Kusum is an ordinary, 14-year-old Indian girl. She lives in Delhi, India, where she goes to school and wonders about her future—until she falls ill. She stops eating, isolates herself and suffers raving fits. ”Evil spirits have attacked the family,” says Bhagat, an old healer. Kusum’s family initially tries Western medicine, but then opts for traditional Indian spiritual healing. It…
The Mosuo region lies in the mountainous Yunnan Province of China. The Mosuo people continue their practice of matriarchy and have big families. Traditionally, the people don’t have a marriage ceremony. If a man and a woman fall in love, they could just “tisese” that means being together without cohabitation. They don’t start a nuclear family, but stay with the…
In 1999, the construction for the laying of the first optical fibre cable in South east Asia is now crossing Cambodia from the Thai border to the frontier with Vietnam. The cable is to link up with another running from Europe along Silk Road. The worksite provides employment opportunities for many Cambodians. Peasants with no land, demobilized solders and families…
“I think that he is full and I am empty”.
Vassil and his friend Nikola are Slavic Macedonians born in Greece. In 1948 they were both little children when they were taken from their village and raised in an orphanage in Romania. Twenty eight thousand Greek and Slavic Macedonian children were taken from Greece by the Democratic Army, without their…
Join the enthusiastic converts to a new alternative trend that recognizes and embraces the healing powers of laughter. People from all works of life are engaging in spontaneous, uninhibited laughter as a means of reducing stress and warding off depression. While the movement’s founders claim that their practices derive from the venerable art of yoga, India’s laughing club reflect an…
The film shows life and work on two farms in Zeeland, a province in the Netherlands. Here, a few farmers, for different reasons, have chosen to keep on working with cart-horses of the Belgian ‘Underbred’-race. These huge and heavy horses, with their calm and friendly character were traditionally used in this region because of the heavy clay. Nowadays, all farmers,…
There are many local Mani associations that are mainly composed of the elders in Tibetan rural areas. It’s a very important daily routine for them to recite Mani scripture (om mani ped me hom). The Tibetan people believe in the life cycle and that evil deeds will cause suffering. They have to do good things and recite the Mani all…
“There is nothing so strange in a strange land as the stranger who comes to visit it.”
When tourists journey to the furthermost reaches of the Sepik River, is it the indigenous tribes people or the white visitors who are the cultural oddity? This film explores the differences (and the surprising similarities) that emerge when “civilized” and “primitive” people meet.…
Soon after dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American military began looking for an “appropriate” place to test its nuclear weapons. They chose the Marshall Islands—tiny atolls in the mid-Pacific-for a number of reasons. The United States had recently taken these islands from Japan, they were a long way from America and they were populated by a…
A performance of the kris dance, a Balinese ceremonial dance drama in which the never-ending struggle between the witch and the dragon—the death-dealing and the life-protecting—as it is given in the village of Pagoetan from 1937-39. The dancers go into violent trance seizures and turn their kris (dagger) against their breats without injury. Consciousness is restored with incense and holy…
Presents a series of scenes in which children of the same age in Bali and New Guinea respond to the mother’s attending another baby, the ear piercing of a younger sibling, and the experimental presentation of a doll. The Balinese mother handles sibling rivalry by theatrical teasing of her own child through conspicuous attention to other babies. The Iatmul mother…
A series of scenes in the life of a Balinese child, It begins with a seventh-month birthday ceremonial, showing Kaba’s relationships to his parents, aunts, and uncles, including the child’s nurse, and other children, as he is suckled, taught to walk and dance, and teased and titillated. The film illustrates that a Balinese child’s responsiveness is muted if the parents…
A performance of the kris dance, a Balinese ceremonial dance drama in which the never-ending struggle between the witch and the dragon – the death-dealing and the life-protecting – as it is given in the village of Pagoetan from 1937-39. The dancers go into violent trance seizures and turn their kris (dagger) against their breats without injury. Consciousness is restored…
Customs of Polynesian natives on a Samoan island, centered on the daily life and on the coming of age ceremony of the young man Moana. It reconstructs Polynesian culture before the coming of Western culture, though iron blades are used. Daily tasks like cooking, fishing, hunting and gathering are most of the picture.Mainly interesting for the material settings. Flaherty treats…
According to the Yami (Tao) people of Orchid Island, evil spirits possess the sick. Because of this belief, the sick are seen as inauspicious, and are avoided. Many sick people become isolated and do not receive any form of medical care. This situation is particularly acute with people suffering chronic illness or among the elderly.
The director of “And Deliver…
This is the story of Ching-Wen and his family.
Building a house on their island for his parents has been Ching-wen’s long time wish. But before he could finish constructing the house, they ran out of money. So now he has to leave his home, Orchid Island (Lanyu) and return to Taiwan to make more money. The film phrases reflection…
The Tao people believe flying fish to be a gift bestowed by the heavens. In February or March when the flying fish arrive near the coast, the Tao tribal groups carries out “flying fish summoning ceremonies” to call the fish back to their shores: “Come on back flying fish. Come back to our bay. When you get here we’ll welcome…
After working for a weather channel for two years, documentary filmmaker Huang Chi-mao picked up a camera himself and faithfully recorded bits and pieces of the Tao peoples’ lives with a camera style very close to the subject.
The sixty-one year old Lin Xin-yu and his wife of the Yeyin tribe are the main subjects in this film. Mr. Lin…
As the film begins, one Orchid Islander says, “I often feel that the more research anthropologists do on this island, the worse the island is harmed…” This work is the visual anthropologist’s recorded answer to this question.
The film director tries to use the camera to explore the disillusionment and frustration of the Tao people. She moves between the islanders…
In Haiti, many poor families are forced to give away their children. The children then go to live and work for other families as unpaid servants. This film follows the children throughout their day as they do all the housework and also interviews them where they speak freely for the first time on camera. The film also interviews the “aunts”…
Saltspring Island: close to a city, but full of magical, almost untouched places. A small town with a Saturday market. And in the middle of the island… trees, lots of trees. When chainsaws begin ripping through the early morning silence of Saltspring, residents confront logging trucks and face the threat of prison terms to stop land developers from logging this…
Elmer Dyrøy lives in Oslo, but when January arrives, he becomes restless. He takes his backpack and travels to the island on the west coast where he grew up－and island without other people, without roads or a wharf. A portrait of a person with a different lifestyle.
The traditional dance that accompany the batuque music of Cape Verde, dominated by frenetic hip movements, has led an uneasy coexisetence with the Christianity brought to the area by missionaries. Condemned by the church for inspiring what it considers sexually provocative behavior, batuque nevertheless lives on. Once forbidden, batuque is increasingly embraced as a valuable symbol of Cape Verdean culture.
Today, the traditional “Lucha Canaria” or Canarian Wrestling is both a modern sport and a significant marker of cultural identity in the Canary Islands of Spain (situated off the coast of Africa). This sport and its relevance for the people’s identity as Canarios and inhabitants of their different islands and regions is shown in this documentary shot on Tenerife, Gran…
In Madagascar, country of oral tradition, the history is told in poetry. And here also, the word is left to the storytellers so that they say the origin and the history of the island and his inhabitants, such as they were transmitted by the tales, the myths and the legends. Images of everyday life, habits family or traditional festivals illustrate…
A Potrait of Ibrahim Kadir, one of Gayo old “Ceh” (poets), a person who leads and acts as the lead singer of didong (one of Gayo People Oral Traditions). This oral tradition is a combination of literature, music, and dance. The documentary focus on Ibrahim daily lives, singing his ballads, dancing, and performing/commenting didong competition in his beautiful Linge Homeland…
Joe Leahy is the half-caste son of one of the first explorers of the Papua New Guinea highland interior. His relations with the local Ganiga tribe who work his coffee plantation on their land are difficult at times. However he has successfully managed to get them to agree to open a second plantation in partnership with him. Things are looking…
Paradise Bent is one of the world’s first studies of the Samoan fa’afafines: boys who are raised as girls and play an important domestic role in Samoan culture. The anthropological spotlight has shone on Samoa many times this century. But there has been no mention of fa’afafines－is it possible the anthropologists just didn’t notice them? According to the Samoans, fa’afafines…
Using the history of Taiwanese puppet theater as his starting point, the director cast his eye over the whole of Taiwan’s modern history, creating a documentary of epic proportions. He explored the different styles of the main schools of glove puppet theater(such as the Huang family of the Wu Chou Puppet Theater).
Shooting for“Theater in the Palm of Your Hand”began…
Qiu-yan lives in Tainan Guantian Village’s Fanzaitian town. Alizu is a spirit of that place. Qiu-yan must watch over of a whole family’s livelihood, while Alizu must protect the whole settlement’s peace and prosperity.
Qiu-yan complains that she was never able to study enough as her marriage was determined by Alizu at the age of eight, and marrying very early…
1+1+363=365
1= The game has finished. The crowd thunders out applause. The young ball players on the field smile, yell in excitement, and run about. Its fall of 1998 in Monterey and the players’ last game.
1= They are met at the airport by all sorts of media, dazzling lights, and a showy welcome parade. People pack the streets…
This film explores the leadership system in lives of chiefs such as Rangalu who was sworn in as the Head of Santiman District, Taiwan, which consists of 10 villages with population of 70,000, most of whom are of indigenous Paiwan. The Paiwan people live in the mountain area of southern Taiwan. Their rich oral traditions and cultural traits are revealed…
Hong Shu-mian was born in Weitou, Fujian Province of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and served in the Red Guard. Lu Shui-tong was born in Kinmen , Fujian Province of the Republic of China in 1937 and served as a naval intelligence officer.
Before coming to Kinmen’s 8/23 Bombing War Victory Memorial, this widow from Xiamen and this…
A warm small town named Tung-Shih where live a crowed of brave people goes very hardly through the disaster of big earthquake on 21st September in 1999.It’s possible to chose or not to remember or forget all about the deep sorrows, disaster details and tears. Hi violin-playing boy! Do you know your music has spread all the ruins of small…