Ethnographic Film Movies

An autistic documentary filmmaker studies two neurotypicals, trying to understand their shared way of being through objects, language and small...

In the South Seas, Samoan village life is portrayed with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized 'Gauguin idyll', the film...

A young woman achieves cone consciousness.

The story of a poor girl who leaves her starving family and sheep for a more prosperous village. Her grandfather finds her and tries to convince her...

For months filmmaker Thierry Knauff lived with the Cameroonian tribe, the Baka. This is his document of that time.

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

A documentary portrait of life in the Cook Islands, focusing on Rarotonga and neighboring islands. The film records traditional fishing, weaving,...

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...

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

Shigeki, one of the Ainu people of northern Japan, follows the traditions of his ancestors and teaches his son Motoki about their heritage. But how...

A seven-day initiation ceremony is documented in which two women undergo ritual healing following a diagnosis of spirit possession, presented without...

The film follows a group of Nenets women gathering firewood in a snow-covered tundra. This film is part of a larger Yamal Nenets Series, which...

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

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...

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...

Every winter, a small town in Castilla-La Mancha called Luzón transforms into a little hell. Its inhabitants, dressed as devils, venture into...

A young student heads back to his village during the COVID-19 lockdown to collect ethnographic material for his thesis, but as quarantine stretches...

In Isère, in the mountainous region of Trièves, is the Tournesol farm, an experiential farm totally autonomous in energy, a veritable...