Ethnographic Film Movies

Founding father of Anthropology, Bronislaw Malinowski's work raises powerful and disturbing questions today. This is a look at his legacy and the...

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."

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...

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....

AMIN portrays Qashqai musician Amin Aghaie, a young modern nomad and his family who despite facing steep financial, cultural and political obstacles...

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...

In the Darhat valley in northern Mongolia, the horses of nomadic tribes are stolen by bandits who then sell them to Russian slaughterhouses....

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...

An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the...

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...

Portrays the Nuer, Nilotic herdsmen of the Nile basin. Shows how their daily lives revolve about their cattle, and depicts the psychological bonds...

The Bapst Brothers: Romain, Maurice and Jacques – whom we will also meet in The Gruyere Chronicle (produced in 1990) – are peasants and...

David and Judith MacDougall are exploring the marriage rituals and roles of Turkana women in this ethnographic documentary. The film's biggest part...

An ethnographic documentary about the Mangbetu tribe of the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The film features a discussion...

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...

Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily...

The young goat herders from the cliff of Bandiagara practice on the stone drums of their ancestors. An ethnomusicological film experiment describing...

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...

As retailers, wholesalers, and negotiators, Asante women of Ghana dominate the huge Kumasi Central Market amid the laughter, argument, colour and...