1. Japan in Feast (Japan I Fest)
An actuality film showing a Buddhist festival in Kyoto. The procession includes Buddhist monks, geishas, and others dressed coordinately to the Japanese tradition.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
2. Carving Thy Faith (Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala)
A five-year visual ethnography of traditional yet practical orchestration of Semana Santa in a small town where religious woodcarving is the livelihood. An experiential film on neocolonial Philippines’ interpretation of Saints and Gods through many forms of rituals and iconographies, exposing wood as raw material that undergoes production processes before becoming a spiritual object of devotion. - A sculpture believed to have been imported in town during Spanish colonial conquest, locally known as Mahal na Señor Sepulcro, is celebrating its 500 years. Meanwhile, composed of non-actors, Senakulo re-enacts the sufferings and death of Jesus. As the local community yearly unites to commemorate the Passion of Christ, a laborious journey unfolds following local craftsmen in transforming blocks of wood into a larger than life Jesus crucified on a 12-ft cross.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
3. L'île de Pâques (L'île de Pâques)
The first Easter Island documentary, filmed in 1935 when the Belgian naval ship Mercator came to collect Drs. Henri Lavacherry and Alfred Métraux, who had arrived six months before to carry out archaeological and ethnological work. The film, directed with melodramatic gusto and featuring a full orchestral score by Maurice Jaubert , shows islanders, the monuments, and a public dance. A theme of decay and decadence characterizes the film, the motif portrayed gruesomely by extensive close-ups of the inhabitants of the leper colony there at the time. The film suited a romantic image of a mysterious lost civilization, the survivors eking out a pitiful existence on a barren rock.
4. Divoké kmeny Etiopie (Divoké kmeny Etiopie)
(Divoké kmeny Etiopie)
5. Ether Reveries (Suite for Thérèse Rivière no.2)
Drawing together footage, photographs and texts from archival sources as well as the artist’s personal collection of materials, Yto Barrada’s new film is as much a poetic enigma as it is a portrait of identity. Ether Reveries takes as its starting point the work and life of Thérèse Rivière , a French anthropologist whose remarkable working life was cut short following her confinement in psychiatric institutions.
6. Umoja - Wo nur Frauen das Sagen haben (Umoja - Wo nur Frauen das Sagen haben)
(Umoja - Wo nur Frauen das Sagen haben)
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
7. Danse d'hommes
African men dance, sing and play instruments.
It has an average vote of 4.3 on TMDB.
8. Ibogaine: Rite of Passage
Ibogaine is a plant extract that stops drug addiction. In this documentary, a 34-year-old heroin addict undergoes ibogaine therapy with Dr Martin Polanco at the Ibogaine Association, a clinic in Rosarito, Mexico. In Gabon, where use of the iboga root is traditional, a Babongo woman's tribe uses the plant to help her recover from a depressive malaise. Director Benjamin De Loenen interviews people formerly addicted to heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, who share their perspectives about ibogaine treatment.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
9. Monday's Girls
"Monday's Girls" explores the conflict between modern individualism and traditional communities in today's Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from the Niger delta. Although both come from leading families in the same large island town, Florence looks at the iria women's initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe, who has lived in the city for ten years, sees it as an indignity.
10. Kwaheri
Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.
It has an average vote of 5.1 on TMDB.
11. The Hunters
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
It has an average vote of 6.083 on TMDB.
12. Naked Spaces: Living Is Round
Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries . 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.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
13. A Wealth of Nations
Experimental ethnographic digital feature exploring International student and teacher identity expressed through musical performance at the University of Jinan, Shandong, China.
14. Shepherds of the Earth
The region of Lake Turkana, located in Kenya and Ethiopia, is considered to be “the Cradle of Humankind”. Among other finds, primate fossils from millions of years ago have been discovered in the region. But what about the region’s modern inhabitants and their relationship to their environment? Iiris Härmä, whose previous work includes the award-winning Leaving Africa, had the chance of joining Helsinki University’s researchers, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares and Mar Cabeza, on their pre-pandemic trip to study the Daasanach people’s relationship to their environment through traditional animal tales. The researchers hope that storytelling would help to bridge the gap between people’s everyday lives and conservation efforts.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
15. Choqela: Only Interpretation
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.
16. Asante Market Women
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.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
17. Wolfram, a Saliva do Lobo (Wolfram, a Saliva do Lobo)
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.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
18. Folia no Morro
An ethnographic documentary following the Folia de Reis party that is celebrated every year at Morro de Santa Marta on Rio de Janeiro.
19. Congo
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
It has an average vote of 5.8 on TMDB.
20. Himalayan Herders
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.