Documentary Educational Resources - By Title / N / All Films

Point of View (NYU C&M Vol. 2)

Mon, 4 Feb 2019 14:51:00 GMT

Point of View (NYU C&M Vol. 2)
Buy Now: $340.00

Point of View: First Person to Observational explores different methodologies in ethnographic documentary filmmaking. In each short film, the filmmaker establishes a unique point of view, and thus entry point for the audience, as observer of their own or others' lives. All reveal the importance of observation - of the physical spaces and of their characters' interactions - for engaging audiences in otherwise inaccessible spaces and intimate conversations.

Stories range from a young filmmaker's new appreciation of his mother in his attempt to grow up, that offer a glimpse into a suburban white, economically privileged community; a woman's reflections on her recovery from a breakdown after experiencing an attempted coup in Turkey; a humorous, keen observation of a couple negotiating their newlywed portraits with a lively photographer in a Chinese wedding photography shop; observations of Eastern European women telling stories as they make dumplings in the basement of a Ukranian church; and a filmmaker's encounters with the workers who create manhole covers that, upon their completion, travel from India to the streets of New York.

Films:

Cast in India (Natasha Raheja, 26 min, 2014)

Iconic and ubiquitous, approximately 300,000 manhole covers dot the streets of New York City. This observational documentary takes the viewer behind-the-scenes, to Howrah, India, where skilled workers heat, weld, melt, and mold iron into manhole cover castings. Cast in India gives life to the men, the processes, and the transnational journey behind these everyday objects.

My Mom's Name is Jean (Myles Jewell, 27 min, 2008)

New York City based filmmaker Myles Jewell still relies on his Boston-based mom to complete tasks he is perfectly capable of, such as making dentist appointments and buying new underwear. In an effort to shed his adolescence, Myles moves home for thirty days and calls his mom by her first name. Combining first person narration and observational camera, the film offers a unique approach to the coming-of-age story.

The Bride Who Wouldn't Smile (Camilla Nielsson, 8 min, 1998)

At Nancy's Wedding Center in Chinatown, New York, Nancy Ma and the wedding photographer, Mr. Ma, work to recreate big-screen beauty and glamour for their customers. Through close attention to the interactions between a young Vietnamese couple and the studio owners, and to the material objects around the studio, this short observational film captures the tensions inevitably encountered in the pursuit of the ideal photo.

The Ladies (Tyler Zoanni, 14 min, 2015)

For 50 years, a group of Ukrainian women has gathered in New York's East Village to make dumplings for their church. This observational short offers an evocative portrait of 'the ladies' and the work, faith, gossip, and humor that brings them together.

Back to Me (Zeynep Sertbulut, 22 min, 2017)

In the summer of 2016, an ISIS airport bombing and a military coup in Turkish filmmaker Zeynep Sertbulut's home country set her world off axis. Back to Me documents the many stages of recovery from an unsettling crisis while exploring identity, resilience, and change in the midst of global conflict. The intimate, first-person film tackles difficult subjects: How do you convey a traumatic event, and how do you evoke a subject's ever-changing internal states?

DVD Produced by: Cheryl Furjanic and Pegi Vail

This is part of the NYU Culture & Media series

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

Stories from the Archive (NYU C&M Vol. 1)

Fri, 1 Feb 2019 15:33:00 GMT

Stories from the Archive (NYU C&M Vol. 1)
Buy Now: $340.00

Stories from the Archive: History, Representation, and Identity includes a variety of stories shot in, about, and using archives and archival materials. The films explore the meanings and relationships imbedded in material objects and images and raise questions about how images are created, and circulated. Topics range from the contemporary, yet controversial art practice of a pastor who digitally depicts centuries-old Russian Orthodox iconography; the hybrid, poetic uncovering of scientists' journals documenting their collecting practices at Natural History Museums over a century ago; written correspondence between a European Jewish couple following WWII, uncovered by the couples' own grandchild; the use of forensic and photographic evidence to trace Spain's disappeared during the Franco regime; to archival footage and images used to evoke a once-vibrant dance studio in New York City's Hell's Kitchen.

The films in this compilation offer different strategies for bringing life to archival materials. The filmmakers variously draw on letters, archival and found footage, and photography. They present letters and journals through voice-over and narration, engage stylized approaches to filming archival collections and objects, and recontextualize historical objects through contemporary interviews, and use "process film" sequences to explore the labor behind the creation of various types of artifacts.

Films:

Archives of Extinction (Alyse Takeyesu, 12 min, 2016)

Archives of Extinction explores the concept of "saving" nature through a look at a museum's preserved bird collection. The history of the scientific collection, accompanied by voice overs drawn from texts of late 19th century collectors, provide a backgrop to the modern processes of de-extinction, an emerging science dedicated to bringing extinct species back into the world. Archives of Extinction evokes questions about nature conservation then and now; about the role of science in disassembling past and reassembling future ecologies; and about the human will to resurrect lost species and re-animate the past.

Pixelating Holiness (Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, 15 min, 2017)

West Virginian Russian Orthodox priest, Father Jonah Campbell, manufactures religious icons using contemporary digital technologies. Observational scenes documenting Cambell's production process, are juxtaposed with interviews exploring current controversies surrounding these digitally-produced icons, particualrly the suggestion that these icons are less holy than hand-painted works. Through this case study, the film looks at the relationship between religious art and divinity as it is transformed through digital technologies, while also suggesting the importance of entrepreneurial enterprises to a changing Christianity.

What Remains (Lee Douglas and Jorge Moreno Andrés, 29 min, 2015)

After the exhumation of a mass grave in Spain's southern province of Ciudad Real, two local anthropologists meet Angelita González Yepes, a woman whose family was torn apart by post-war political violence. In the intimate space of her living room, Angelita's home, family snapshots, and defiant voice make sense and gives meaning to a haunting legacy that refuses to pass, despite more than seven decades of silence. Though an intense and emotional process of fieldwork, Angelita and her interlocutors piece together fragmented memories, forensic evidence, and archival documentation to understand the city's painful history.

More than a Face in the Crowd (Sami Chan, 25 min, 2012)

A filmmaker explores the life of her great-aunt, Jane Chung, an actress who made a career for herself at a time when Asian Americans faced widespread racism in Hollywood. Working mostly in small parts and as an extra, Jane's fifty-year career reflects many of the struggles and triumphs of the Asian Americans working in the entertainment industry. Jane had parts in over fifty films and TV shows including Chinatown, When Harry Met Sally, M*A*S*H, and I Love Lucy, but much of her work is uncredited. The filmmaker brings together multiple generations of her family, and mines the film archive for evidence of her great-aunt, to provide a portrait of the real person beyond the often stereotypical roles and bit parts that constituted her screen presence.

A Correspondence (Leili Sreberny-Mohammadi, 16 min, 2014)

The film brings to life the year-long correspondence between the filmmaker's grandparents during the years following WWII. After fleeing Nazi Germany and Poland Srebernya, Margo and David met in London in 1947, only to be separated when David was sent to Palestine as a doctor in the British Army. Constructed through photographs, letters, telegrams and archival footage from the era, their story is one of love across distance and the search for a partner during troubled times.

Ode to Fazil's (Marcel Rosa-Salas, 19 min, 2017)

Fazil's Dance Center, located in New York City, was considered sacred ground for flamenco, tap, hip hop and Middle Eastern dancers often unwelcome at other studios. In 2008, after nearly forty years in operation, Fazil's was torn down and replaced by a luxury high-rise hotel. Marcel Rosa-Salas' personal film brings together stories of a magical place that no longer physically exists, yet lives on in the memories of dancers who continue to cherish it. Through archival footage and present-day interviews, Ode to Fazil's tells the story of this lost New York landmark, and the displacement of artists in a rapidly transforming city.

DVD Produced by: Cheryl Furjanic and Pegi Vail

This is part of the NYU Culture & Media series.

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

NYU Culture & Media Series

Fri, 1 Feb 2019 15:02:00 GMT

NYU Culture & Media Series
Buy Now: $545.00

The NYU Culture & Media series is a new collection showcasing ethnographic documentaries from the Program in Culture & Media (C&M) at New York University. C&M is a specialized course of study leading to a New York State certificate in Culture and Media for NYU graduate students who are also pursuing their Ph.D. degrees in the Departments of Anthropology, Cinema Studies, and Comparative Literature.

The program integrates production with theory and research stressing a decolonial approach in exploring the relationships between culture and media in a number of domains: ethnographic film’s significance for the fields of anthropology and cinema/media studies; the representation of cultures through media; the development of media in Indigenous, Diaspora, and non-Western communities; the emerging social and cultural formations shaped by new media practices; the political economy shaping the production, distribution and consumption of media worldwide; and the impact of new media technologies on these processes.

The documentary shorts in these collections were produced, directed, and shot by students in the yearlong Documentary Production Lab. Rather than focus on a single filmmaking style, students are exposed to a wide variety of ethnographic and documentary filmmaking methodologies in order to determine the best fit for their story. Each of the compilations, includes films representing an array of filmmaking approaches and diverse subject areas, selected for their usefulness in anthropology and film classes, as well as documentary production courses.

The NYU Culture & Media series

Volume 1 - Stories from the Archive: History, Representation, and Identity

Volume 2 - Point of View: First Person to Observational

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

901/904

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 09:18:00 GMT

901/904
Buy Now: $320.00

In this film we accompany patrol cars 901 and 904 as they ply the streets of Pittsburgh. The diversity of situations to which the policemen are called upon to respond are striking: from a man who is furious because he can not get his twenty dollar deposit refunded on an exhaust system that does not fit his car, to an elderly white man who says he wants to shoot the black teenagers playing handball on his house wall, to a group of white teenage youths loitering in the street on a sultry summer day.

Scenes from short films such as Henry is Drunk and A Forty Dollar Misunderstanding are intercut with other material, including footage in the police station where the men talk about their experiences.The striking element in many of the scenes is the level of frustration, anger, and at times a feeling of impending violence. This is true of the policemen themselves (from "I'm not talking nice no more" to some brutal beatings), as well of the people of the city, who speak of guns and fear.

As Laura Nader points out in the film Little Injustices, the typical American ignorance of, and lack of access to, the law so often leads not to the resolution of but to the escalation of conflict. As one irritated man exclaims to the officer who seems to dismiss his complaint as though he were just a cantankerous old pest, "That's where I'd like to know the definition of breaking the law!"Viewing this film, we also understand the exhaustion that police work often entails, for the policemen often have no real solutions themselves. It is clear why policemen are so often the victims of public rage, and why they in turn may vent their own frustrations on the public.

Films in the Pittsburgh Police series

901/904

After the Game

A Forty Dollar Misunderstanding

The 4th and 5th and the Exclusionary Rule

Henry is Drunk

The Informant

Inside/Outside Station Nine

Investigation of a Hit and Run w/ Legal Discussion

Manifold Controversy

Nothing Hurt But My Pride

Three Domestics

Twenty One Dollars or Twenty One Days

Youth and the Man of Property

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

Netsilik Series

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

Netsilik Series
Buy Now: $2,995.00

A series of 9 films in 21 half-hour parts. These films examine the traditional lifestyle of Netsilingmiut living in the area of Kugaaruk before the European acculturation.

The Netsilik of the Pelly Bay region in the Canadian Arctic had long lived apart from other people and had depended entirely on the land and their own ingenuity to sustain life through the rigors of the Arctic year.

The filming was done during the summers of 1963 and 1964 and in the late winter of 1965 under the ethnographic direction of Dr. Asen Balikci of the University of Montréal, assisted by Guy Mary-Rousseliere, O.M.I., both anthropologists of wide Arctic experience. Quentin Brown was Producer-Director, and Kevin Smith the Executive Producer for the series. A minimum of cultural reconstruction was required during the filming; the Netsilik families readily agreed to live in the old way once more and showed considerable aptitude in recalling and representing the earlier ways of life.

All videos are in color, with the natural sounds of the region and of the activities depicted, but with no voice other than those of the people on screen. The films were originally released in 1967. The effect of this film series is that of a field trip where students can observe traditional ways at their leisure and form their own impressions. The pace is unhurried; many of the activities are shown in close detail.

The films are useful for courses in economic anthropology, development of technology and North American aboriginal cultures, in general studies of the circumpolar culture area, as well as for high school and upper elementary grades.

Films in the Netsilik series

At The Autumn River Camp
At The Caribou Crossing Place
At The Spring Sea Ice Camp
At The Winter Sea Ice Camp

Building a Kayak

Fishing at the Stone Weir

Group Hunting on the Spring Ice

Jigging for Lake Trout

Stalking Seal on the Spring Ice

Note on Term "Eskimo":

The films in this series make use of the name "Eskimo." While once broadly applied, it is a perjorative term and considered offensive. While the inception of the word is a matter of debate, it is no longer used or applied in our film catalog. The context in which the term appears in this series is an acknowledged relic of a colonial past, presented in its original version. DER apologizes for any offense caused.

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman
Buy Now: $320.00

Digitally Remastered DVD Edition

This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period.

"Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the season changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer.

As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai.

Part of the !Kung Series.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Cine Golden Eagle Award
Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival

Grand Prize, Cinéma du Réel, Paris

Gold Medal, International Film and Television Festival of New York

Grand Prize, News Coverage Festival, Luchon, France

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.

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

N/um Tchai

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

N/um Tchai
Buy Now: $545.00

Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn. In this film, women sit on the ground, clapping and singing and occasionally dancing a round or two, while men circle around them, singing and stamping rhythms with their feet.

The songs are wordless but named: "rain," "sun," "honey," "giraffe," and other "strong things." The strength of the songs is their n/um, or medicine, thought to be a gift from the great god. N/um is also in the fire, and even more so in the "owners of medicine," or healers. Most Ju/'hoan men would practice as healers at some point in their lives, and in this film we see several men in various stages of trance. A light trance gradually deepens, as the medicine grows "hot," and eventually some men will shriek and run about, falling on hot coals, entering the state Ju/'hoansi call "half-death."

The film opens with a brief introduction to the role of n/um tchai in healing and in warding off evil, followed by scenes from one all-night dance. The dance begins with a social gathering and becomes increasingly intense as the night wears on, finally concluding at dawn.

Part of the !Kung Series.

This film is available as part of the !Kung Short Films set. This collection combines fourteen of Marshall's short !Kung films onto two remastered/re-authored DVDs, complete with a full-color booklet containing photos, writings, and additional information about the series.

Disc One:
A Curing Ceremony (bw) (9:00)
Group of Women (6:00)
A Joking Relationship (13:00)
N/um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen (bw) (20:00)
N!owa T'ama: The Melon Tossing Game (15:00)
The Lion Game (5:00)
An Argument About a Marriage (18:00)
Men Bathing (14:00)

Disc Two:
Playing with Scorpions (5:00)
A Rite of Passage (15:00)
Debe's Tantrum (9:00)
The Wasp Nest (13:00)
The Meat Fight (14:00)
Baobab Play (8:00)

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

Naata

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

Naata
Buy Now: $320.00

Friends and activists Bhau Korde and Waqar Khan work with neighborhood peace committees in Dharavi, Mumbai to promote conflict resolution through the collective production and use of visual media. Korde and Khan are both long-time residents of Dharavi and both first-generation migrants to the city.

As Asia's largest slum, with a population of 800,000, Dharavi has often been represented as a breeding ground for filth, vice and poverty, full of immigrants whose right to live in the city is often questioned by vigilante citizens' groups and right-wing politicians. However, Dharavi's long history of immigration has created a creative, productive space which plays an important role in the economy of the city; it is one of the major hubs of the informal sector that produces commodities ranging from food products to leather goods catering to a large export market.

When the deadly riots of 1992-93 tore the city and their community apart, Korde and Khan were moved to act, working to change both the negative perception of Dharavi and erase religious and ethnic divisions. Naata follows these remarkable men as they work on their film, Ekta Sandesh - their work paralleling that of Naata's own filmmakers, another filmmaking pair who are immigrants to their city of Bombay.

Traveling with a projector and a screen, Korde and Khan show the film at their own expense in communities savaged by distrust and prejudice. The two pairs of filmmakers join forces in this documentary to spread their important message even further.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Film South Asia 2003, Kathmandu

River to River Film Festival, Florence, 2003

The First and Last Experimental Film Festival, Sydney, 2003

World Social Forum Film Festival, Mumbai, 2004

Vikalp-Films for Freedom, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi, 2004

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

Naim and Jabar

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

Naim and Jabar
Buy Now: $495.00

The hopes, fears, and aspirations of adolescence are expressed in the close friendship of two Afghan boys. As their acceptance of the filmmakers leads them to express their feelings more and more openly, the film grows rich in fact and themes of universal concern.

Filmed in the Balkh Province, an area inhabited by Tajik and other Central Asian peoples. The town of Aq Kupruk is approximately 320 miles northwest of Kabul. The theme of the film focuses on education and socialization. The film and accompaning instructor notes examine formal and informal learning systems, and how they are changing. Particular attention is paid to the lives of one or two young people in the educational system, to their family and kinship structure, and more broadly to educational policies in the developing world.

Films in the Afghanistan series

About the Faces of Change Collection

Faces of Change is comprised of 25 films that examine five cultures selected for their distinct geographic locations: starting with the China Coast at sea level and moving up to Taiwan, then to Afghanistan, Kenya and finally to the mountains of Bolivia. Each location is examined through five themes: Rural Society, Education, Rural Economy, Women, and Beliefs.

This innovative collection of 16mm films and videos was funded by the National Science Foundation, produced by Norman Miller and directed by some of the finest ethnographic filmmakers of its time.

Visit N to see additional products in this category.

Namekas

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

Namekas
Buy Now: $320.00

On the southern shores of Lake Chambri (Middle Sepik River) live 1500 Pondo-speaking villagers. The Chambris trade fish, mosquito nets and baskets for sago, pottery, and other goods. All elements of the natural world are associated with spirits which have individual personalities and powers, characterized in legend, art, and music. A constant dialog between man and spirits is carried on through various communicative media, including invocations, dreams, and music.

As this film beautifully reveals, there is a wealth of musical tradition in Lake Chambri: carved wooden drums whose lively vibrations are said to shake loose ripened fruits for harvest; pairs of sacred bamboo flutes used in boys' initiations and concealed from women; orchestras of flutes identified with dogs or turkeys; flutes captured in warfare used with dance masks to invoke fish; and the panpipe with its melodies of mourning.

Visit N to see additional products in this category.