Anthropology and Folklife
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The Anthropology and Folklife collection includes the following titles:
The Language You Cry In
Images, instrumental music, song, interviews and narrative provide clues in the search for a lost song, its history, and its argument for cultural retention between aspects of African and African-American culture.
California Newsreel | 1998 | 52 minutes
Finzan
Cheick Oumar Sissoko explores the status of African women in two interlocking stories of traditional village society.
California Newsreel | 1990 | 107 minutes
Keita: The Heritage of the Griot
A young boy and his distant ancestor engage in parallel quests to understand their destinies and to know the meaning of their names. In so doing, Keita makes the case for an "Afrocentric" education, where African tradition, not an imported Western curricula is the necessary starting point for African development.
California Newsreel | 1995 | 94 minutes
Monday's Girls
The conflict between modern individualism and traditional society is seen through the eyes of two young Niger Delta women involved in a five-week long women's initiation ceremony.
California Newsreel | 1993 | 50 minutes
Le Silence De La Foret
This film, the first from the Central African Republic, takes us inside the world of the 'pygmies' or more properly BaAka. A well-intentioned school reformer, disgusted by the corruption in his country, attempts to bring modern learning to what appear to him as the last remaining 'noble savages.' But these superbly adapted rain forest hunter gatherers want none of his knowledge.
California Newsreel | 93 minutes
Taafe Fanga
A gender-bending farce set among the cliff-dwelling 18th century Dogon people, makes serious points about the status of women in Africa. It shows how ancient mythology can still shed light on modern issues.
California Newsreel | 95 minutes
These Hands
Without plot or narration, this mesmerizing documentary records the dehumanizing monotony of a day in the life of women chipping rocks by hand in a Tanzanian quarry while discovering the communal warmth and joy that defies this spirit-breaking labor.
California Newsreel | 1992 | 45 minutes
This is Nollywood
California Newsreel | 2007 | 56 minutes
Wend Kuuni
This retelling of an ancient fable about a mute, memory-less orphan, renamed "God's Gift" by the grateful village which adopts him demonstrates the continuing relevance of traditional African values such as hospitality and communal child rearing.
California Newsreel | 1982 | 70 minutes
Witches In Exile
Across Africa, a belief in witchcraft continues to terrorize women: the denunciation, brutal beating, the banishment to an unknown village without family or friends. Witches in Exile is the first film to tell their story and the story of the human rights struggle to find a solution to a practice deeply embedded in tradition and gender economics.
California Newsreel | 2005 | 79 minutes
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