Marked

Archipelago

December 2017 •Italian

Men and women in the Horn of Africa and adjiacent regions of the Middle East tell stories of their relationships and contacts with demons and spirits in their life and culture.

African Spirit

September 2009 •English

A celebration of the diversity of Ethiopia's culture and wildlife. It journeys from North to South - spanning mountains, rainforests and the hottest place on Earth. It documents Muslims mixing with Christians as they have for over a millennia and the 'honey people' of the forest, filmed here for the first time. Visually stunning and unsentimental, this is Ethiopia as you've never seen it before.

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

September 2005 •English

The film discusses the traits and originators of some of metal's many subgenres, including the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, power metal, Nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, black metal, and death metal. Dunn uses a family-tree-type flowchart to document some of the most popular metal subgenres. The film also explores various aspects of heavy metal culture.

American Hardcore

September 2006 •English

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.

Etched in Bone

October 2018 •English

Drawing on original footage from National Geographic, Etched in Bone explores the impact of one notorious bone theft by a member of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. Hundred of bones were stolen and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, until it became known to Arnhem elders in the late 1990s. The return of the sacred artefacts was called for, resulting in a tense standoff between indigenous tribespeople and the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian.

Cine de Emboscada

June 2017 •Spanish

Global Metal

June 2008 •English

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.

TBIHA

January 2011 •English

A short film on Gnawa trance shot in south Morocco.

Burden of Dreams

October 1982 •English

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

Bamboo Theatre

September 2019 •

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

Statues Also Die

May 1953 •French

Short documentary commissioned by the magazine Présence Africaine. From the question "Why is the African in the anthropology museum while Greek or Egyptian art are in the Louvre?", the directors expose and criticize the lack of consideration for African art. The film was censored in France for eight years because of its anti-colonial perspective.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years

June 1988 •English

An exploration of the heavy metal scene in Los Angeles, with particular emphasis on glam metal. It features concert footage and interviews of legendary heavy metal and hard rock bands and artists such as Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Megadeth, Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne and W.A.S.P..

The Alaska-Siberian Expedition

May 1912 •English

Captain Kleinschmidt leads an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Museum to the arctic regions of Alaska and Siberia to study the natives and the animal life.

The Life and Times of Sara Baartman

September 1998 •English

In 1810, 20 year old Sara Baartman got on a boat from Cape Town to London, unaware that she would never see her home again, or that she would become the icon of racial inferiority and black female sexuality for the next 100 years. Four years later, she became the object of scientific research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about BFS. She died the next year, but even after her death, Sara remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were preserved and displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985. Using historical drawings, cartoons, legal documents, and interviews with noted cultural historians and anthropologists, this documentary deconstructs the social, political, scientific, and philosophical assumptions that transformed one young woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority.

Unearthed - The Mystery of the Shaman Woman

June 2024 •German

One of the most significant cases in European archaeology is the grave of the shaman woman of Bad Dürrenberg, a key finding of the last hunter-gatherer groups. From a time when there were no written records, this site was first researched by the Nazis, who saw a physically strong male warrior from an ‘original Aryan race’ in the buried person. It was, in fact, the most powerful woman of her time. The latest research shows that she was dark-skinned, had physical deformities, and was a spiritual leader. The documentary – using high-end CGI and motion capture – compares the researchers of the Nazi era, who misrepresented and instrumentalised their findings, to today’s researchers, who meticulously compile findings and evidence, and use cross- disciplinary methods to examine and evaluate them. It also substantiates the theory of the powerful roles women played in prehistoric times. The story of this woman, buried with a baby in her arms, still fascinates us 9,000 years after her death.

O Arco e a Lira

June 2002 •Portuguese

Secrets of the Tribe

January 2010 •Portuguese

What happens when western anthropologists descend on the Amazon and make one of the last unacculturated tribes in existence, the Yanomami, the most exhaustively filmed and studied tribe on the planet? Despite their "do no harm" creed and scientific aims, the small army of anthropologists that has studied the Yanomami since the 1960s has wreaked havoc among the tribe – and sparked a war within the anthropology community itself.

Mankind From Space

May 2015 •English

Mankind from Space is an epic journey of discovery. Using mind-boggling data and CGI, it traces humankind’s story from hunter-gatherer to dominant global species. Seen from the global perspective of space, this special shows the breath-taking extent of our influence, revealing how we’ve transformed our planet and produced an interconnected world of extraordinary complexity.

Asante Market Women

January 1982 •English

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.

Hitler's Evil Science

May 2019 •French

In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scientific community supported Nazism, distorted history to legitimize a hideous system and was an accomplice to its unspeakable crimes. The story of the Ahnenerbe, a sinister organization created to rewrite the obscure origins of a nation.