The Shaman

"Shaman" was filmed on July the 16th, 1977 in the northernmost corner of Eurasia, on the Taymyr Peninsula, at the Avam river, concurrently with the shooting of the documentary "The Winds of the Milky Way". The Nganasan Shaman Demnime (1913-1980) was 64 years old at the time. The documentary about Demnime's incarnation ritual was completed 20 years later. The fifth and final documentary in Lennart Meri's "Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Gentium Fenno - Uricarum" series.

Sons of Haji Omar

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.

JANBAL

From time immemorial, the people of the island used to leave the clothes of their dead to the sea, so that the mother of the sea could turn them into imaginary people. The ignorant Musa finds the gold-embroidered pieces of southern women's trousers among the clothes thrown by the sea on the shore, and with the colorful soils of the island, creates paintings that are his gateway to the fantasy world.

Cracks in the Mask

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign museums. In a quest to reclaim the past, Ephraim Bani, a wise and knowledgeable Torres Strait Islander, travels with his wife to the great museums of Europe where his heritage lies. The film, an SBS Independent production, shows that the thickest of masks cracks when a descendant of the original owners enters a museum.

Comitiva Esperança

Mi Barrios Altos querido

Five stories about dignity in the capital of Peru. A local leader looking for someone to leave the post of her complex work, a tourist guide who is a patron of the architectural heritage and Creole music, an ex-delinquent rescued by the Evangelical Church, a teenage dancer of Afro-Peruvian music forced to emigrate and a muralist of Bellas Artes son of Andean migrants, they try to get ahead in Barrios Altos, the most feared – but also most beloved – historic neighborhood of Lima.

O Arco e a Lira

A Group of Women

Ju/'hoan women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children. In this short film, Ju/'hoan women rest, talk and nurse their babies while lying in the shade of a baobab tree. This film is a good illustration of "collective mothering" in which several women support each other and share the nurturing role.

A Joking Relationship

This film depicts a moment of flirtation between N!ai, the young wife of /Gunda, and her great-uncle /Ti!kay. The two share a "joking relationship," a Ju/'hoan kin relationship which provides opportunities for casual intimacy, emotional release, and support.

Global Metal

In GLOBAL METAL, directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn set out to discover how the West's most maligned musical genre - heavy metal - has impacted the world's cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world's emerging extreme music scenes; from Indonesian death metal to Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal. GLOBAL METAL reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who aren't just absorbing metal from the West - they're transforming it - creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass-consumerism.

Far from the Trees

An unprejudiced portrait of Spanish folklore and a crude analysis in black and white of its intimate relationship with atavism and superstition, with violence and pain, with blood and death; a story of terror, a journey to the most sinister and ancestral Spain; the one that lived far from the most visited tourist destinations, from the economic miracle and unstoppable progress, relentlessly promoted by the Franco regime during the sixties.

American Hardcore

Inspired by Steven Blush's book "American Hardcore: A tribal history" Paul Rachman's feature documentary debut is a chronicle of the underground hardcore punk years from 1979 to 1986. Interviews and rare live footage from artists such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, SS Decontrol and the Dead Kennedys.

Baobab Play

Children and teenagers throw sticks, berries, and leaves at each other from perches in a large baobab tree.

Paralelo 10

It portrays a pioneering and risky work carried out in a small Xinane base, by FUNAI, near Parallel 10º South, west of Acre, on the border with Peru. In simple installations, in the middle of the jungle, the sertanista José Carlos Meirelles carries out the difficult mission of protecting the isolated Indians of the region, with the help of anthropologist Terri Aquino. With few resources, specialists perform their tasks tirelessly. In addition to carrying out a permanent negotiation with the riverside populations in the area, they also deal with the confrontation with traffickers and squatters who try to invade it.

Le compagnon déloyal

The Shaman's Apprentice

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.