Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Politics, Law & Justice / Migration / All Films

The Song of Aida

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 11:34:33 GMT

As a teenager, Aida dreamed of becoming a model and singer. Now in her thirties, she is trapped in an arranged marriage and feels stuck living in a shack in a Roma community in Bari, Italy. She suffers from depression, longs to leave her marriage and return to Romania, where living conditions are better. Shot over a twenty-year period, filmmaker Giovanni Princigalli offers an intimate portrait of one woman’s struggle for emancipation, providing insights into life in the deeply patriarchal and tradition-bound Roma community in Bari, Italy. Princigalli makes it clear from the opening sequence that the Roma community in Bari does not represent that of Roma in other parts of Europe today.

Princigalli was born in Bari, Italy and studied Political Sciences at the University of Bari. His first film Japigia Gagi (Roma Stories) profiles the Bari community as he found it in 2001 and 2002. Song of Aida draws on footage from this early project as well as from visits in 2014 and in the early 2020s, when he focused on Aida’s story. This longitudinal view allows viewers to embrace Aida’s struggle as she finds her voice and independence from her family. The film also shows poetic animations that are used to illustrate the imagination of the protagonists.

“This film is the story of her [Aida’s] struggle for emancipation, independence and a new life outside the Roma camp.” — Giovanni Princigalli, Spring 2024

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

21st edition of the Int'l Human Rights Film Festival (FICDH), Argentina, 2025

Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) Int'l Ethnographic Film Festival, Norway, 2024

Ethnocineca Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Vienna, 2024

Festival de Cine Etnográfico de Ecuador, Ecuador, 2024

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Cruces

Wed, 5 Jun 2024 18:06:15 GMT

Cruces
Buy Now: $295.00

Cruces is an experiential expedition into the geographies and stories of immigrants from Latin America as they journey to reach US soil. By weaving together oral histories and images of the landscape, the film highlights the constitutive elements of transit, such as trains and rivers, and the obstacles migrants face, such as forests, deserts, and border regimes.

Recorded in 2019 and early 2020, this multi-vocal ethnography conveys a collective view of the multiple stories of journey and arrival. Enhanced by an immersive soundtrack and an experimental narrative, Cruces offers a raw exploration of the terrain and testimonies constituting one of our age's most defining, challenging, and politicized phenomena.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
The Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival, UK, 2023

Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, Greece, 2022

Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, USA, 2022
Mimesis Documentary Film Festival, USA, 2022

Bogoshorts Film Festival,Colombia, 2021

Multimedia Anthropology Showcase in Madrid (MAAM), Spain, 2021

VI Mexican Congress of Anthropology and Ethnology Film Festival, Mexico, 2020
VI Latin American Anthropology Congress Film Festival, Uruguay, 2020

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Children of Labor

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Children of Labor
Buy Now: $320.00

Featured at the 1977 New York Film Festival, Children of Labor is the story of how Finnish immigrants came into contact — and conflict — with industrial America. Three generations of Finnish-Americans recount how they coped with harsh realities by creating their own institutions: churches, temperance halls, socialist halls, and cooperatives.

The film focuses on the people, their organizations, and the challenges posed by both McCarthy-era political repression and present-day Home Useism. At the same time, Children of Labor deals with questions that reverberate in the lives of most Americans, especially the sons and daughters of immigrants.

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China Remix

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

China Remix
Buy Now: $295.00

This short documentary explores China's burgeoning African entertainment industry through the lives of three African hip-hop artists. Based in the southeastern city of Guangzhou – home to China's largest community of African immigrants – the film follows the entertainers as they try to find success in the face of challenging labor and immigration laws. The film follows the entertainers as they prepare for their shows, perform, and live their daily lives with their Chinese and African family members and friends, against the backdrop of the risk of deporation and ongoing prejudice.

"[A] fascinating film. ... [W]ith the Chinese state fervently pushing investment and development in countries throughout Africa, a new set of relationships is developing. The consequences of these relationships, both within and outside China, are just beginning to be explored, [China Remix] highlights relationships on a personal level [and] is a welcomed contribution."
–Tami Blumenfield, American Anthropologist

SELECTED SCREENINGS AND FESTIVALS

Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York

African Diaspora International Film Festival, New York

Africa World Documentary Film Festival, St. Louis, Missouri

Amakula International Film Festival, Kampala, Uganda

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Cubanos, Life and Death of a Revolution

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Cubanos, Life and Death of a Revolution
Buy Now: $320.00

Cubanos draws an impressionist portrait of the international Cuban community, whose identity has been fragmented by 48 years of dictatorship, as it struggles to leave the 20th century behind. While the music barely camouflages the misery and corruption in Cuba, the buzz and hum of industry and media fails to mask the cultural gap between the active Cuban community in Miami and their home island.

The film's main character, Catuey, a Cuban musician living in Québec, fills his songs with images of an ideal Cuba hurt by the division of its people and the group-think that prevails in Miami. As he travels, Catuey is confronted with contradictions among his countrymen and his own demons, and ends his odyssey drained and disappointed not to have found a simple path to reconciliation. Rather than sensationalizing this cultural disconnect, Cubanos takes a holistic approach to foretelling the identity issues the Cuban community will face upon the death of Fidel Castro.

Filmmaker Yan Giroux's camera scans the day-to-day lives of Cubans in Cuba and Miami for vestiges of the revolutionary dream and translates the chaos of the Cubans' reality into a set of evocative signs. While Catuey and the interviewees try to define themselves both as individuals and as Cubans, the camera paints a broader, more complex portrait of a people held prisoner by their history. Amidst Havana's ruins, the interviewees' faces are blurred to protect their identities, a formal constraint that becomes an aesthetic symptom in the crumbling landscape of Cuban communism.

Echoing each other throughout the film, interviews and travel scenes explore the many facets of a culture that is developing differently on either side of the Straits of Florida. A faded flag flutters in the wind as a saw whines, far away. Catuey croons Cuba's national anthem like a lullaby. The ambiguity between dream and nightmare is what defines this revolution, its romanticism tattered by disillusionment.

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Dinka Diaries

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Dinka Diaries
Buy Now: $320.00

Dinka Diaries tells the story of some of America's most recent arrivals: Sudanese refugees who would have never dreamt a few years ago that they'd be living in America. Over the course of ten months, the film follows the lives of three Sudanese refugees who resettle in the Philadelphia area and adjust to the new American culture and way of life.

Dinka Diaries represents an important attempt to empower refugees by giving them the opportunity to represent themselves and their experiences through film.

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Divided Loyalties

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Divided Loyalties
Buy Now: $320.00

Divided Loyalties studies the stories of Greek and Turkish Cypriot refugees and nationals who seek to reconcile their fractured heritage from the history of the proud, yet divided island: Cyprus. Shot in 16 mm the film reveals both a visual and emotional landscape of the island. Structured around the chronological political legacy of Cyprus, award-winning director and cinematographer Sophia Constantinou explores the memories and personal histories of its natives, as well as her own family. Unknown to many, Cyprus, as of 2001, is one of the most densely militarized zones in the world. The United Nations, Turkey and Great Britain continue to hold strong military presences in Cyprus -severing the island into separate Greek and Turkish territories. Cypriots are constantly reminded of their disjointed identities by the military border zone physically splitting the island into North and South regions. Such turbulence resulted in the scattering of Cypriots around the globe, deunifying familial, individual and collective identities. Important for teaching international relations, middle eastern studies, anthropology, conflict resolution and identity.

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From Babylonia To Beverly Hills

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

From Babylonia To Beverly Hills
Buy Now: $295.00

In 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran brought a twenty-five-hundred-year-old history to a close for the Jews who left their homeland for America. Uncertain about their safety and fearing religious persecution in Khomeini's Islamic Theocracy, an estimated 80,000 of Iran's 100,000 Jews fled the country. This documentary tells the story of those Jews who reestablished a tight knit community in Los Angeles.

Iranian Jewish families talk about their past in Iran - how the increasingly hostile circumstances forced them to flee their own country in order to secure a better future for their children. They recall the difficulties of starting a new life in the United States. They voice their fears about their children growing up in an alien society, adopting a culture that is far removed from their own. Young Iranian adults, on the other hand, talk about the pressures of confirming to parental expectations, of remaining true to their Iranian Jewish heritage even as they try and carve their own individual identities in modern day American society.

Historical background via the use of archival footage gives a detailed overview of the original Jewish settlement in Iran and their relationship with their adopted country as well as how they fared in the 20th century.

In the American cultural imagination, Iranians are represented by scenes of hard-line religious leaders and unruly crowds crying "Down With America." Very little is known about the religious diversity of Iranians living in America. This documentary helps create a more nuanced view of the culture and religious diversity of Iranians both inside and outside the country.

Selected Screening History

Iranian Jewish Heritage Day Program, Makor, New York, 2003

Athens International Film & Video Festival, Athens, Ohio, 2004

Oakland International Film Festival, California, 2004

Documentary and Ethnographic Film Festival, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 2004

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Monir

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Monir
Buy Now: $320.00

This documentary looks at the life and work of Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, who first garnered attention in the 1970s when she pioneered contemporary forms of geometric mirror works. Monir created an artistic language that was informed by traditional Iranian craft and architecture; formative years spent in New York in the 1940s and 50s and ongoing conversations with some of the 20th century´s most experimental artists were also part of Monir's artistic universe.

The film takes an intimate look at the artist´s life and her practice, and explores how she has become one of the most innovative and influential artists working in the Middle East today. From her method of constructing mirror mosaics, to uncovering her past following the political changes in her own country and her subsequent migration to New York, and an artistic renewal sparked by her return to Tehran after an absence of 25 years, it offers an inspiring chronicle of Monir at the peak of her career.

“A necessary and moving documentary about one of the most remarkable artists ever born in Iran; this film beautifully captures the creative process and personal journey of a woman artist who after years of living a life in exile, returns home in her 80s, produces some of her best work, and finally receives the international recognition she so well deserves.”
— Shirin Neshat

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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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