Related Guides
Film Databases & Catalogs
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume I-II: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. I-II: Foundational Films contains classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, providing teachers visual support to introduce and contextualize hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume III: Indigenous Voices This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. III: Indigenous Voices contains documentaries, feature films and shorts made by and for indigenous people and communities. Topics are simultaneously local and global, with particular emphasis on the human effects of climate change, sustainability, indigenous and local ways of interpreting history, cultural change, and traditional knowledge and storytelling.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume IV: Festivals and Archives This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. IV: Festivals and Archives contains award-winning titles from contemporary ethnographic film festivals. The collection also includes field recordings and edited films by students and faculty from universities and institutions around the world, including Berkeley Media and Manchester's Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition contains a curriculum-aligned collection of videos and segments curated to support the teaching of introductory anthropology courses. Each video and segment within this collection are accompanied by a teaching guide providing background information, lesson plans, and classroom exercises and activities.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window Kanopy is a provider of documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases available as streaming video. Clips from the videos can be embedded in presentations or shown in class. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- BU Libraries Search (BULS) This link opens in a new window BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of academic material provided by the library. The material covered by the search includes books, journals, scores, video and audio recordings, and other physical items held by the library. The search also covers ebooks and ejournals owned by the library, as well as online material provided by the library from a variety of sources.
Browse Selected Films
- Ancestral voices. Esoteric African knowledge (streaming, Academic Video Online) Avant-garde at its time of release, it is the first film to bring to the mainstream discourse the still taboo and marginalized topic of African Spirituality.
- Oh my God! What is Pentecostalism? (streaming, Academic Video Online) It is the fastest growing Christian church on earth and here The Holy Spirit truly flows. Host Tevya joins the boisterous celebration of worship at a Pentecostal Revival church where speaking in tongues, writhing on the floor and spiritual healing are all part of the faith experience. He travels to Bible camp to learn how young Pentecostals really feel the spirit, get baptized and how they pray for Tevya's soul.
- Santeria (streaming, Academic Video Online) Santeria blends Catholicism with Yoruba religion. For the feast of St. Lazarus, who is associated with the Yoruba deity Babalu Aye, some Santeros make a pilgrimage to El Rincon, while others sacrifice animals.
- The Pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i : The Walk Experience (streaming, Academic Video Online) Once a year in the Cuzco region of Peru, the former center of the Inca empire, some 50,000 pilgrims flock to the highest sanctuary of the world to participate in the largest pilgrimage of the Andean region. The sanctuary of the Senor de Qoyllur Rit'i (Lord of the Shiny Snow) is located nearly 16,000 feet above sea level, at the foot of the Qollqepunku glacier.
- Kataragama: a god for all seasons (streaming, Academic Video Online) In ever-increasing numbers Sinhalese of all religions (Muslims, Christians and Buddhists) are turning to Kataragama, an ancient Hindu God, at times of trouble and desperation. Once a year pilgrims make the journey to Kataragama's shrine in southeast Sri Lanka (Ceylon) to fulfil vows by performing acts of penance and worship in payment for a favour received.
- Homegoings (streaming, Academic Video Online) Through the eyes of funeral director Isaiah Owens, the beauty and grace of African American funerals are brought to life.
- Jonestown: The Life & Death of Peoples Temple (streaming, Kanopy) This New York Times Critic's Pick tells the story of the people who followed cult leader Jim Jones to the remote jungles of Guyana, South America, in a misbegotten quest to build an ideal society. The 1960s ushered in intense social and cultural tumult; it was the Age of Aquarius, when change was in the air, and revolution was on the horizon. Some looked to free love, Black Power, or drugs. But for others, Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of Peoples Temple, offered the perfect balance of spiritual fulfillment and political commitment. Jones not only preached about integration and equality, but built an organization that provided food, clothing and shelter to his congregation and his community. On the surface, Jim Jones and the multi-racial Peoples Temple congregation espoused the values of a model society. But upon closer examination, something was amiss. In the summer of 1977, with the publication of an expose in New West magazine, the truth about Peoples Temple was exposed. Defectors and family members gave accounts of physical, sexual and drug abuse, financial corruption, and members being held against their will. On November 18, 1978, over 900 members of Peoples Temple died in the largest mass suicide/murder in history.
- Witches in Exile (streaming, Academic Video Online) From Tanzania and Zambia to Ivory Coast and Ghana belief in witchcraft continues to terrorize women: the denunciation, brutal beating, the banishment to an unknown village without family or friends. In Northern Ghana alone there are estimated to be more than 5000 'witches' confined to 'witches villages', part sanctuaries, part prisons. 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 African tradition and gender economics.
- The guardian of the forces (streaming, Academic Video Online) In Togo, Sikavi, the voodoo fetish master, leads a death ceremony which only the initiated may attend. In order to help bridge the gap between "barbarism and civilization, " Sikavi explains his liturgy by using its Judeo-Christian correspondences.
- Séance reflections (streaming, Academic Video Online) Njebe and Martha, a couple from Gaborone, Botswana, have tried various medical interventions to determine the reason why they remain childless. They decide to consult a charismatic diviner and healer in Njebe's birth village, Moremi. In reviewing portions of their filmed séances with ethnographer Richard Werbner, the couple are moved by the diviner's revelations about their intimate lives, but are puzzled by the diviner's rapid recital of highly ambiguous, archaic verse, his leading them in chants of call and response, and his preaching against Christianity and for restored communication with the ancestors, leaving the couple doubting the healing treatment.
- Spite: an African Prophet-Healer (streaming, Academic Video Online) People from all over the Ivory Coast seek out prophet- healers for treatment of their medical and emotional problems. Some of these ailments may be caused by the stress of cultural change. Often Western medicine cannot cure them. This stunningly photographed film focuses on Sebim Odjo, who draws upon Moslem, Christian and traditional African beliefs in his healing ceremonies. He moderates disputes, tracks down the source of illness, and uses his powers to heal. We see a water cure used on a patient ill with spite.
- War of the Gods (streaming, Academic Video Online) While relying on a polemical stance directed against the cultural genocide wrought by missionaries, War of the Gods also contains a wealth of information and detail about Amazonian Indian cosmology, social life and sexual division of labour.
- In beauty I walk : the Navajo way to harmony (streaming, Academic Video Online) Set amid the stunning environs of Arizona's rugged Canyon de Chelly, this fascinating documentary explores traditional Navajo Indian spiritual practices and thought. The film examines Navajo art, cosmology, and culture and illustrates how the traditional way of life, called "walking in beauty," seeks to replicate the innate order and harmony of the universe within each individual.
- Gods and Satans (Dieux et Satans) (streaming, Academic Video Online) Among the Wana people, semi nomads from the Indonesian (Sulawesi) forest, Indo Pino is a shaman recognized by everybody. Her Nephew, who is also a shaman’s son, converted to Christianity some months ago and is now preaching the visions. And for him, if the visions come from God, the visions of the shamans inevitably must come from Satan. Through the Christian concepts of sin and original fault, good and evil notions are revised, The traditional healing practices of the shamans are heavily
- Holy Hustlers (streaming, Academic Video Online) Charismatic, street-wise young men, living in Botswana's capital, command the prophetic domain in Eloyi, their Apostolic faith-healing church, at a time of escalating crisis. Bitter, sinful accusations divide Eloyi's village-based archbishop and his son, the city-based bishop. The church itself, seen to be 'under destruction', splits.
- Scenes from Nambiquara life. Nambiquara healing ceremony (streaming, Academic Video Online) This video produced by Barrie Machin features a traditional Nambiquaran Healing Ceremony.
- Legacy of the Spirits (streaming, Kanopy) Legacy of the Spirits traces the religion of Vodou (voodoo) from Africa to Haiti to New York City. It explains the theology of the religion, the meaning of the rituals, the pantheon of spirits, possession, the sacred drawings (called ve-ve), the Catholic influence, the history of persecution and more.
- The Altarmakers (streaming, Academic Video Online) The Altarmakers investigates the modern "spiritual products" industry and the hybridized religious practices of people who buy these items. Set in Los Angeles, the filmmaker uses her own discovery of altarmaking as a tool for healing grief to frame her exploration, which addresses the changed landscape of spiritual practice in a globalized, consumerist era.
Image Databases
- Associated Press Images Collection This link opens in a new window Associated Press Images Collection is a searchable collection of recent and historical photos from the Associated Press, plus AP graphics, articles, and brief sound clips.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new window ARTstor is a database of images from museums, artists, libraries, colleges and universities, scholars, private collections, and photo archives available for teaching, education, and scholarship, with all images cleared for educational use.
