed, and the techniques of people ('resource') management that are employed - especially how software engineers are motivated to identify with the company's goals and to work longer hours.

July Boys: New Global Players (26 min)

July Boys focuses on a small 'startup' company in Bangalore that designs and produces software products for cellular service providers in Europe and the U.S. Turning the tables on the usual outsourcing story, July Systems has leveraged U.S.-based venture capital and Indian technical expertise to break into the latest high-tech markets. The film explores the creation of a Silicon Valley-style work culture within this 'cross-border' company that has one leg in Bangalore and the other in Santa Clara, California. It also highlights the emergence of new kinds of identities (global, transnational, cosmopolitan) that incorporate and transcend pre-existing identities such as the national and the regional. But the narratives of the film's characters reveal a tension between their assumed global subjectivity and their nationalist pride in July's achievements as a company founded and run by Indians that makes 'cutting edge products' for the global market.

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A Darker Side of Fair

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

A Darker Side of Fair
Buy Now: $295.00

Shedding new light upon issues of global diversity, this documentary focuses on the extent to which a "fairness fetish" has permeated various levels of Indian society. Today in India fairness is a benchmark for beauty; marriages are decided on the basis of skin color; and fair means "lucky" whereas dark means "ugly." Fair skin as an ideal exists in all facets of Indian life: fashion, marriage, advertising etc.

Although historically women have been burdened with the need to conform to the societal perception of the "light-skinned beauty," increasingly today even young Indian men feel the need to opt for products and processes to enhance their skin tone. While the origins of the fair-skinned ideal can be traced back to the ancient Indian epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, today Western influences and media pressure have resulted in a growing market for fairness products and skin lightening treatments.

Fairness is a serious business in India, one with intensely psychological ramifications. With a focus on the emotional and psychological impact, this film addresses the historical and contemporary factors that contribute to the pressures thrust upon Indian women by a society obsessed with fair skin.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Memphis International Film Festival, 2004
Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, 2005
Northeastern Anthropological Association Ethnographic Film & Video Festival, Lake Placid, NY, 2005
Heard Museum Film Festival, Arizona, 2005
American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington DC, 2005
10th Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnografico, Brazil, 2005

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Forest of Bliss

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Forest of Bliss
Buy Now: $340.00

Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares, India's most holy city. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next without commentary, subtitles or dialogue. It is an attempt to give the viewer a wholly authentic, though greatly magnified and concentrated, sense of participation in the experiences examined by the film.

This Special Edition DVD includes:

The film optimally re-mastered for sound and image from a new 35mm blow up
Looking at Forest of Bliss (90 min) with Robert Gardner and Stan Brakhage, edited by Kristi Barlow
Photo gallery featuring still images and journal entries read by Robert Gardner

"In late 1984 and early 1985 I was back in Benares making Forest of Bliss, a film about which I had pondered at length since my first unsettling visit ten years earlier. I have shaped the film so that it occupies the time between two sunrises. It stands as an exclusively visual statement resorting neither to voiced commentary nor subtitles. It is about people being and also dying.

Of the multitude at work, at play and at prayer, three individuals are seen in somewhat greater detail than others. They are: a Healer of extraordinary geniality who attends pained and troubled people both in his modest home above Manikarnika, the main cremation ground, and the Durga temple late at night; the baleful and untouchable king of the cremation grounds, who vigorously exercises his hereditary rights to sell sacred fire and grass to mourners; and an unusually conscientious priest who performs sacred rites at a small shrine he maintains near the Ganges.

Seeing Forest of Bliss completed, I am quite certain that the animals, especially the dogs, have an importance I merely glimpsed as I was shooting. The dogs and, of course, the river." – Robert Gardner

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Hello Photo

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:27:00 GMT

Hello Photo
Buy Now: $320.00

In her startling, exquisitely shot Hello Photo, documentarist Nina Davenport turns the conventions of the travelogue inside out. She takes us to India and abandons us there, leaving us to believe what we see through her eyes. Her movie replicates the experience of being a traveller and thus a voyeur, of taking in sights without necessarily understanding their meaning.

Davenport seems less interested in cracking the enigma of India than in savoring it …Her hunger makes her unashamed, like the eager children who find the eye of her camera the next best thing to sweets.

"Hello Photo takes its title from their greetings, and its method from her persistent visibility. It's a film about seeing and being seen. It's about making a spectacle of yourself — as a Western woman armed with a movie camera — and being part of a spectacle; in the theater of the street, under a circus tent, on a movie set.

Davenport uses images of Bombay filmmakers at work and the comments of two film stars who philosophize about the nature of fame, to frame her own enterprise, and to comment on it both directly and ironically. In a country intoxicated with cinema, Davenport is just one more moviemaker. Yet she's undeniably an outsider, subject to the scrutiny that brings her. And what she's after is something quite different from her Indian counterparts; popular Indian cinema is spangled, artificial, and gleefully dramatic, a true manifestation of myth.

In contrast, Davenport's vision is poetic and free form, attuned to the beauty and strangeness of real life. Instead of being staged, her drama is found in the details of a broken stone wall and a sky full of bats that are really kites. More than just found, it is aggressively pursued - seized in the faces of people carried on a wave of madness or religious ecstasy, in the look of a blind boy whose expression is as remote and mysterious as the moon."

(notes by Linda Dubler, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

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Gone To Pat

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:26:00 GMT

Gone To Pat
Buy Now: $295.00

The Patuas, or “Chitrakers,” are a nomadic people who live in the small village of Noya, Midnapore, in India. Though originally Muslim, they now consider themselves neither Muslim or Hindu. Instead, they are more clearly defined by their art.

They practice a form of painting called “pat” - richly colored storyboards on scrolls that reflect the ancient myths of their Indian culture. This art form is transmitted from generation to generation - the subjects and styles of the paintings simply changing over the years, encompassing what is culturally appealing at the time. Myths are now being replaced by news stories and social subjects, such as domestic abuse and environmental issues.

While keeping religious and folk myths alive, the pats have taken on a new purpose: to raise social awareness. They perform the musical narratives that accompany the pats for small neighborhood audiences or city folk. These performances and their sales of paintings to tourists allows them to earn a meager living and carry on their work.

Gone To Pat shows in detail the Patuas praciticing their art: mixing the paint colors, drawing outlines of the images, and filling the images with “vibrant, bold colors” that are made from only natural materials. As beautiful and colorful as the art it depicts, this film transports the viewer to a picturesque, idyllic region of India, which has an almost mythological quality in itself.

Of interest to Asian Studies, the Anthropology of Art, Cultural Change, Anthropology of Religion, Psychology.

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