Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:35:56 GMT

Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold
Buy Now: $320.00

Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold: Transformation is the first in a series of experimental ethnographic films that draw from Richard K. Wolf’s research with the Kota people of South India over the past 35 years. The series title alludes to the dual orientation in Kota ritual and everyday life toward death and divinity: dried millet plays a central role in multi-day secondary mortuary ceremonies, while gold-colored offerings are pasted in the shape of a face on the ancient pillars of Kota temples. As an indigenous community with a population of fewer than 2,500, the Kotas have, in their own telling, weathered periods of enormous loss—death through disease, the trauma of forced migration, and disruptions in transmission of traditional knowledge. The Kotas recognize their own long, fragile history. Indeed, the roots of the Kota language predate the separation of the Tamil and Malayalam languages more than 2,000 years ago. Today, as modern Indians, the Kotas are largely a village-based, peasant society, though their members also include professionals and workers in major Indian cities.

This first film is presented as a time capsule, addressed to Kota people 100 years in the future and narrated in Kota by Wolf’s Kota collaborator Duryodana, whose narration connects the on-screen action to both himself and to Wolf. The Kotas have long been known in the ethnographic record for their roles as craftspeople and musicians serving other communities in the Nilgiri Hills. Wolf’s research, however, has focused on the more elaborate artistic and ritual activity by and for members of the Kota community themselves.

The film thematizes music and the transformation of materials, bodies, and spiritual entities, moving from making pottery and musical instruments to their use in multiday mortuary ceremonies. Incorporating Wolf’s own footage in multiple formats transferred to film, as well as anthropologist David G. Mandelbaum’s archival movie footage and cylinder recordings from 1938, the film provides striking impressions of village life over time, viewed from the perspectives of researchers and the Kotas themselves.

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Two Poets and a River

Thu, 9 Mar 2023 13:37:42 GMT

Two Poets and a River
Buy Now: $320.00

Using the Oxus river as a topos, this film explores themes of love and loss through the lives and musical poetry of the two most prominent and innovative Wakhi musicians in Central and South Asia, Qurbonsho in Tajikistan and Daulatsho in Afghanistan. In the 19th century their Wakhan homeland became a buffer zone between Czarist Russia and the British Empire and the river Oxus became a border. The condition of being separated by a river grounds the poets’ discussions of love and loss in their own lives as well as in their musical arts. Richard Wolf shot the film over 2.5 years (2012-2020).

The Deluxe Edition 2-disc set includes a Blu-ray featuring the 75-min festival cut and 124-min director’s cut, a CD soundtrack of music in Wakhi, Tajik, Persian, and Dari languages, and an accompanying booklet with songtexts and translations.

Selected Screenings & Awards

Martello Award, Cinque Ports International Film Festival, France and England, 2023

Middle Eastern Studies Association Film Festival, Montreal, 2023

Association for Asian Studies Film Expo, USA, 2023

RAI Film Festival, Bristol, UK, 2023

ICTM Prize for Best Documentary Film or Video, Int'l Council for Traditional Music, Portugal, 2022

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

Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival, UK, 2022

Madrid International Film Festival, Spain, 2022

International Multicultural Film Festival, Australia, 2022

Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum, University of London, UK, 2022

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, USA, 2022

Department of Film and Television, National College of Arts, Pakistan, 2022

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Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Wolf, Richard / All Films

Pots of Millet, Faces of Gold

Two Poets and a River