Documentary Educational Resources - Indigenous Studies / Land & Water / All Films

Riada

Sun, 1 Dec 2024 16:48:23 GMT

In 2018, Colombia's second most powerful waterway was stopped because of a controversial infrastructure project: the Hidroituango dam. Once completed, this massive hydropower project is projected to provide for 20% of the country’s energy needs. Yet, the social and environmental impacts are perhaps equivalent in scale to the dam’s colossal size. Already the area's inhabitants have suffered forced displacement, massacres, and systematic persecution, along with a permanent alteration in their ways of living.

Riada is an ethnographic inquiry into the impacts of this infrastructure project. The film’s poetic construction brings to life the river and the communities who have waged a thirty year battle to preserve their way of life. The film takes viewers through the river waterways in the Hidroituango dam's influence area to meet peasants, gold panners, fishermen, and scientists. Finished on the verge of the dam's inauguration date, this 100-minute journey poetically connects the survivor's raw oral stories and the harrowing landscape in three acts: swirls, debris, and mutations.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

25th Bogota Int'l Documentary Showcase (MIDBO), Colombia 2024

19th Galician Ethnographic Film Showcase (MICE), Spain 2024

Latin American Anthropology Film Festival (ALA), Argentina 2024

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Mundo

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 08:50:58 GMT

Mundo
Buy Now: $295.00

Every day, the elderly Matilde and her dog Lucas tend her herd of sheep and alpacas. Matilde spins wool by hand, and skins an alpaca that was attacked by a fox. Her daily life is steeped in the gospel; the Bible is her faithful companion.

The Aymara community, to which Matilde belongs, has long lived in the mountains and high plains along what are now the borders of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina. After the Spanish evangelization campaigns, a second wave of conversions has reached this community in the last few decades. Now Matilde trusts more in Heaven than in Earth.

In the prologue we hear that, according to their adopted belief, Earth is Satan’s domain. The once revered natural world has been demoted in status—it is now regarded as an unpredictable and threatening place. One outcome of this worldview is that Matilde is convinced that the fox that attacked her alpaca was sent by the devil. All the while, this elderly woman is surrounded by magnificent natural scenes: the majestic mountains stand like silent witnesses to a connection that is changing.

The film is a short yet effective look into one woman's crisis of faith. However, the MVP of the film's runtime is the breathtaking views of the mountains, rivers, and other landscapes found throughout the land the Aymara occupy. It's simple, yet riveting. – Video Librarian

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Best of Fests, IDFA, Netherlands, 2020
Best Short Documentary, FESAALP, Argentina, 2020

Tampere Film Festival, Finland, 2021
LASA2020 Film Festival, USA, 2021
Trento Film Festival, Italy, 2021
Festival de cine en Lenguas Originarias, Peru, 2020

Festival de Biarritz Amérique Latine, France, 2020
Athens Ethnographic Film Fest, Greece, 2020
Festival Cine+Video Indígena, Chile, 2020

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Voices of the Rainforest

Wed, 29 May 2019 10:52:27 GMT

Voices of the Rainforest
Buy Now: $340.00

Voices of the Rainforest: A Day in the Life of Bosavi is a 70-minute cinema concert–an experiential documentary about the ecological and aesthetic coevolution of Papua New Guinea's Bosavi rainforest region and its inhabitants. Through sound and image, the film immerses viewers in the rainforest, and makes audible myriad connections between the everyday sounds of the rainforest biosphere and the creative practices of singing to, with, and about it by the Bosavi people. Structured around a day in the life of the rainforest and the music it inspires for the Bosavi people, the film brings to life the everyday activities of work, leisure, and ritual–heard in the full ambient setting of the rainforest–throughout the day and night.

Voices of the Rainforest was produced by Steven Feld and Dennis Leonard and Directed by Steven Feld and Jeremiah Ra Richards in collaboration with the Bona community of Bosavi, Papua New Guinea. Feld conducted anthropological and ethnomusicological fieldwork in Bosavi from 1975 to 2000. The original Voices of the Rainforest CD was produced during this time (1991) with production support from Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. Working with acclaimed sound editor Dennis Leonard at Skywalker Sound in 2016-2017, Feld recomposed a 25th anniversary 7.1 Voices soundtrack. A 2018 return to Bosavi with filmmaker Jeremiah Ra Richards and digitization of Feld's extensive archival photographs led to the creation of the immersive film joined to the 7.1 soundtrack.

Voices of the Rainforest is the first in a series of films based on Feld's work. While Voices offers a visualization of the original audio experience, New Voices of the Rainforest, the companion film, will provide an update on the state of the forest and the problems of development in what remains a remote and underserved region of Papua New Guinea.

This Deluxe Edition includes a 150-page color photobook, 7.1 Blu-ray (with a 2.0 stereo track) and the 25th Anniversary edition audio CD.

All sales benefit the Bosavi Peoples Fund, advocating for environmental and cultural justice in a remote part of Papua New Guinea.

Selected Screenings & Awards

Honourable Mention, Documentary Film Prize, International Council for Traditional Music, 2020

Competition Category "Community and Equality," Vizantrop Film Festival, 2020

Academic Screenings

Scholarship Film Festival, U Pennsylvania, 2019

NYU Depts of Anthropology & Music, 2019

Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology UK, 2019

University of Eastern Finland, 2019

Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, 2019

Harvard University, 2019

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Crying Earth Rise Up

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 14:04:00 GMT

Crying Earth Rise Up
Buy Now: $320.00

Crying Earth Rise Up tells the story of Debra White Plume and Elisha Yellow Thunder’s parallel search for answers to the question: Why are there high levels of radiation in our drinking water and how can we protect our families and community against this threat?

White Plume, a Lakota elder, views nearby uranium mining operations as one source of water contamination and as an encroachment on the water rights of the Lakota Nation. She takes action as the lead plaintiff in a case challenging uranium mining on tribal land, and as an organizer working to motivate her community to protect treaty territory from exploitation of their natural resources by corporate interests.

Yellow Thunder seeks answers in the earth itself. During her pregnancy, she unknowingly drank contaminated water and her daughter, Laila, was born with severe medical anomalies. Laila and family await a kidney transplant. When Yellow Thunder can take time away from caring for Laila, she maps ore outcroppings on the Pine Ridge Reservation in search of uranium and the origins of the contamination.

Meanwhile, community members from the mining town of Crawford, NE, Lakota health and environmental agencies, an organic rancher and project manager of a proposed uranium mine, lawyers involved in White Plume’s case, natural resources officials, a nuclear energy expert, farmers and ranchers, all grapple with the prospect of license renewal at the Crow Butte mine in Nebraska and the proposed expansion of mining operations to three additional mines in northwest Nebraska and western South Dakota.

Observational footage, ruggedly beautiful Great Plains vistas, sit-down interviews, illustrations, and animated graphics combine to address the controversy surrounding the existing and proposed uranium mining operations over the High Plains/Ogallala aquifer. Native actress Tantoo Cardinal narrates the film, supporting its structure, ensuring clarity and acting as a reliable guide for the audience through the story.

The film addresses the direct relationship between water and life itself, and the tragic irony that what is sacred may also be poisoning, even as nuclear power companies insist on the environmental safety of their industry’s practices and townspeople point to the mine’s essential role in fueling the local economy. Through characters who oppose and support the expansion of uranium mining over the High Plains/Ogallala aquifer (the largest fresh water underground source in North America), audiences engage with the important and timely issue of preserving and protecting the land and water.

Native communities are commonly involved in debates about land use and environmental stewardship, particularly in the west, because of the historical exploitation of natural resources found on treaty land, Native religious beliefs that bind the people to nature, the Native philosophy of “seven generations” that mirrors the concept of sustainable ecological practices, etc. Crying Earth Rise Up acknowledges the centrality of Native involvement in opposing the particular practice of uranium mining and suggests Native communities’ wider spread contribution to a variety of other conversations related to environmental protection (although not always noted by mainstream media, e.g. the recent blocking of the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline).

SELECTED AWRDS AND SCREENINGS

Winner, John Michaels Award, Big Muddy Film Festival, 2015

Athens International Film Festival, 2015

Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, 2015

Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival, 2016

One Earth Film Festival, 2017

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Close Encounters of No Kind

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Close Encounters of No Kind
Buy Now: $320.00

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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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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The Earth is Our Home

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

The Earth is Our Home
Buy Now: $295.00

This documentary about the early Natives of the Great Basin emphasizes the traditional culture of the last 5,000 years. The story unfolds through the words and skills of the older Paiute women of southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada. They tell us how they make cakes from berries, baskets from tulles, cord for nets...necessary daily tasks linked with an ancient heritage.

The earth is ever present in the film, wildlife, rivers and marshes, sagebrush desert, all part of the story. The lifeways of the Northern Paiutes are followed through a seasonal cycle, from root-gathering in spring to building shelter in winter. The Earth is Our Home is an important historical film about Native North Americans.

This film is excellent for classroom use from 6th grade to adult.

DER thanks Oregon Public Broadcasting for the opportunity to rescue fine archival films from obscurity.

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Dani Films

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Dani Films
Buy Now: $500.00

Digitally Remastered 2-DVD Set

This special edition 2-disc DVD set includes:

• Dani Sweet Potatoes & Dani Houses digitally remastered

• commentary on both films by Karl Heider

• a narrated pictorial history (9 min) of Heider's career in archaeology and anthropology

In 1963, under the auspices of the EDC curriculum project Man: A Course of Study, an elementary social studies curriculum, Karl Heider returned to the central highlands of Irian Jaya (West New Guinea). Heider had spent the previous two years in the Grand Baliem Valley with Robert Gardner's Harvard-Peabody exhibition, and his intention was to return from this second trip with material to be used to teach American grade school students about digging-stick horticulture and house construction. However, after producing the Netsilik series, the EDC curriculum project fell victim to the political climate of the time. Heider spent the following years presenting Hubula (known as Dani* outside of the community) material himself, eventually producing the ethnographic classics, Dani Sweet Potatoes and Dani Houses.

About the films:

Dani Sweet Potatoes (19 min) A study of the sophisticated process of sweet potato horticulture developed by the Hubula. The film follows the Hubula sweet potato cycle from clearing off the old brush and weeds from a fallow field to planting, harvesting, cooking, and eating. At that time the Hubula had the simplest of tools - long pointed wooden poles used as digging sticks that are hardened in the fire and soaked in water - and they still used their stone-bladed adzes. (By now, most Hubula use steel shovels, axes, and bush knives and make stone adzes only for the tourist trade.)

Even though their tools are simple, their field system is intensive and sophisticated, with an intricate system of ditches. Perhaps the ditches were originally necessary to drain swampy land, but they now serves as both drainage and irrigation ditches, depending on whether rainfall is too little or too much. The ditches also hold compost. Weeds and topsoil collect there, later to be smeared back onto the garden beds. Pigs are part of the ecological system, plowing up the soil in search of food and fertilizing it with their droppings. In this film, we see people from a single neighborhood working alone in their own garden plots or, at times joining together in a cooperative work party.

Dani Houses (16 min) The film observes both round and square house construction techniques of the Hubula. It shows how the ground is cleared, walls are made from boards, poles lashed together, and roofs being thatched. Though it follows the house-building process from beginning to end, one is left asking the question: What happened after the houses were built?

*Note on term “Dani”

The preferred name for the community in these films is Hubula. The name "Dani" as used in these films is an exonym used by Moni, a neighboring group of people living west of the Baliem Valley. The name has been reproduced in many colonial and postcolonial texts, even until today.

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Diary of a Maasai Village, Part 1

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Diary of a Maasai Village, Part 1
Buy Now: $320.00

The Prophet's Village examines the problem of maintaining enough cattle to supply milk and meat versus selling off cattle to raise money for maize, antibiotics and pesticides; cash is also needed to pay for legal fees for Rerenko, the Laibon's son.

About the Diary of a Maasai Village series

This series of five films by Melissa Llewelyn-Davies looks at daily life among the Maasai. The films are presented as a diary of a 7-week visit to a single village. The structure is episodic and the content dependent on various events or stories, some of which are developed through more than one film. The tapes can be used independently or together, to give an in-depth sense of Maasai life. 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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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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