Germaine Dierterlen talks about Dogon mythology at a conference on the Bandiagara cliffs. The Songo canopy is a sacred site in Bandiagara. Its walls are covered with paintings depicting the different phases of creation. A little further on, in a cave near the village of Bongo, symposium participants are discussing the Tellem, the people who lived in the houses built into the cliffs before the arrival of the Dogon. The archaeological remains and migratory movements of these two peoples are discussed.
Robert J. Flaherty's South Seas follow-up to Nanook of the North is a Gauguin idyll moved by "pride of beauty... pride of strength."
AMIN portrays Qashqai musician Amin Aghaie, a young modern nomad and his family who despite facing steep financial, cultural and political obstacles are dedicated to their art and culture. Amin travels to remote towns and villages to record the music of the surviving masters whose numbers decline each year. His nomadic family are selling their meager belongings to help support their son's education in performance and ethnomusicology at Tchaikovsky's Conservatory in Kyiv, Ukraine, but it is not enough. Amin, desperate to finish his academic education, sells his violins one at a time just to pay for his tuition.
Remember the culture clash in THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY? This time it's real. One of the most ancient cultures on our planet is undergoing a major change. The Ju/Hoansi Bushmen in Namibia are not allowed to hunt anymore and need to converge with our so called “civilized” lifestyle. For the first time the Ju/Hoansi Bushmen travel through the Kalahari and then right into the heart of Europe. What starts as a look at their fascinating culture becomes an even more fascinating look at our Western lifestyle. A warm and humorous reflection of our habits through the eyes of people who are about to give up their million year old traditions.
In the Darhat valley in northern Mongolia, the horses of nomadic tribes are stolen by bandits who then sell them to Russian slaughterhouses. Shukhert, a brave horseman, relentlessly pursues them through the Mongolian taiga, bordering Siberia.
The story of a poor girl who leaves her starving family and sheep for a more prosperous village. Her grandfather finds her and tries to convince her to return to her home.
A ritual vase, the hampi, is placed in the center of the Musée de plein air de la République du Niger in Niamey, during a ritual ceremony featuring possession dances. With this film, Jean Rouch continues his ethnological and cinematographic study of Songhay ritual objects. He demonstrates that, in a particular context, the transfer of a hampi vase to a museum requires the organization of a ritual ceremony to obtain the gods' approval. At the time, however, reservations about filming a possession dance for the opening of a shrine in a museum made the move "questionable from a museological point of view".
In Sangha, through the window of her house, Germaine greets Djamgouno, her main informant. He then translates for her a conversation she has with a half-blind old man. She recounts her memories of a past party at which Amadigné worked with her as an informant. Later, in front of the cliff, Germaine, Djamgouno and Pangalé are sitting on rocks, and Germaine talks about the many caves that can be visited by climbing small spelunking ladders. Rouch intervenes during the interview, asking the protagonists about the settlement of the cliff by the Dogon, who learned from the Tellem how to climb the cliff. Rouch then asks about the Tellem's predecessors who lived there 2,400 years ago. Germaine admits the ignorance of researchers on the subject, and Rouch concludes by joking about the new task that now falls to Germaine Dieterlen.
An ethnographic film that tells the story of the mask makers and dancers during the festival of the Virgen del Carmen in Paukartambo, Cuzco. The dancers reinterpret their history and socio-political forces that drive them to perform their rituals of magic and resistance. The 18 dance troupes reenact and satirize the different ethnic groups that passed through Paukartambo since the beginning of time. They connect and tell a story of the past, the present, and the future wearing hand-made colorful masks and intricate beaded costumes.
In front of Jean Rouch's camera, Germaine Dieterlen recalls her ethnographic itinerary, at the Musée de l'Homme, in Mali and in the Paris of the 1930s.
The title of this film translates literally as 'to put on a hori,' a hori being the Songhay term for ceremony of festival. Here it is used to refer to a ganandi, literally 'to make dance' This film concerns two women whom the zima [priest] had diagnosed some months before as being ill through possession by spirits. In the meantime, their families have gathered together the resources to pay for the musicians, dancers, and the priest himself to put on an initiation dance lasting seven days This is a film of documentation, simply recording various moments in the progress of the ceremony, without any form of explanation, neither in intertitle cards nor in voice-over. (Paul Henley, The Adventure of the Real)
David and Judith MacDougall are exploring the marriage rituals and roles of Turkana women in this ethnographic documentary. The film's biggest part is taken up by talks between the Turkana people. As one of the first ethnographic documentaries "A Wife Among Wives" subtitles these talks so that the viewer can get a better and probably more personal understanding of the life of the Turkana.
This intimate ethnographic study of Voudoun dances and rituals was shot by Maya Deren during her years in Haiti (1947-1951); she never edited the footage, so this “finished” version was made by Teiji Ito and Cherel Ito after Deren’s death.
Biopic of Ceferino Namuncurá (1886-1905), son of a Mapuche cacique and a white woman, and the first Indian of South America to be beatified. The film starts out as a war movie, showing his father Manuel battling the Spanish and taking a white woman as his captive bride. But little of interest happens after Ceferino is born. His beatification relies partly on his "miraculous" survival after falling in a stream as a baby, but the film does not present this with any great drama, and plods through the rest of the boy's life with similar tepor. Ceferino does well in school, attracts the interest of a priest, attends a Catholic school in Buenos Aires, and studies for the priesthood in Italy, where he dies of tuberculosis after a few unconvincing coughs.
This documentary started as part of a photography project about the indigenous Ainu population in northern Japan, portraying people from tightly knit communities. They feel deeply connected by their culture and tradition. With gorgeous pictures, the directors explore how different generations of Ainu reflect on their identity after centuries of oppression.
Lightning struck the hut of a Fulani shepherd near a village of settled fishermen, Ganghel, in Niger. A yenendi, a purification ceremony to obtain "water from the sky but not fire from the sky", is organized, with Sorko priests, ritual musicians and dancers, and the faithful from Niamey. The musicians call on Dongo, god of storms, and his brother Kirey, god of lightning. To the rhythm of the orchestra, a man goes into a trance, becoming Dongo's horse and at the same time the riding genie. Then a woman is possessed by Kirey. When the riding gods have mastered their horses, the gods visit the men. Dongo purifies the lightning-struck land and the oldest fisherman prepares the purification vessel, addressing Dongo.
In Cerro Bayo, a mountainous region of Patagonia on the Chilean border, a Kolla Indian falls in love with a girl from another village. His mother disapproves the relationship and hates the woman. When the girl becomes pregnant with his baby, he must travel to find better work, leaving her alone with the mother's wrath.
The young goat herders from the cliff of Bandiagara practice on the stone drums of their ancestors. An ethnomusicological film experiment describing the subtle plays of the right and left hand of Dogon drummers.
Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares, India's most holy city. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next without commentary, subtitles or dialogue. It is an attempt to give the viewer a wholly authentic, though greatly magnified and concentrated, sense of participation in the experiences examined by the film.