Nkumi, la vie quotidienne

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 explain the complexities of the market and its traders. As the film was to be about women traders, an all female film crew was selected and the rapport between the two groups of women is remarkable. The relationship was no doubt all the stronger because the anthropologist acting as advisor to the crew, Charlotte Boaitey, is herself an Asante. The people open up for the interviewers telling them about their lives as traders, about differences between men and women, in their perception of their society and also about marriage.

A chronicle of the violence that occurred in much of the African continent throughout the 1960s. As many African countries were transitioning from colonial rule to other forms of government, violent political upheavals were frequent. Revolutions in Zanzibar and Kenya in which thousands were killed are shown, the violence not only political; there is also extensive footage of hunters and poachers slaughtering different types of wild animals.

A short film set in the mountainous province of Svaneti, documents the performance of polyphonic men’s funerary laments common to the region.

This documentary looks at the stories of a few people in Aspen Colorado and how they contribute to the community.

John Bishop and Naomi Bishop present a portrait a peculiar life style of the Himalayan indigenous Sherpa people in their documentary , the Himalayan Herders. The 76 minutes long film is about the diverse culture and life style of herders community near Mt. Everest region of Nepal.The film was made in 1997 as a part of Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology Series.

The darkness of the mine, invaded by the miners' light, by the noisy machines and the permanent and intense smell of ore in the air, leads us to an environment in which time and space become confused. A documentary film at Panasqueiras' Mine, between 2008/09. A reality captured by an eye-observer which does not interfere, but follows the compost that grows from the earth and is decomposed by man-machine.

An ethnographic documentary which looks at the relationship between music and work in predominantly rural cultures. It depicts the lives of fisherman, shepherds and farmers and their relationship with music. The film also describes Basque ancestral instruments, with special emphasis on the origin and history of ‘bertsolarism’ (Basque verse singing) as a form of oral communication.

Exploring individual responses to rapid social change, Cowboy and Maria in town follows the parallel lives of its two central characters. Cowboy and Maria have independently landed in Port Moresby, negotiating ways to survive urban life in a city ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world. Cowboy is an ex-raskol (urban bandit) and Maria an inhabitant of a squatter settlement. Unemployed and with a jail record, Cowboy has constructed an electric guitar out of scrap materials and plays on street corners. Maria lives an equally precarious existence, cultivating a seasonal garden in an urban settlement inflamed by frustration and intertribal conflicts. Far from being third world victims, they go about their daily lives with humour and imagination, rising to the challenge of enormous cultural upheaval.

A man performs the same ritual every day: he cleans his shoes, dresses up in his shiny blue suit, wears his white gloves and grey hat, and spends his time walking around Brazzaville. His presence generates an absurd apparition in the urban chaos of the city, which reflects the imaginary produced by one of the upmost icons of pop culture.

"With characteristic wit and rigor, experimental filmmaker Larry Gottheim here applies his impressionistic editing style to footage collected during his travels in the Dominican Republic. Gottheim’s formal emphasis on repetition and fissures between sound and image resonates here as a mode of sociological reflection (with the fragmentary montage mirroring elements of ritual while also destabilizing the ethnographic gaze). A largely overlooked antecedent to the contemporary blending of avant-garde and ethnographic filmmaking, MACHETTE GILLETTE… MAMA still poses a potent challenge to documentary convention." - Max Goldberg

Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo, Benin and Senegal). The nonlinear structure of NAKED SPACES challenges the traditions of ethnographic filmmaking, while sensuous sights and sounds lead the viewer on a poetic journey to the most inaccessible parts of the African continent: the private interaction of people in their living spaces.