Documentary Educational Resources - By Title / M / All Films

The Mbako Trial

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 12:17:53 GMT

The film begins in the north-east of the Belgian Congo in 1933. Following reports of mysterious deaths in the region over several years, the Belgian colonial authorities arrest and put on trial a group of men suspected of belonging to the Mambela sect and of being responsible for these deaths as Aniotos, men who kill like leopards. Among them is Mbako, ritual chief and presumed leader of the Aniotos or leopard men. As the film progresses, the role of the accused is reversed and the colonizers' disregard for traditional customary law, social structures and traditional leaders and chiefs, as well as their devastating impact on local traditions, are scrutinized.

The pioneer of African animation, Congolese stop-motion animator J-M Kibushi takes the Western imagination of the Anioto as a starting point for revisiting this episode in the history of today's Democratic Republic of Congo, challenging the racist and dehumanizing interpretation of the colonizers and the portrayal of leopard men as the ‘savage Other’. The Mbako Trial: Myth and Reality presents a post-colonial reinterpretation of the hearings and trial through animations, illustrations, a diorama, theatrical reconstructions, archive documents and interviews.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

FestIFIS Films Identitaires et solidaires à Nikki, Bénin, 2024

Millenium à Bruxelles, Belgium, 2024

Festival Mundial de Cine à Veracruz, Mexico, 2023

GZDOC/Guangzhou Int'l Documentary Film Festival, China, 2023

Luanda PAFF/Int'l Pan African Film Festival à Luanda, Angola, 2023

Kasseler Dok Fest à Kassel, Germany, 2023

Congo in Harlem, New York, 2023

Vues d'Afrique à Montréal, Canada, 2023

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Machanic Manyeruke

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 10:13:33 GMT

Machanic Manyeruke
Buy Now: $320.00

This is a feature-length ethnographic film on the life of Zimbabwe’s gospel music legend, Machanic Manyeruke, considered by many the “father” of gospel music in Zimbabwe. An intimate film about family, faith, culture and music exploring the sources of Manyeruke’s persistently popular music, its impact in contextualizing Christian faith in local Shona culture, and how his music, and his very person, reflect fundamental forces of Christian growth in Zimbabwe and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Selected Screenings & Awards

IndieFEST Film Awards, USA, 2023

Faith in Film: Int’l Film Festival, USA, 2022

Africa World Documentary Film Festival, USA, 2022

Amsterdam Int’l Film Festival, Amsterdam, 2021

Religion/Faith, Docs Without Borders Film Festival, USA, 2022

Selected, feature documentary, Detroit Trinity Int’l Film Festival, USA, 2022

Accolade Global Film Competition, USA, 2022

Bright Future Independent Film Festival, Sweden, 2021

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My Rembetika Blues

Tue, 8 Mar 2022 15:35:21 GMT

My Rembetika Blues
Buy Now: $320.00

Rembetika music or the Greek blues is a music born of exile and the streets, developing its roots from the mass migration of people in the early twentieth century. Filmmaker M. Zournazi traces the journey of her forebears from Smyrna in Turkey to Sydney Australia but discovers more than family history – she finds out how music connects people during times of struggle and crises. By weaving together different stories of music and migration, My Rembetika Blues documents a wealth of experiences that are often left out of the chronicles of history.

"A film that reveals the core of Rembetika that only a Greek from Australia could see. A strong and beautiful film." – Renos Haralambidis, Greek Director

"[A] rare documentary that covers its subject – Rembetika music – so thoroughly documenting its "sound", history, locations, and evolution interviewing performers, scholars and more, but (filmmaker Mary Zournazi) totally engages us by making this her personal journey to discover more of her mother's heritage which co-exists with Rembetika history from Turkey to Greece to Egypt and Lebanon and on to Australia."
– Andrew Horton, Professor Emeritus of Film & Video Studies, University of Oklahoma

Selected Screenings & Awards

Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival, 2023

Universe Multicultural Film Festival, US, 2022
Social Justice Film Festival & Institute Special Event, 2022

Gold Remi Documentary Award, World Fest Houston Int'l Film Festival, Melbourne, 2021

Excellence in Filmmaking Award, Spotlight Film Awards, 2021

Platinum Award, Women’s International Film Awards, 2021

Best Documentary, Feature Film Competition – World of Film Int'l Film Festival, Glasgow, 2021

German International Ethnographic Film Festival, 2021

Parma International Music Film Festival, Italy, 2021
International Film and Television Festival SIMFEST, Romania, 2021

Docs Without Borders Film Festival, 2021

Williamsburg Film and Music Festival, 2021

Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, 2021

San Francisco Greek Film Festival, 2021

Nevada Women's Film Festival, 2021

World Fest Houston International Film Festival, 2021
Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, 2021

Toronto Greek Film Festival, 2021

EATSA Art & Tourism Film Festival, Portugal, 2021
World of Film International Film Festival Glasgow, 2021
Houston Greek Film Festival, 2021
Malta Film Festival, 2021

Cinque Port International Film Festival, 2021
Nova Film and Music Film Festival, North Virginia, 2021

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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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Mother, Daughter, Sister

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 16:18:00 GMT

Mother, Daughter, Sister
Buy Now: $295.00

Mother, Daughter, Sister exposes the Burmese military’s practice of using rape as a weapon of war. The film brings light to Kachin and Rohingya women activists' efforts to enact justice for Burma's crimes.

The film revolves around the stories of four women: Shamima, a volunteer counselor working with survivors of military rape in the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, Dil Kayas, a teenage survivor, and San Lung and Lu Ra, sister and mother of two Kachin school teachers brutally raped and killed in 2015, allegedly by the Burmese military.

Powerful testimonies from survivors, witnesses, and activists explore the far-reaching impact of sexual violence and trauma upon these communities, and together, the women call for justice and an end to the army's impunity.

“The events and experiences that are depicted in this film are deeply traumatic and violate the personhood of the survivors; the strength and resilience of each woman portrayed in the film is clear." - Rachel Dreyer, Head of Research Services for Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University

SELECTED SCREENING & AWARDS

Vanya Exerjian Empowering Women & Girls Award, Socially Relevant Film Festival, NYC, 2020

Documentary Short Honorable Mention, Oneota Film Festival, 2020

Best Short Documentary, UN Women Global Voices Film Festival, 2019

Best Short Documentary, Freedom Film Festival, Malaysia, 2019

Best Short Documentary, North Dakota Human Rights and Arts Festival, 2019

Best Short Documentary, Woodpecker Int'l Film Festival, India, 2019

Outgaze Film Festival, 2020

9th Annual Social Justice Film Festival, 2020
Our Time: Celebrating Women Festival, St. Augustine, FL, 2020

Asian Film Festival of Dallas, 2019

Indigo Moon Film Festival, 2019
Tryon International Film Festival, 2019

St. Louis International Film Festival, 2019

International Short and Independent Film Festival, Dhaka, 2019

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Maasai Migrants Series

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

Maasai Migrants Series
Buy Now: $320.00

The seven videos contained in this DVD were made in Tanzania between 2008 and 2010 by participants in the Maasai Migrants Field School, directed by Peter Biella of San Francisco State University's Program in Visual Anthropology. The primary purpose of the videos in the series is to educate urban and rural Maasai about the consequences of migration, especially its relationship to poverty and the spread of HIV. The films have been produced through a continuing collaboration with Maasai-led and other NGOs, and they are being screened and discussed in Maasai regions throughout Tanzania. Their purpose is to trigger emotional reactions that prompt viewers to engage in important — though otherwise rare and uncomfortable — conversations, about poverty, migration, and sexual practices. The series also constitutes a self-critical history of a project in applied anthropology and gives an example for applied practitioners who may wish to use video in their work.

About the films:

Maasai Migrants (Dir. Peter Biella, 22 min, 2008)

This is the first film completed in the Maasai Migrants Series, the multi-year collaborative exploration of applied anthropological videos contained in this DVD. Planned in close collaboration with Maasai organizers and local migrants, the film depicts the appalling conditions experienced by migrants in Dar es Salaam - the dangerous and underpaid work of night watchmen, and the tenuous existence of Maasai woman who, without male protection, are always at risk of exploitation. The video is divided into seven 3-minute vignettes, each giving a different facet of the Maasai community displaced by migration. Rich with data, the vignettes trigger audience discussions about the challenges of poverty and the push and pull of city life. A film about the scripting, shooting and screening of Maasai Migrants is recorded in Subject to Change, a video contained in this DVD. There, emphasis is placed on how the video has been understood by urban and rural Maasai viewers.

Subject to Change (Dir. Shamia Sandles, 21 min, 2009)

Subtitled A Freirean Case Study in Applied Visual Anthropology, this film presents the theoretical assumptions and screening strategy of films in the Maasai Migrants Series. It does so through a history of the Series' first season, the scripting, shooting and screening of Maasai Migrants (also contained on this DVD). Included in Subject to Change is documentary footage of meetings with production collaborators — an American professor and his student who made this film, Maasai night watchmen, homeless Maasai women, Maasai intellectuals and members of a Maasai-led NGO. These meetings reveal the development of the themes and documentary script of the film, and how they are designed to promote discussion among urban and prospective migrants living in rural homesteads. Subject to Change also provides an understanding of errors made by project members in choosing the wrong venues for screening and in failing to prepare post-screening facilitators for their task of promoting audience discussion after the showings. Finally, Subject to Change presents footage of four post-screening events in different locations — a church, an urban market, a school and a rural homestead. The analysis of Maasai Migrants' goals and strategy, supplemented by Maasai viewers' subtle comments on the film, reveal a great potential for an applied visual anthropology.

Maasai Speak Out on HIV and AIDS (Dir. Biella; research & footage by Thomas Sengale, 13 min, 2009)

Ilmurran is the most-frequently screened trigger film in the Maasai Migrants repertoire. Like the others, its goal is to provide critical education to displaced Maasai throughout Tanzania. When the film is screened with a skilled discussion facilitator, it allows an unprecedented opportunity for Maasai audiences to reflect on the realities and dangers of migration. Longido Waterhole and Longido Homestead, both included on this DVD, record Maasai viewers as they watch and discuss this film. Ilmurran: Young Warriors and the City provides discussion material concerning increased exposure to HIV, and the attraction of migration as a means of survival in the face of encroaching poverty. Following a strategy of collaborative, applied visual anthropology, the filmmakers worked with university educated Maasai to document the day-to-day lives of three young Maasai brothers (ilmurran, "warriors"). The young men all live at the same homestead in central Tanzania. Using interviews and vérité footage, the film invites the brothers to discuss discrimination, homelessness, and disease in the cities. It also highlights how their different ages influence their attitudes toward traditional Maasai values. Before he became ill, the eldest advocated migration as an expression of independence and courage; the youngest sees no purpose in "wandering" and advocates farming, a means of subsistence rejected by most Maasai. Ilmurran illustrates how poverty and migration have reshaped Maasai identity.

Ilmurran: Young Warriors and the City (Dir. Michael Crammond and Kellen Prandini, 22 min, 2010)

Excerpts from Changa Revisited (Dir. Peter Biella and Leonard Kamerling, 17 min, 2012)

Composed of selections from a feature-length documentary, Excerpts from Changa Revisited depicts the shocking clarity with which three Ilparakuyo Maasai women understand the dissolution of their Ilparakuyo community. They describe their homestead as torn by human and livestock diseases, widespread alcoholism among men, and the increase of poverty, disrespect, migration and violence. Changa Revisited was filmed in a community that is very close to Dar es Salaam: for that reason, the community is experiencing the full destructive impact of migration and access to city life. Changa Revisited is therefore a cautionary tale to other, more isolated, Maasai communities that are currently less impacted by the crises of migration and HIV depicted in the film. Another video contained in this DVD, Longido Homestead, records women in a relatively isolated Kisongo Maasai community who watch Changa Revisited and discuss the fate of their less fortunate Maasai sisters to the south. The story of Changa represents to them — and to others in very isolated Maasai communities — what the future may bring.

Longido Waterhole (Dir. Peter Biella and Leonard Kamerling, 8 min, 2010)

All of the films in the Maasai Migrants DVD explore a technique of applied anthropology in which films are used to trigger often passionate post-screening discussions among Maasai audiences. Longido Waterhole, like its companion, Longido Homestead, documents such a discussion. As the film opens, a dozen Kisongo Maasai men have just viewed Ilmurran: Young Warriors and the City, one of the Series' trigger films about social change. The viewers, who live more than two hundred miles north of the community where the Ilmurran video was shot, launch into a discussion about the profound changes faced by their own community. They do not concern themselves with the principle theme of the Ilmurran film, i.e., the crisis of young Maasai migrating to the city. Instead, the film triggers a discussion of their own related crisis — the city migrating to them. Rapid regional development with new highways, foreign workers and permanent dwellings are all encroaching on their once isolated desert grazing land. Comments divide along age lines: senior warriors criticize their "fathers" for facilitating the arrival of outsiders and for their adherence to "outmoded" Maasai traditions. Elders reply that traditions are the only value that Maasai should preserve. The discussion at the Longido Waterhole gives insight into the ideological rifts concerning modernization among different age groups of Maasai. It also shows how using a film that focuses on one facet of modernization may trigger discussions of others that are more pertinent locally.

Longido Homestead (Dir. Peter Biella and Leonard Kamerling, 8 min, 2010)

Like its companion piece, Longido Waterhole and other videos on this DVD, Longido Homestead is part of the Maasai Migrants Series, a multi-year exploration of the use of applied anthropological media in facilitating social change through the screening and discussion of trigger films. Longido Homestead's women viewers are asked to discuss a video clip from Ilmurran: Young Warriors and the City, and a segment of Changa Revisited (both contained on this DVD). Unlike their male counterparts recorded in Longido Waterhole, these women viewers stay focused on the themes of the films they viewed. Like the men, however, the women understand the film topic in ways that differ according to their age. Older women declare that traditional Maasai medicines are an effective cure of AIDS. Their daughters, adult women who have visited clinics and have some formal education, know differently. Longido Homestead shows how the screening of trigger films can create an unprecedented opportunity for open discussion between age grades, opportunities in which younger women may contradict and educate their elders. The film also reveals an important strategy in the use of trigger films among communities that are as thoroughly sex-segregated as the Maasai. The women are only able to speak frankly with one another when the filmmakers persuade their husbands to leave.

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Masters of the Balafon

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

Masters of the Balafon
Buy Now: $1,050.00

Balafon is the name given in French-speaking West Africa to a xylophone with calabash resonators. This instrument is emblematic of the Senufo people of the Côte d'Ivoire (the former Ivory Coast). The balafon is played under differing circumstances and in combination with different groups of instruments. Not for nothing do the peoples of the Côte d'Ivoire call the northern part of their country "the land of the balafon."

Filmed in long sequences to preserve the integrity of the music and speech of the musicians, this series of four documentaries introduces the audience to the fascinating world of a living musical tradition. Each documentary can be viewed independently, as a whole, or in sections indicated by chapter titles. The complete series lasts nearly 4 ½ hours (including extras), providing a full account of a sophisticated African musical tradition.

“Hugo Zemp has this remarkable gift for placing the audience in the midst of the action... (He) presents a piece of work that no lover of traditional West African music - be it researchers, musicians, music lovers, teachers or students - should do without.”
— Vincent Zanetti, Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, 15, 2002 (translated from French)

“These videos exhibit, in their picture and sound quality, all the marks of state-of-the-art digital technology, and the camera work by Zemp, usually up close and right in the thick of things, ensures that we can almost feel as if we were there... The series is a major achievement in visual documentation.”
— Roderic Knight, Ethnomusicology, 49 (2), 2005

“The Masters of the Balafon films all show the respect Zemp has for the musicians and their culture, and the instrument.”
— Geoffrey Whittall, The World of Music, 47(2), 2005

Films in the Masters of the Balafon series

Funeral Festivities (with 24 minutes of extras)

The Joy of Youth (with 9 minutes of extras)

The Wood and the Calabash

Friend, Well Come! (with 21 minutes of extras)

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Music of Georgia (Caucasus) Series

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

Music of Georgia (Caucasus) Series
Buy Now: $720.00

Traditional music of Georgia (the Caucasus) is now internationally renowned and appreciated for the richness and beauty of its polyphonies. While concerts and studio recordings have revealed the diversity of local musical traditions, the films in this series show, for the first time, the performance of three different music styles in the context of rituals and learning.

The Feast-Day of Tamar and Lashari(73 minutes, 1998)

Pilgrims meet at two mountain sanctuaries to celebrate the deified Queen Tamar and King Lashari with prayers, sacrifices and ritual songs. The participants of the feast also enjoy secular music and the company of friends.

Funeral Chants from the Georgian Caucasus (21 minutes, 2007)

During a burial, women and men separately perform individual laments punctuated by collective wailing, while a men's small choir perform polyphonic songs composed of musically stylized cries of grief.

with co-director Nino Tsitsishvili:

Duduki of Tbilisi: Eldar Shoshitashvili and His Students (21 minutes, 2012)

The duduki is a double-reed wind instrument of the oboe family. During a rehearsal, the teacher and his students perform traditional repertoires of Middle Eastern origin as well as styles derived from rural polyphonic singing, and westernized songs developed by Georgian musicians since the 20th century.

“These three films unified in one series show the distinct layers of contemporary Georgian culture with a remarkable precision and attention to real contexts. The creator of these documentaries is both a wonderful filmmaker and a great producer, but he always remains a musician, creating a sense of being in tune with the performers.”
— Rusudan Tsurtsumia, Head of the International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony, Tbilisi, Georgia

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

First Video Prize, International Festival of Ethnographic Films, Nuoro, Italy, 1998

Prize for Outstanding Documentation, Pärnu International Documentary Film Festival, Estonia, 2000

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A Month in the Life of Ephtim D.

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:50:00 GMT

A Month in the Life of Ephtim D.
Buy Now: $320.00

This documentary takes a rare and intimate look at the life of a 73-year-old pensioner currently living in Bulgaria following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. We follow Ephtim D. from the meager dinner table where he and his wife dine on some bread with a little margarine and garlic, to the park where he walks his dog and meets his friends.

Ephtim is a life-long Communist. He and his friends still attend Socialist party meetings in Sofia. It is difficult for a Westerner to understand why people in Eastern Europe would not embrace their freedom but still reminisce about the "good old days" under communism. When we see how difficult life is today for Ephtim and his wife, we believe their memories of a better situation in earlier years.

With painstaking precision, Ephtim and his wife must account for literally every penny in order to survive. We know exactly how they spend their $66 monthly government pension - which barely keeps them alive. Were it not for the fact that they own their tiny apartment, their circumstances would be dire.

The filmmaker, Asen Balikci, has been an innovator in the field of ethnographic film and film in education for many years. He was responsible for the production of the Netsilik Eskimo Film Series made to accompany the Man: A Course of Study curriculum in the 1960s. When he retired from his academic post at a Canadian university, he moved back to his home country of Bulgaria to apply his media skills to facilitate communication and education both inside and outside the country.

A Month in the Life of Ephtim D. is an excellent, realistic portrayal which provides a wealth of information for those studying Economics, the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, International Politics, Government, Aging and Ethnography.

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Moon Children

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:50:00 GMT

Moon Children
Buy Now: $320.00

Documentary-maker Wu Yii-Feng delivers a tour de force in Moon Children, a fascinating chronicle of albinos living, working, and finding recreation in modern-day Taiwan. Dubbed “moon children” by the San Blas Indians, albinos were isolated from society and only allowed to work at night. Times have changed, but prejudices have not, and albinos of today still experience discrimination and cruelty. Wu immerses us in the lives of these people, individuals who are clearly just as intelligent and capable as their darker-skinned compatriots, but whose insufficient melanin and poor eyesight still manage to render them outcasts.

We follow one albino man as he marries, goes to his job as a masseur, and waits for his wife to give birth, hoping ever so much that the child comes out "normal." Other parents talk of their experiences with albino children, their tears and disgust when they realized that their children were somehow inferior. Wu's camera moves seamlessly from scene to scene as we grow to understand these peoples' reaction -- they are victims of a conformist culture, one which allows few deviations in looks, and even fewer in behavior. We repeatedly witness people discussing the principal way of insulting the albinos, which is insinuating that they are half American. Such an implication gets at the heart of the need for conformity, and the unwillingness to permit any infiltration of the foreign, bizarre, or incomprehensible.

Wu has another message in mind, though, and that is the power that the albinos can muster when they band together and help one another. Wu documents their songs, religious faith, and compassion, and we realize that although society can be relentlessly callous, those who accept and cherish albinos as they would any other human being have the power to end the vicious cycle. "Love never faileth..."

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