Melodies of the mountains

Kwaheri: Vanishing Africa

1964 · ★ 5.5

Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.

Choqela: Only Interpretation

1987

This provocative and profound film documents the Choqela ceremony, an agricultural ritual and song of the Aymara Indians of Peru. By offering several different translations of the proceedings, the film acknowledges the problems of interpretation as an inherent dilemma of anthropology.

In the Frozen Tomb of Mongolia

2014 · ★ 5.7

No synopsis available.

Under the Black Masks

1939

This ethnographic short portrays a ritual using masks among the Dogon people of Mali.

Naked Spaces: Living Is Round

1985 · ★ 6.2

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.

Cowboy and Maria in Town

1991

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.

One wife, two wives. Dagestani Stories

2011 · ★ 10

About 30 ethnic groups live in the Republic of Dagestan, each with its own language and customs. The prevalence of the Muslim way of life is a distinctive feature of this republic. The number of men taking second and third wives has increased. However, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a man can only be married to one wife. So, being both a law-abiding citizen and a model Muslim is not yet possible.

Wild Honey

No synopsis available.

Salam Aleikum, Ingush people!

1993

Documentary film about ethnic cleansing in the Prigorodny district in October-November 1992.

Violets Blossom in the Caucasus

2010 · ★ 8

A film about the Doukhobor community that has lived in the village of Gorelovka in the Republic of Georgia since the 19th century. The few Russians who remained there live in their own closed world of rituals, prayers, and psalms.

Circumcision

1949 · ★ 4.8

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".

Mountain Town

2006

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