Movies: Anthropology

This is the story of Dona Virginia, an elderly woman who awaits the expropriation of her house. Year after year, the government threatens to destroy the place, her past and her memories....

Do animals have feelings? Empathy even? A documentary with some insights due to advancing technology....

Women from three separate Ju/'hoan bands have gathered at a mangetti grove at !O to play an intense game in which under-tones of social and personal tensions become apparent....

The film follows Ongka's struggles to accumulate huge numbers of pigs and other items of value to present at a Moka ceremony to another tribe....

A 2004 documentary on thirty years of alternative rock 'n roll in NYC.Documenting the history from the genuine authenticity of No Wave to the current generation of would be icons and true innovators seeing to represent New York City in the 21st centu...

Sequel to the "The Waterfowl People". The author interprets the kinship, linguistic and cultural relationships of the Finno-Ugric peoples. Finns, Vepsians, Votes, Setos, Erzya-Mordvinians, Mansi, Hungarians, Sami, Nganasans, and Estonians appear in ...

As retailers, wholesalers, and negotiators, Asante women of Ghana dominate the huge Kumasi Central Market amid the laughter, argument, colour and music. The crew of this `Disappearing World' film have jumped into the fray, explored, and tried to expl...

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction....

“The shepherdess” is a short ethnographic film inspired by Joyce, an 80 year old woman who has spent her whole life farming in Eastern Ontario. While this film is largely centred on Joyce’s narrative about her life, it is also about Joyce’s flock of ...

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The Fall of Womenland is a fascinating documentary on the unique sexual culture of the Mosuo people — a small minority situated in the southwest of China — and one of the last remaining matriarchal societies in the world. Without a formal marriage c...

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 nigh...

"Louceiras" portraits the daily life of the last ceramists of the Brazilian indigenous ethnic group Kariri-Xocó, who earn a living from clay. They inherit a tradition passed from mother to daughter concerning the art of choosing, manufacturing and co...

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit....

A three-act film-essay about memory and the historical-cultural ties of the Finno- Ugric peoples. The first chapter is dedicated to ancient Bearese of memory, such as Karelian cliff drawings, Kalevala runo song and Khanty bear feast rituals. the s...

Captain Kleinschmidt leads an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Museum to the arctic regions of Alaska and Siberia to study the natives and the animal life....

Ju/'hoan women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children. In this short film, Ju/'hoan women rest, talk and nurse their babies while lying in the shade of a ba...

“The barbaric negro inhabitants of an African village are shown in their various forms of activity, the first view being a photograph of a number of children of all sizes, shapes and degrees of African beauty. Following this is a match between two gi...

March 2008. The renowned journal ‘Science’ publishes an article confirming that the human bones discovered in 2004 on the island of Flores in Indonesia are indeed those of a new species of man. These tiny men lived there just a few thousand years ago...

Denton, an anthropologist of note, meets by accident a new neighbor, an attractive girl, whose father insists upon her marriage to a man whom he favors because of his wealth. Denton and the girl are mutually attracted and to Denton comes a vague but ...