The Blooms of Banjeli

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

The Blooms of Banjeli
Buy Now: $295.00

The Blooms of Banjeli documents research in Banjeli, Togo on iron-smelting technology, its rituals, and the sexual prohibitions surrounding it. Including rare historical footage from the same village in 1914, it provides a unique technological record of the traditional method of preparing a furnace to smelt iron.

For centuries the high-quality iron blooms from Bassari natural draft furnaces had been a key commodity in the West African economy. But the industry declined during the early 20th century, and by the 1920s the smelters had abandoned their furnaces. Now, memory of the old ironmaking practices is fast fading.

In 1985, historians Candice Gaucher and Eugenia Herbert went to the village of Banjeli. An old smelter, who had watched his father and grandfather make iron, allowed filming while he built a new furnace and prepared it to "breathe." He explains the sexual restrictions on the people and their relevance to the preparation of the furnace.

The documentary offers an interesting approach to our understanding of the relationship between conceptions of gender and technology in traditional African society. The people of Banjeli liken the furnace to a woman's body, which is 'impregnated' by the smelter. The process of smelting is compared to that of giving birth, the furnace being the womb and the iron bloom, the newborn.

Visit Togo to see additional products in this category.

Abloni

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 13:30:00 GMT

Abloni
Buy Now: $320.00

You give an old shirt or dress to a charity. Then, you forget all about it. But - without knowing it - you have had a huge impact on people you don't know, people throughout the world; and that impact is not all good. By following the strange, colorful, unpredictable voyage of one second hand shirt, Abloni plunges us into the huge worldwide business of second hand clothes.

In a variety of styles, exploring a vast range of locations, and entering into the lives of a colorful cast of characters, Abloni reveals how the second hand clothes business creates a livelihood for a whole chain of wholesalers and retailers; how it supports charities and recycles waste products in rich countries; how it destroys the textile industries and traditions in poor countries; how it revolutionizes style and fashion in places as far away as a small village in central Togo; how wearing the simplest bit of clothing - like a second hand shirt from Canada - becomes, in an African village, a political, economic, and cultural statement; and how it has led, too, to the birth of a new hybrid African style, creatively mixing western fashions and local textiles and patterns.

As the camera weaves in and out, we follow the shirt as it is picked up, transported to a sorting centre, sorted, bundled, shipped overseas to Lomé, the principal port of Togo, and sold, then sold again, then finally sold to someone who will wear it. In its suspense-filled, picturesque, colorful, intensely human way, Abloni reveals to us an unknown cross section of the economic structure of our contemporary world.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Enviro Prize, The Environment Film Festival, Portneuf, Quebec, Canada, 2005

Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Ithaca, NY, 2009

Broadcasts

TeleQuebec, Canada, 2005

TFO, Canada, 2005

Visit Togo to see additional products in this category.

Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Africa / Togo / All Films

The Blooms of Banjeli

Abloni