Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Gender / Representation / All Films

Sama in the Forest

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:42:00 GMT

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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Deep Hearts

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Deep Hearts
Buy Now: $320.00

Deep Hearts is a film about the Bororo Fulani, a nomadic society located in the central portion of the Niger Republic of Africa. The title is a reference to an important aspect of these people's thought and demeanor. The Bororo are immensely beautiful. They are also extremely envious of each other's looks. This envy accounts for their truly suspicious nature; one which leads quickly to feelings of fear. They are particularly fearful of being 'devoured' by both the eyes and mouths of those around them with whom they compete as beautiful creatures. The concept of a deep heart is useful because it accommodates their fears by providing a metaphysical space in which to hide their true feelings.

Deep Hearts describes the Gerewol, an occasion during the rainy season when two different and competing lineages come together at a designated watering place to choose the most 'perfect' Bororo male. It is close to being a physical and moral beauty contest in which the winner, selected by a maiden of the opposing lineage, is acclaimed the 'bull.' The film is also an attempt to let this ceremony of the Bororo be a way of speaking to the larger question of choice itself, something which confronts all human beings at all times.

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Fashioning Faith

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fashioning Faith
Buy Now: $295.00

When most Americans think of the Islamic veil, the image of Afghan women in blue burkas or the black chador of the Islamic Republic of Iran may come to mind. But what about the Muslim-American woman who easily combines her headscarf with jeans or haute couture gowns?

Fashioning Faith takes a behind the scenes look at the emerging world of Islamic fashion and US-based clothing designers who make it possible. The film interweaves interviews and verité footage from a diverse array of Muslim women with one goal in common – to express their faith through fashion.

Nzinga Knight is a young Brooklynite who has won fashion accolades for her modest evening dresses – a first for the Islamic style market in America. Jenneh Williams has been in the Islamic retail business for decades, recently opening up her own boutique in Queens that caters to the growing number of black converts to Islam. Sabrina Enayatulla is a blogger fashionista with a mission – to change negative stereotypes of Islam through stylish creations. Brooke Samad hopes that her pious clothing collection will hit home with young professional Muslims looking for new alternatives to traditional garb, while the designers of the Eva Khurshid label seek to attract all Americans — regardless of creed — to their stylish clothing by making modesty the new mainstream.

Through these women's stories, Fashioning Faith takes viewers on a colorful exploration of a world where fashion and faith fuse with often surprising results.

“An excellent film for introductory anthropology courses. At one level, Fashioning Faith is a primer on Muslim women in the United States and the fact that they actually freely choose to wear modest clothing. But at a deeper level, for anthropology courses this film offers teachers an opportunity to explore more deeply how gender empowerment does not necessarily equate to encouraging women to compete with men. …Fashioning Faith shows us how gender segregation sanctions women's economic empowerment through means that most Americans would mistakenly consider singularly repressive.”
— Carolyn Rouse, Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. 3 (June 2012), pp. 368-366

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Kamala and Raji

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

Kamala and Raji
Buy Now: $320.00

"If we get rid of the fear in our own lives, we can go anywhere without a care..."

Produced and directed by the makers of Dadi's Family, this film is about Kamala and Raji, two women of the working poor who live in Ahmedabad, capital of the west Indian state of Gujarat. They share a common history since both have moved from a background of deprivation and political impotence to a measure of empowerment as representatives of a grass roots organization called SEWA, the Self Employed Women's Association. Founded in Ahmedabad and now spreading elsewhere in Gujarat, SEWA is an organization of women working independently or at piecework wages on the low rungs of India's occupational ladder.

Kamala, now a full time organizer for SEWA, had formerly worked as a maker of bidis, leaf-wrapped Indian cigarettes. Raji is a SEWA representative who is also a vegetable seller in the central city market. The film links the two women together by considering their family, professional, and political lives and the positive effects of the SEWA connection, but it is the differences between them, communicated through their own language and through the film's composition which generate the film's weight and grace.

The political, and more particularly feminist, content of the film is direct and unsentimental, caught in the comments and reminiscences of the two women, and en masse in a large and joyful SEWA meeting; here, Kamala reports to the crowd on a wage increase she has gained for a group of bidi makers. The contrasting characters of the two women as well as the intimate scenes of their life at home and their relationships with their husbands is also communicated through the subtle positioning of the camera and the film's use of distance, space, and light.

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Of Men And Gods

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

Of Men And Gods
Buy Now: $320.00

A frank look at a largely unexplored area, Of Men And Gods examines the daily existence of several Haitian men who are openly gay.

Prevalent, yet still taboo, homosexuality and gay culture are allowed to flourish within the context of Haiti's Vodou religion. As "children of the gods," the men find an explanation for homosexuality as well as divine protection. They also find an outlet for theatrical expression through exhilarating performances in which they embody the gods.

Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic looms as a continual threat and adds a disquieting degree of nihilism to their relatively optimistic attitudes toward life and happiness in Port-au-Prince.

The filmmaker, Anne Lescot, is an anthropologist who has studied Haitian Vodou for 10 years. Laurence Magloire has been working in the field of television for 10 years.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Parfums Vodou, Forum for Visual Anthropology, Switzerland, 2008

Isidore Award, Collectif HomoEdu & Festival Influences Caraïbes, Paris, 2007

Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Greece, 2005

5th Czech Gay and Lesbian Film Festival MEZIPATRA 2004

Jakarta Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Indonesia, 2004

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On Edge

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

On Edge
Buy Now: $320.00

The film focuses on daily life in a poor housing estate in Porto and, in particular, on a group of children aged between 8 and 14. It follows their life outdoors - always inventing new games. Parents are seldom home and children have space and freedom to create their own rules and games of power, many times copying the models they know from home. Sometimes things get really tough, other times there is a feeling of harmony and melancholy in the neighbourhood.

This is a special summer: people are expecting that the European Football Cup and the possible victory of the Portuguese team will raise the morale of a country in full recession. Kids and adults are hypersensitive, feelings go over the top. TVs are put outdoors and the games of the European cup are followed by children and adults as an almost religious ritual.

Rui, one of the characters, is a 13 year old boy who, unlike all the other kids of his age, doesn't like football and fighting. He prefers to take refuge in a dream like world surrounded by dinosaurs and other animals from the forest.

"The European Football championship in 2004 is the framework for this extraordinary film which is really about the universe of a group of 8-14 year-olds living in a poor neighbourhood of Porto. With a sure touch, the camera sensitively captures a string of episodic pearls in the children's daily lives, which convey much about what is essential to them: friendships, the opposite sex, families and uncertain future. The way the scenes unfold in an artful framing of shots and the close relation to the kids makes it a pleasure to watch." — Ulla Jacobsen, DOX magazine (DOX #62 January 2006)

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

NAFA film Festival Copenhagen, May 2005 (work-in-progress)

Tartu World Film Festival, March 2006

Indie Lisboa International Film Festival, 2006

Gottingen International Film Festival, 2006

1er rencontres internationales cinZma et sport de Montréal, 2006

Doc's Kingdom, International Documentary Seminar, Portugal, 2006

Sixth Festival of Visual Culture, Viscult. Joensuu, Finland 2006

3rd Moscow International Visual Anthropology Festival and Conference, Russia, 2006

Best Film in the International Competition, forumdoc.bh.2006. Belo Horizonte, Brazil

International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia, 2007

European Association of Social Anthropologists' Film, Video & New Media Festival, Slovenia, 2008

Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival, Italy, 2008

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Out of Order

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

Out of Order
Buy Now: $320.00

In Out of Order, six former Catholic nuns tell why they entered and why they left religious life. The women (filmmaker Diane Christian is one of them) describe their years in the convent and their return to the secular world.

The former nuns talk about single life and marriage (three are married, one to a former priest), about the changed place of religion in their lives, about sex roles, about institutional supports and burdens, about work. Three of the women teach - one at a state university, one in an inner city grammar school, one at a suburban high school. One woman is an artist, one an insurance agent, one a private investor. The film shows them at work and at home in New York, Massachusetts, Texas and Maryland.

Out of Order offers unique insight into female socialization and identity in modern America by probing ideals and realities of womanhood, sex, work and service from an unknown and unusual perspective.

Primary funding for Out of Order was provided by a production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The digital restoration was funded by University at Buffalo's Samuel P. Capen Chair in American Culture.

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Play, Jankunú Play

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:58:00 GMT

Play, Jankunú Play
Buy Now: $320.00

The Garifuna are a Central American people of West African and Native American descent. One of their most popular rituals is wanaragua, a three-fold system of masked Christmas processionals commonly called Jankunú. This ritual is a unique blend of African, European, and Native American (Arawak and Carib) art traditions in which social and cultural identities are expressed through music, dance, and costume. As dancers adorn themselves in colorful regalia to mimic past foreign oppressors they symbolically affirm their identity. They perform stylized movements to the accompaniment of drums and social commentary songs composed by men. Descriptions of the three processions and dance styles are interspersed with interviews by Garifuna singers, drummers, dancers, cultural advocates, and scholars on the significance of rituals.

Rare footage of wárini, the now extinct ritual that is the Africanized predecessor to wanaragua, is accompanied by commentary on the significance of the ritual. Examples of wanaragua drumming and dance styles demonstrate how drummers rhythmically interpret the unique movements of each dancer. Translations of song texts show the Garifuna language on screen and reveal themes commonly found in songs. Gender play and role reversal become part of the revelry as Garifuna men mimic European women. Occasionally, Garifuna women, disguised as male wanaragua dancers, join in the festivities. The antics and songs of Charikanari, a ritual featuring stock characters such as the Two-Foot Cow and Devil, are also presented. Images of similar processionals in other locations include photos of Masquerade in St. Kitts-Nevis, Gombey in Bermuda, Jonkonnu in Jamaica, John Kuner (now extinct) in North Carolina, Junkanoo in the Bahamas, and Fancy Dress in Cape Coast, Ghana.

Also included are photographs and footage of wanaragua as performed by Garifuna from Guatemala and Honduras with oral accounts explaining why costumes in these countries differ from those traditionally worn in Belize. Play Jankunú Play places the viewer within the context of the Garifuna world at Christmas where music, dance, and art reflect the past to empower the future.

"Play Jankunú Play is a highly significant accomplishment for the Garifuna people, in their effort to preserve their culture and share their rich heritage with the world. It is an invaluable communication tool that can lead to greater understanding among peoples and a deeper appreciation for cultural diversity.”
— Andy Palacio, Deputy Administrator/Cultural Ambassador, National Institute of Culture and History, Belize

"The documentary film Play Jankunú Play introduces us to a fascinating Garifuna ritual tradition which continues to flourish in Belize, one of the lesser known countries of Central America. Oliver Greene, the film's author, draws upon his extensive fieldwork to bring to life this little known segment of African Diaspora culture. With visual allusions to parallel traditions in Jamaica, the Bahamas, Ghana, and elsewhere, the film offers the viewer a rich tapestry of Garifuna dance, drumming, and song, explicated by revealing commentary. We are provided with insight into the Garifuna people and reflections on the meaning of the arts in human life. Scholarly in depth, the film will appeal to a large audience including those with interest in world dance, world music, and in the African Diaspora.”
— Richard A. Long, Atticus Haygood Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Emeritus, Emory University, Atlanta, GA

“Greene shows us with well-chosen images and narration how Garifuna Jankunú connects with both African masquerades and the broader African-Caribbean Yuletide performance tradition known as Jonkonnu (or John Canoe) - which, according to one scholar, ...could lay good claim to being the most ancient and most enduring non-European cultural form in the Caribbean... This visually striking and culturally sensitive documentary will be welcomed not just by students of the Garinagu and the Central American countries they inhabit, but by all those who are interested in the performance arts of the Black Atlantic.” — Kenneth Bilby, Director of Research, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago, IL

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Annual Carribean Studies Association Conference, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, 2007

Garifuna Community Forum, Bronx, NY, 2007

Annual Conference of the National Garifuna Council, Dangriga, Belize, 2007

Annual Meeting for the Society for Ethnomusicology, Honoulu, HI, 2006

African Studies Association Conference, Rutgers University, NJ, 2007

XVI International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia, 2007

"Ownership and Appropriation," Joint Conference of the ASA, the ASAANZ and the AAS, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 2008

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Poto Mitan

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:58:00 GMT

Poto Mitan
Buy Now: $320.00

Told through the compelling lives of five courageous Haitian women workers, Poto Mitan gives the global economy a human face. Each woman's personal story explains neoliberal globalization, how it is gendered, and how it impacts Haiti. And while Poto Mitan offers in-depth understanding of Haiti, its focus on women's subjugation, worker exploitation, poverty, and resistance makes it clear that these are global struggles.

Marie-Jeanne details her dual struggles as a woman and worker: employed in a garment factory, she toils under miserable conditions to give her children the schooling she was denied because of education's high costs and gender discrimination. Living and braving death in Cité Soleil, Solange spells out how Haiti's current violence stems from a long-brewing economic crisis and the global apparel industry's inherent instability. Frustrated with male-dominated unions, Frisline joined a woman's organization. She offers a gendered and class analysis of Haiti's contemporary situation. Working for thirty years, Thérèse brings a perspective that is historical and comparative. Her ailments also highlight the critical state of public health. Pushed off her land by foreign agricultural policies, Hélène leads a new grassroots campaign against violence, encouraging women to defend themselves. These five brave women demonstrate that despite monumental obstacles in a poor country like Haiti, collective action makes change possible.

Initiated by the women themselves, Poto Mitan aims to inspire solidarity activism to end injustice in the global economy. Our struggles have a common thread. Fighting for justice: for women, workers, or Haiti can't help but bring about our own liberation.

“Now as never before, Poto Mitan is needed in the classroom... Raw but not crude, stark yet not simplistic, this film illustrates how, even prior to the earthquake, global and national factors impact the everyday lives of low-income Haitian women, intensifying their struggle against poverty... The breadth and depth of Poto Mitan make it suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students.”
— Fauzia Erfan Ahmed, Miami University, Teaching Sociology

“A moving and stirring film, showing Haitian women speaking for themselves. A must see.”
— Edwidge Danticat

“For many years now I've been telling people that fanm se poto mitan tout sosyete (women are the central pillars of society). This wonderful film is definitely a testimony of the courage, resilience and determination of Haitian women. Needless to say that I'm very thrilled! I encourage everyone to support this great endeavour!”
— Marleine Bastien, MSW, LCSW, Founder/Executive Director, FANM (Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami)

“Poto Mitan will be a valuable tool. Indeed, the value of the film for advocacy and education results not just from the quality of the story telling but also from the quality of the film itself. People will want to see this film, and be open to demanding change from the policymakers.”
— Quixote Center

“The great strength of this film is in allowing the five women... to speak from their hearts at length, without moralizing from a narrator. The film should be in all university libraries for classroom use. ”
— Contemporary Sociology, May 2010, Vol 39, No 3

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Indie Spec Best Documentary Award, Boston International Film Festival, 2009

Nominated for Social Justice Award, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2009

Social Justice Film Festival, Seattle, WA, 2009

Reel Work Film Festival, CA, 2009

M.A.L.I. Women's Film & Performance Arts Festival, Austin, TX, 2009

New Filmmakers at Anthology Film Archives, New York, 2009

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Swiss Graffiti

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:47:00 GMT

Swiss Graffiti
Buy Now: $275.00

An animated cartoon about the Creation myth reviewed and corrected by two women. God the magician has decided to create a paradise: Switzerland. He covers it with trees and cows, until Adam is born. After exploring his paradise, Adam creates Eve from one of his ribs. Man is shown as an erect penis, woman by a limbless trunk.

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