Days after

In Isère, in the mountainous region of Trièves, is the Tournesol farm, an experiential farm totally autonomous in energy, a veritable laboratory for renewable energies. Jean-Philippe and his family live there from sheep farming and organic market gardening. But in September 2017, a violent fire destroyed the farm and its facilities. While the family has lost everything, a surge of solidarity is taking place so that the Tournesol farm is reborn from its ashes.

2020-01-01 | fr

A Wife Among Wives

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.

1981-01-01 | en

Circumcision

Rites and operation of the circumcision of thirty Songhai children on the Niger. Material of this film has been used to make "Les Fils de l'Eau".

1949-01-01 | en

Expedition Niger: Real Africa

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world and is also plagued by numerous terrorist organizations that repeatedly kidnap people. Accompanied by a military convoy, the travel group explores the country and the cultural traditions of two of the last nomadic tribes, the Woodabe and the Tuareg. From the capital Niamey in the southwest, the journey continues through the interior of the country to Iférouane, where the Nigerien tour guide provides information about the country and its people.

2023-11-02 | de

Harlem School 1970

A unique 'direct cinema' feature length documentary (no narration or interviews) originally filmed in the Spring of 1970 and concluded during the Summer of 2017 (footage added, restored, and re-edited). A day in the life of an inner-city Harlem elementary school. In 2018 filmmaker Phil Gries reunited with seven of his former Harlem elementary students whom he hadn't seen in 50 years.

2018-02-01 | en

Color-Blind

A synaesthetic portrait made between French Polynesia and Brittany, Color-blind follows the restless ghost of Gauguin in excavating the colonial legacy of a post-postcolonial present.

2019-08-14 | fr

Mangbetu

An ethnographic documentary about the Mangbetu tribe of the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The film features a discussion of various rites including the Mangbetu practice of head binding, as well as various examples of traditional music and dance.

1954-01-01 | fr

Forest of Bliss

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.

1986-03-12 | xx

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

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.

1993-03-20 | en

Drums from the Past

"Tourou et Bitti", an eight minute documentary concerning a ritual in Niger, is yet another example of Rouch's excellence in creating documentaries which surpass the conventional documentary format. Just as frightening and fascinating as "Les maîtres fous", this one goes straight into the roots of ancient African cultures, in which music has an hypnotic effect, being at the same time an exorcism and a public show. Both the female and the male dancers are almost deities about to be unleashed... Spectral and humanitarian.

1971-01-01 | fr

Hombres de barro

A group of filmmakers travel to a Kolla community in Salta to film their folkways. We see all aspects of their life: farming, herding, cooking, football, and making music during a Pachamama festival. In the course of filming, the leader of the Kolla community changes the filmmakers' view of what the documentary should be, and at the end of their visit they are changed. "La vida se puede ir amasando, como el barro": As life goes along, it becomes more pliant, like clay. An announcement at the beginning of the film states that this is neither fiction nor documentary, but I'd say it's closer to documentary.

1988-11-17 | en

The Bounty Hunter of Mongolia

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.

2021-10-30 | fr

Savage Memory

Founding father of Anthropology, Bronislaw Malinowski's work raises powerful and disturbing questions today. This is a look at his legacy and the imprints it has made on the generations that followed.

2011-11-01 | en

Atilogivu: The Story of a Wrestling Match

While no wrestling is actually depicted, Atilogivu: The Story of a Wrestling Match documents gymnastic dancing to drum and flute music of the Ibu people, east of the River Niger.

1982-01-01 | en

Attiuk

The people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, are seen but not heard in this richly detailed documentary about the rituals surrounding an Innu caribou hunt. Released in 1960, it’s one of 13 titles in Au Pays de Neufve-France, a series of poetic documentary shorts about life along the St. Lawrence River. Off-camera narration, written by Pierre Perrault, frames the Innu participants through an ethnographic lens. Co-directed by René Bonnière and Perrault, a founding figure of Quebec’s direct cinema movement.

1963-07-19 | fr

Im Reich Des Squatters

2020-04-20 | de

Pylon

A young woman achieves cone consciousness.

| en

Amin

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.

2010-10-23 | en

Niger Festivals: December 1961 - Niger Independence Days

Commemorative celebrations of the independence of the Republic of Niger filmed in December 1961 and 1962.

1962-01-01 | en

Moana

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."

1926-01-07 | en