Anthropology
ON THE BATTLEFIELD2024 African-American Studies American Studies American History Anthropology Short Films Cultural Studies
In the Southern Illinois region of Little Egypt, a sound recordist walks through the fields where once stood Pyramid Courts - the housing projects that formed the heart of the Black community of his hometown, Cairo.
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VOICES OVER THE WATER2024 American Studies Anthropology Cultural Studies Directed by Women Education Immigration Performing Arts Political Science Sociology World History Across the United States, thousands of people celebrate their ancestral heritage. They sing. They dance. Dressed distinctively, they make merry. Many are homesick for a land they never knew. Voices over the Water looks at Scottish identity in America and asks, who can claim this identity. How Scottish do you have to be to wear the tartan and march in a parade, or dance at a ceilidh? |
LAST THINGSAnthropology Archeology Cinema Studies Directed by Women Environmental Studies Photography Physical Science Science 2024
Last Things looks at evolution and extinction from the perspective of the rocks and minerals that came before humanity and will outlast us. With scientists and thinkers like Lynn Margulis and Marcia Bjørnerud as guides, the film seeks a picture of evolution without humans at the center.
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RICHLAND2024 American History American Studies Anthropology Cultural Studies Directed by Women Education Environmental Studies Family Relations Political Science Sociology World History Cinema Studies A U.S. nuclear company town stakes its identity on its little-known atomic origin story in this timely examination of the habits of thought that normalize the extraordinary violence of the past. |
A COMMON SEQUENCE2023 Anthropology Biology Cinema Studies Cultural Studies Directed by Women Health Indigenous Studies Latino Studies Religion & Spirituality Science Sociology Spanish Language
Within the human struggle to live and work on a changing planet, questions of value, extraction, and adaptation echo across seemingly disparate worlds. A Common Sequence examines shifts of life and labor through a critically-endangered salamander and plant patents in the apple industry. Weaving the stories of Dominican nuns running a conservation lab, a group of fisherman attempting to live off of a depleting lake, engineers developing AI-driven harvesting machines, and an indigenous biomedical researcher resisting the commodification of human DNA, the film becomes a meditation on the shifting border between the natural and unnatural world, and the dynamics of power at play.
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GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE2022 Anthropology Cinema Studies Directed by Women Environmental Studies Sociology Photography 2023
Critic's Pick! One of the most awarded films of 2022, Geographies of Solitude is a playful and reverent collaboration with the natural world filled with arresting images and made with an activist spirit. The film follows Zoe, a naturalist and environmentalist who has lived Sable Island, on a remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic with a rich ecosystem, for over 40 years.
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I AM A TOWN2023 American Studies Anthropology Art History Cinema Studies Family Relations Photography
The community of Provincetown, which has been clinging to a distinctly American - and yet increasingly rare - way of life. In his immersive documentary debut, Mischa Richter, whose artist family has been living there for nearly a century, explores his home through shared moments and conversations with locals, pilgrims, outcasts, fishermen, drag queens and spirit guides in an exploration of what freedom and community mean in America today.
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ROCK BOTTOM RISERAnthropology Asian-American Studies Cinema Studies Economics Media Studies Photography Political Science Science Physical Science Sociology American Studies American History 2022 Explorers have long made Hawaii the hub for their searching. Today-as lava continues to flow on the island—another crisis mounts as scientists plan to build the world's largest telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii's most sacred and revered mountain. The film weaves a vital tapestry of post-colonialism and pop culture with cinematic brio and a wry wit. Rock Bottom Riser is an essential document and an exhilarating tour-de-force, a palimpsest that traverses geology, ethnography and astronomy. |
A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING2022 Anthropology Asian Studies Cinema Studies Directed by Women Political Science Sociology World History Director Payal Kapadia deftly merges reality with fiction, weaving together archival footage with student protest videos to create a vital tapestry of the personal and the political. With its dreamlike editing rhythms and a revelatory use of sound, A Night of Knowing Nothing is both an essential document of contemporary India and a nostalgic look at youth fighting the injustice of their time. |
EXPEDITION CONTENT2021 Anthropology Cinema Studies Cultural Studies Directed by Women Education Indigenous Studies Political Science Sensory Ethnography Lab Sociology World History 2022
An immersive marvel of sonic ethnography, Expedition Content draws on audio recordings made by recent college graduate and Standard Oil heir Michael Rockefeller as part of the so-called Harvard-Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea in 1961
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STRANGE NEGOTIATIONS2021 American Studies American History Anthropology Cinema Studies Family Relations Music Religion & Spirituality Political Science
Musician David Bazan retreated into a solitary life after renouncing his long-held Christian beliefs and walking away from his critically-acclaimed band, Strange Negotiations follow David a decade into his journey, during which he has become a sort of reluctant prophet to Americans during the 2016 presidential election.
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FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO2021 Aging / Gerontology Anthropology Cinema Studies Directed by Women Family Relations
Over a period of 35 years between 1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot 8 and 16mm film, videotape and digital images of her father, Ira Sachs Sr., a bon vivant and pioneering businessman from Park City, Utah. Film About a Father Who is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings.
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THE TWO SIGHTSAnthropology Cultural Studies Europe Sociology Cinema Studies 2021
The Two Sights (An Dà Shealladh) explores the disappearing tradition of second sight in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. As we listen to locals' accounts of haunting experiences—phantom horses, ghost voices and other supernatural phenomena—Bonnetta connects their testimonies with striking 16mm images and a carefully-curated sonic montage of the physical and aural environment of these enchanted islands.
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THE DAWN CHORUSEnvironmental Studies Anthropology Religion & Spirituality 2021
A cinematic meditation of the dawn of May 3, 2020–International Dawn Chorus Day–as observed from around the world during the Covid-19 lockdown.
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THE EARLY WORKS OF ANA VAZ: 2007-2016Anthropology Environmental Studies Directed by Women Latin-American Studies Short Films 2020
This collection of eight early films by Brazilian artist and filmmaker Ana Vaz proposes a critical reflection on the relationship between colonialism, modernity and the impending ecological disaster. At the core of the collection is a cycle of works that explore the colonial and post-colonial exchange between Europe and the Americas.
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OCCUPATION 19682019 Anthropology Cinema Studies Directed by Women Eastern Europe Europe Peace & Conflict Russia Short Films World History An anthology documentary consisting of five short films on the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, each by a different director from the five countries that participated in the occupation. |
CHINESE PORTRAIT2019 Anthropology Asian Studies Art History Cinema Studies Photography Urban Studies
From acclaimed director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle; So Long, My Son) comes a personal snapshot of contemporary China in all its diversity. Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaus of people and environments, each one more extraordinary than the last.
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HÍBRIDOS, THE SPIRITS OF BRAZIL2019 Anthropology Cultural Studies Cinema Studies Dance Directed by Women Indigenous Studies Latin-American Studies Music Religion & Spirituality
HÍBRIDOS, THE SPIRITS OF BRAZIL is an ethnomusicological journey into the sacred culture of Brazil, from Roman Catholic to Ubanda and candomblé--mixures of African traditions with Catholicism.
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HOW TO RUST2018 African-American Studies Art History Cinema Studies Sensory Ethnography Lab Anthropology Directed by Women
From the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University comes a postindustrial fable told in iron, rocks, and wood. A unique look at Detroit artist Olayami Dabls’ installation “Iron Teaching Rocks How to Rust”
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INTO THE HINTERLANDS2018 Anthropology Cinema Studies Dance Directed by Women Sensory Ethnography Lab
The Detroit-based performance ensemble, The Hinterlands, practice a form of ecstatic training which they see as a provocation towards the unknown. The “hinterlands” evokes an unknown space both physical and imaginary whose mystery is its very source of generation and from which true creativity emerges. Their practice is one of ecstatic play, of finding the edge of one’s balance, and the limits of one’s body.
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