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- 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 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, 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.
- 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 Sound Archives Online This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Sound Archives Online brings together over 2,000 hours of previously unpublished historic field recordings from around the world, alongside their supporting field notes and ethnographers' metadata, opening new paths for the study of music in its cultural context.
- 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.
- 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.
- EVIA Digital Archive Project The EVIA Digital Archive Project is a preservation and access system for annotated ethnographic field video by scholars, available to educators and researchers online.
Featured Films
- The Kirghiz of Afghanistan (streaming, Academic Video Online) The Kirghiz of Afghanistan are a group of some 2,000 pastoralists living on a bleak mountain plateau in a narrow isthmus of land between the borders of the Soviet Union and China. For nine months of the year heavy snows cover the ground, which was formerly used only by the Kirghiz for their summer pastures before the borders were closed, virtually terminating the contact of this group with other Kirghiz communities. Although the film shows dramatically the ten-day journey which lowland traders must make to reach this remote people, as well as scenes of a Kirghiz wedding and the traditional Central Asian sport of 'buzkashi' demonstrating the horse-riding skills of the people there is very little about the pastoral economy and society of the ordinary Kirghiz.
- Prisoners of the Afghan Pamir (streaming, Academic Video Online) Wakhan in the Pamir region of Eastern Afghanistan is home to the last Kyrgyz nomads who live in the most isolated high-altitude community on the planet. Isolated in their mountain camps at 4300 meters above sea level, only 1200 of them survive as best they can. They live just a few miles away from three developed countries: China, Tajikistan and Pakistan. But history has closed the borders, imprisoning them on Afghan soil. There are no schools and no vehicles; there is no electricity and no cultivation here, not even a tree. While globalization threatens to swallow them up, the Kyrgyz people of the Afghan Pamir must fight for their survival, and to preserve their ways of life and unique traditions
- The Wakhis - Pakistan (streaming, Academic Video Online) In the North-East of Pakistan, the Karakoram mountain range is home to the Wakhis. It is the last place in the world where the primary form of polo is still practiced, a game without any precise rules or protection for men or horses. Originally, the Wakhis were cattlemen who, over time became farmers. Horses always allowed them to keep a strong link with their nomad origins. Heider, a Wakhi farmer from Zoodkhon, decided to initiate his two sons, Nawaz and Hassan, to the ancestral practice of polo. This sport imposes an exceptional relationship between men and horses. “Stick polo” enthusiasts, both of his children already possess their own sticks and hope to become champions one day. After training on the village's only polo field, it is time for Nawaz and Hassan to saddle up and get to the high mountain pasture to play their first game.
- The Kalasha Rites of Spring (streaming, Ethnographic Video Online) The Kalasha are a tribal people, 3,000 strong, who live in the high valleys of the Hindu Kush mountains in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The Kalasha are unique as a pagan people in this Islamic Republic. Joshi, their three day festival of song and dance, rituals and sacrifice and the re-telling of legends celebrates the coming of spring and encourages chivalrous romance between the sexes. All this provides a colourful focus for this film which explores the life and customs of the Kalasha.
- Kalash, The Last Infidels of Pakistan (streaming, Academic Video Online) In a remote valley at the Pakistan - Afghan border, the last three thousand pagan Kalash live surrounded by the Muslim community and the Afghan refugees.This spring, the Taliban have passed the gates of her village. As she leaves her carefree childhood behind, Najiba is at the turning point of Kalash history. She must choose between converting to Islam, embracing the modern world or allowing her traditions to continue. With this choice, her generation could put an end to the eternal return of the seasons, for so long sanctified by the Kalash.
- Manislam (streaming, Academic Video Online) Manislam boldly examines the burden of manhood within Islamic cultures and questions the role of men in contemporary Islam. In Muslim culture, there is no question that boys have more privileges than girls, as Islam has always been a patriarchy. This documentary questions if male privilege is empowering contemporary Muslim men to be happy and fulfilled.
- The Pathans (streaming, Academic Video Online) There are twelve million Pathans. Bound by a common language, a common heritage and the unifying force of Islam, these proud and independent people do not acknowledge the geographical boundary which divides them between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This film was shot at the same time as Khyber in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border. The Pathans accept no imposed leadership, from without or from within. Their laws are the decisions of the democratic assembly of the village, known as the jirga
- The Last Queen of the Earth (streaming, Academic Video Online) Alibakhsh is an Afghani who has been forced to leave his wife, his family, and his home in order to find a job. He makes his way to Iran where he secures work in a henna grinding plant. While he is happy to be able to support his family from afar, Alibakhsh looks forward to the day when he can be reunited with them. However, fate conspires to keep Alibakhsh and his family apart as a US-led invasion in Afghanistan becomes imminent in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Ali attempts to return to his homeland to find his family before war and chaos make it all but impossible. This powerful film has won several international awards, but has been banned from being shown in Iran.
- Across the Border: Afghan Musicians Exiled in Peshawar (streaming, Academic Video Online) This documentary, directed by John Baily, features Afghanistan musicians exiles in Peshawar.
- Behind the Wheel (streaming, Academic Video Online) Tajikistan is the most remittance-dependent country in the world. Every year, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers leave the country in search of employment and the money sent back provides a huge boost to the economy. The vast majority of these migrants are male, which means the Tajik population is becoming ever-more female. So what happens to the women who are left behind?
- Ten Days (streaming, Academic Video Online) An ethnographic/ethnomusicological exploration of ritual, symbolism and devotion amongst the Shi'a religious minority community in Pakistan. The film is entirely told, without narration, through the actual participants of the annual Ashura mourning processions. 10 Days captures the raw energy of this controversial event which is rarely understood by outsiders.
- Bhutto: Democracy Was Her Greatest Revenge Against Extremism (streaming, Kanopy) The epic story of Benazir Bhutto, the first woman in history elected to lead a Muslim nation. A favored daughter of the family often called the “Kennedys of Pakistan,” Benazir was elected Prime Minister after her father was overthrown and executed by his own military. Her time in power saw acts of courage and controversy as she broke the Islamic glass ceiling, fought for the rights of women, and tried to quell the fires of religious extremism, while battling accusations of corruption.
- Duel in Pakistan: Benazir Bhutto between the Mosque and the Military (streaming, Academic Video Online) At only 35 years of age, Benazir Bhutto becomes the first woman to run an Islamic Republic. But the duel continues and eleven years later, General Musharraf prompts another coup d'etat and Benazir will spend several years in prison and eventually in exile. Eight years later, in October 2007, with support from Washington, she returns to Pakistan to stand in the January 2008 elections.
- Benazir Bhutto: Walking The Tightrope (streaming, Academic Video Online) This documentary explores a complex woman who some see as a calculating, fearless politician and others as a charming ambassador for her country, devoted to her husband and children
- The Rock Star and the Mullahs: Cultural Tensions with Pakistan (dvd) This Wide Angle report, produced by Thirteen WNET New York, follows Salman Ahmad, charismatic lead guitarist for the Pakistani rock group Junoon and also UNAIDS Special Representative, as he journeys to the tolerant, ancient city of Lahore and the fundamentalist stronghold of Peshawar, revealing religious and political conflicts within the nuclear-armed Islamic republic. From this trip emerges a rich portrait of modern-day Pakistan, a pivotal nation in the war against terror.
- Shirin (Subtitled) (dvd) Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami ("Taste of Cherry") takes a strict and unusual approach to demonstrating the power of cinema in this challenging drama by setting the entire action inside a movie theater screening an epic film adaptation of a 12th-century work of poetry--and then never showing a single frame of the film. Instead, Kiarostami's lens focuses exclusively on the powerful reactions of the female members in the audience
