Coding Culture color, 85 minutes
The Indian software outsourcing industry has emerged as a key node of the global economy. The series of ethnographic films, Coding Culture, explores the cultures of outsourced work and the moulding of a new workforce to cater to this global high-tech services industry. Each of the three films focuses on a single company, representing one of the major types of software company found in Bangalore: a medium-sized Indian-owned company software services company; the offshore software development centre of a U.S.-based IT company; and a small ‘cross-border’ startup company that produces its own software products and markets them to global customers.

Karl Heider - Dani Films color, Special Edition two-DVD set
In 1963, under the auspices of the EDC curriculum project Man: A Course of Study, an elementary social studies curriculum, Karl Heider went to the central highlands of Irian Jaya (West New Guinea). He spent the previous two years in the Grand Balim Valley with Robert Gardner’s Harvard-Peabody exhibition, and his intention was to return from this second trip with material to be used to teach American grade school students about digging-stick horticulture and house construction. However, after producing the Netsilik Eskimo series, the EDC curriculum project fell victim to the political climate of the time. Heider spent the following years presenting the Dani material himself, eventually producing the ethnographic classics, Dani Sweet Potatoes and Dani Houses.

This Special Edition two-DVD set contains the two films along with commentary by Karl Heider, and a narrated pictorial history of Heider’s career in archaeology and anthropology.

Those With Voice (Los Con Voz) color, 55 minutes
Indigenous video makers, media activists and anthropologists explain the importance of community-oriented media to indigenous populations in Mexico and the world.

Young Arabs color, 25 minutes
Muslim and Christian boys attending an elite preparatory school in the heart of Cairo offer thoughts on God, pop culture, terrorism, marriage, the Middle East, and more.

The Films of Bess Lomax Hawes B/W, 107 minutes
This DVD brings together four films by American folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes - GEORGIA SEA ISLAND SINGERS (1964), BUCKDANCER (1965), PIZZA PIZZA DADDY-O (1967), and SAY OLD MAN CAN YOU PLAY THE FIDDLE (1970) - made while at the Anthropology Department of San Fernando Valley State College. These films concentrate on performance and by implication how the performers’ aesthetics both inform and reflect societal values.

Ika Hands - SPECIAL EDITION color, 99 minutes
Here Gardner’s film about the Ika, a Mayan remnant living high in the Sierra Nevadas, is augmented by a conversation between the filmmaker and nobel laureate Octavio Paz and readings from Gardner’s journals illustrated with over color 60 photographs. This newly re-mastered DVD provides further insight not only on shamanism, but also answers to the question: What can images tell us?

John Bishop Short Films B/W & color, 87 minutes
This DVD brings together 14 short films and videos by John Bishop made between 1975-2000 broken down into three categories - documentary, observational and dance.

The Key From Spain: The Songs & Stories of Flory Jagoda color, 40 minutes
In this uplifting tale of survival and continuation, acclaimed Sephardic folksinger, Flory Jagoda, tells the story of her life, of all our lives. With warmth and passion, she sings the songs of her ancestors and contributes melodies and lyrics of her own to this timeless musical canon.

OSS Tales B/W & color, 68 minutes
Folklorists Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy visited Padstow, Cornwall in 1951, producing a film, Oss Oss Wee Oss, about its May Day celebration. In 2004, filmmaker John Bishop and folklorist Sabina Magliocco returned to Padstow to see how the custom was faring fifty years later. This DVD contains four films: Oss Tales (2007), Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953), Oss Oss Wee Oss Redux: Beltane in Berkeley (2004), and About the Oss Films (2007).

Running Out of Time color, 104 minutes
This documentary locates the crisis of Indian Adivasi agriculture in the larger context of Jharkhand’s political and economic history. Positing the indigenous Adivasi people and their ecosystem against overwhelming national interventions that have carved out an industrial and urban “state” in Jharkhand, it shows the fundamental impact of such development on Jharkhand’s environment and demography.

The Swahili Beat color, 28 minutes
This is an upbeat look at the remarkable history of the Swahili people of Kenya and Tanzania’s East African coast. Packed with the music and dance of its indigenous peoples, the film takes viewers along the coast from the fabled island of Lamu to Zanzibar, Mombasa, Kilwa, Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam, tracing the development of the Swahili culture through the intermarriage of Arab settlers with local Africans.

From Honey to Ashes color, 48 minutes
An intimate portrait of an indigenous Paraguayan community after contact with the developed world, and their efforts to chart a collective future in a context shaped by deforestation, NGO activity, anthropologists and evangelical Christianity. This film contributes to the visual anthropology of lowland South America by putting a human face to critical questions about contact, indigeneity and modernity.

The Last Kamikaze: Testimonials from WWII Suicide Pilots color, 55 minutes
This video explores the minds of former teenage suicide bombers who participated in the suicide operations during WW II. Now in their 70s and 80s, these individuals reflect upon their past and talk candidly about their lives, issues related to patriotism, propaganda, spirituality, and on-going turmoil in the Middle East.

The Last Rites of the Honourable Mr. Rai color, 47 minutes
A groundbreaking and in-depth study of a Hindu cremation that allows the viewer to actually experience and participate in a cremation ceremony along the Ganges River.

Today the Hawk Takes One Chick color, 72 minutes
Jane Gillooly’s film captures day-to-day life in a rural society on the threshold of simultaneous collapse and reinvention. The Lubombo region of Swaziland suffers from the world’s highest prevalence of HIV and the lowest life expectancy. This observational film is told from the poignant perspective of three grandmothers (gogos) who have become instrumental in defining a new world order in the fight against the spread of HIV. As the stakes of each day heighten, gogo Albertina asks: “What will happen when all the gogos are dead?”

Walking Pilgrims (Arukihenro) color, 73 minutes
Shot over a period of nine months and based on ethnographic survey methods, this film reveals the motives, aims and desires of modern Japanese people as they follow a Buddhist pilgrimage. Presenting the pilgrimage as a microcosm, Walking Pilgrims (Arukihenro) offers profound insights into the religious and socio-cultural background of modern Japanese society whilst at the same time pointing to the universal human quest for self-knowledge.

Cubanos, Life and Death of a Revolution color, 52 & 86 minutes
This film takes a unique look at the final moments of the Castro saga and the uncertain future of Cuba through the eyes a Cuban musician/expatriot. Cubanos is a road movie fleshed out with personal and cultural dimensions, punctuated by interviews with Cuban citizens and exiles in Miami. Behind polarized political discourses, there is life as lived by the millions of Cubans who, day after day, shape the Cuban identity of the 21st century.

Through the Negev color, 18 minutes
Told through interwoven first-person accounts by the few Sudanese women and children who have made the journey by walking from Egypt to Israel, Through the Negev is a short documentary that encapsulates the refugees’ struggle for home and safety.

Fate of the Lhapa color, 63 minutes
A touching portrayal the last three Tibetan shamans (lhapas) living in a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal. With no other descendants to carry on their healing practices and a younger generation attending schools, acculturating, and modernizing, these “sucking doctors” are practicing an endangered tradition.

Sean Scully at Work - three short films color, 42 minutes
In 1997 Robert Gardner visited friend and well-known American painter Sean Scully in his Barcelona studio. He documented the making of two paintings, Testigos and Passenger, and the opening of “Sean Scully 1987-1997” at Salas del Palacio Episcopal in Malaga. This DVD, an important document of an influential modern artist, brings together the three short films made during that summer.

West of the Tracks color, 554 minutes
DER is proud to announce the North American release of Wang Bing’s acclaimed West of the Tracks, a document of the slow, inevitable death of China’s obsolete manufacturing system. Between 1999 and 2001 he meticulously filmed the lives of the last factory workers in China’s Shenyang province, a class of people once promised glory during the Chinese revolution. Now trapped by economic change, the workers become deeply moving film heroes in this modern epic. The film is an engrossing portrait of Chinese society in transition.

The Mseyas color, 27 & 52 minutes
Follows a family of four siblings in Tanzania orphaned by AIDS. Their lives are a daily struggle to survive without parental or state support and the film details how they contend with illness, debt and constant worry. Director Gustavo Vizoso was moved to document their situation, capturing the light and color of Tanzania in beautifully observed photography, in order to speak out on behalf of the 12 million AIDS orphans living in Africa today.

Being Innu color, 53 & 76 minutes
This film takes an unvarnished look at life in the village of Sheshatshiu, Labrador. Six savvy, gutsy young people talk to Montreal filmmaker Catherine Mullins about addiction, suicide, lack of jobs, hopelessness. Interviews with Elders, grandparents and teachers round out this portrait of a community in crisis - sadly a situation not unlike that of many other aboriginal nations.

Death Row color, 59 minutes
When this film was made in March 1979, 114 men were housed in the special death cells of Ellis prison’s (Texas) rows J-21 and J-23. The men spend their time waiting for the State to kill them or fighting as hard as they can to prevent that death from happening. Death Row is about how men get by on the Row, how they fill the years between fixing of a death sentence by a judge and ultimate resolution in freedom, commutation or death by lethal injection.

The Lost Water color, 21 minutes
As bonded laborers, the Agariya salt workers of Little Rann of Kutch (LRK), Gujarat are not only victims of wage discrimination, they are endure serious physical and mental health hazards due to the dangerous nature of their work. This short film relates the extreme conditions in which they work and their struggle for both their ancestors’ land and their livelihood.

Out of Order color, 89 minutes
In Out of Order six former Catholic nuns tell why they entered and why they left religious life. The women (filmmaker Diane Christian is one of them) describe their years in the convent and their return to the secular world. This film offers unique insight into female socialization and identity in modern America by probing ideals and realities of womanhood, sex, work and service from an unknown and unusual perspective.

San Fransisco-Still Wild at Heart color, 57 minutes
As San Francisco grapples with what it means to have coyotes as new residents, along comes San Francisco-Still Wild At Heart, a compelling one-hour natural history film that chronicles the return of coyotes to this city’s landscape. Lyrical in style, the film is a virtual case study of the coyote’s arrival in urban America, as it explores the complexity, conflicts, and richness of this fertile interface between urban life and wild nature.

Daughter From Danang color, 81 minutes
A thought-provoking film about identity, family and culture: What shapes our sense of self? What defines our concept of family? And how do cultural expectations influence our choices? Since the film takes place against the backdrop of the Vietnam War it reveals how the trauma inflicted by that conflict continues to haunt and harm those who survived it.

Everyday Life of Roma Children from Block 71 color, 21 minutes
An intimate window into Serbian Roma culture, this documentary sheds light on the intricacies of Roma customs and their amalgamation of cultural influences - from Roma and Serbian culture to Hispanic pop-culture. Remarkably resilient, funny and optimistic, the children speak openly about their hopes and dreams, including educational opportunities from which they are often excluded.

Screening Room with Ed Emshwiller color, 77 minutes
Experimental filmmaker Ed Emshwiller appeared on Screening Room in July 1975 to screen and discuss the films Chrysalis, George Dumpson’s Place, Carol Emshwiller, Thanatopsis, Film With Three Dancers, Scape Mates, and Crossings and Meetings.

Screening Room with Emile de Antonio color, 79 minutes
Along with visual anthropologist Edmund Carpenter, political filmmaker Emile de Antonio appeared on Screening Room in June 1973 to screen and discuss excerpts from his films Point of Order, Rush to Judgement, In the Year of the Pig and Millhouse: A White Comedy.

Screening Room with Suzan Pitt color, 71 minutes
Independent animator and painter Suzan Pitt appeared on Screening Room in July, 1975. She screened and discussed Bowl, Garden, Theatre, Marble Game, Crocus, Cels, Whitney Promo, and Jefferson Circus Songs.

Screening Room with Robert Fulton color, 83/72 minutes
Extraordinary non-fiction filmmaker and gifted aerial cinematographer Robert Fulton appeared on Screening Room in April 1973 to screen and discuss Machu Pichu and Reality’s Invisible. Fulton returned in April 1979 and screened excerpts from the films Street Film, Path of Cessation and Chant.

Yanomamo Shorts color, 87/52 minutes
These DVDs combine 17 short Yanomamo films. Disc one contains all previously released titles and disc two collects eight previously unreleased short films from the series.

Black Harvest color, 90 minutes
This, the final film in the The Highlands Trilogy, charts the progress of Joe Leahy in convincing the Ganiga tribespeople to join him in a coffee growing venture.

“…a documentary of extraordinary historical resonance… so rich that watching it feels like taking an inspired crash course in economics and
cultural anthropology.” — Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Festa color, 45 minutes
The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament is a four-day extravaganza that attracts crowds of up to 200,000 to the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. This documentary takes viewers on a journey from the excitement of the modern feast to the very roots of the Catholic celebration on the beautiful Portuguese island of Madeira. A simple story about the power of tradition, the bonds of family, and the contributions of immigrant communities to both their new home and to the land that they left behind.

Keep the Dance Alive color, 75 minutes
A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola, Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death.

Love Iranian - American Style color, 63 minutes
Sexual purity, money and a mother’s worries come together in this humorous guided tour of America’s status-obsessed Iranian Jewish community. The film follows Tanaz, the narrator, a hip New Yorker whose Iranian family attempts to marry her off now that she’s reached the age of 25. Tanaz vacillates between soppy American ideas of romance, and a more business-like Iranian approach, and in the end may be unable to execute either.

On the Other Side color, 51 minutes
Each summer, Jamaican migrant farm workers flood the sleepy towns of rural Massachusetts, arriving to work the tobacco harvest—the staple crop of the region and the last to rely solely on manual labor. On the Other Side follows a group of Jamaicans through the highs and lows of the tobacco season, where they must make the best of a life far from home and cope with the mundane and often unpredictable nature of farm work.

Patagonia B/W, 62 minutes
Available for the first time in the US, Alberto de Agostini’s 1928 film Patagonia documents the daily lives of the three native groups who inhabited Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina: the Onas, the Alacalufes, and the Tehuelches. Featuring life amidst a rough terrain of rocky ice-capped mountains, majestic glaciers, and thunderous rapids, the film presents an early record of their hunting methods, healing rituals, clothes and basket making and way of life.

Red White Black & Blue color, 53/86 minutes
Red White Black & Blue is the first feature-length documentary to tell the story of the Battle of Attu, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and the only invasion of the United States since the War of 1812. Walk through one of the bloodiest battles of World War II with the soldiers who lived it.

Screening Room with Bruce Baillie color, 72 minutes
One of the founders of the San Francisco avant-garde film movement, Bruce Baillie appeared on Screening Room in April 1973. He screened excerpts from his films On Sundays, The Gymnasts, To Parsifal, Tung and Castro Street.

Screening Room with Derek Lamb color, 75/75 minutes
Academy Award-winning animator Derek Lamb appeared on Screening Room in June 1973 with over a dozen films and film clips that demonstrated a wide range of animation techniques, including The Rocket, The Great Toy Robbery, I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Housemoving, and The Shepherd. In September 1975, Lamb returned to Screening Room to screen and discuss the films The Last Cartoon Man and The Psychic Parrot.

Screening Room with Hillary Harris color, 75/76 minutes
In March 1973, pioneering filmmaker Hilary Harris visited Screening Room to screen and discuss films such as Longhorns, Highway, and Seawards the Great Ships, as well as footage from a work-in-progress about New York City. Hilary Harris returned to Screening Room in January 1979 to screen and discuss his film, Organism, as well as an excerpt from The Nuer. He also demonstrated his sound mixer and image generator designs.

Screening Room with John & Faith Hubley color, 64 minutes
John and Faith Hubley appeared on Screening Room in April 1973 to discuss and screen their films Eggs, The Hat, Children of the Sun, and Zuckerkandl. They were the first animators to combine animation with jazz, working with such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Oscar Peterson. Later they were commissioned by Sesame Street to create television animation for children.

Vermont Kids color, 58 minutes
In the summer of 1975 John Marshall and Roger Hart documented the outdoor play activities of the children in a small Vermont town. The long takes of children completely absorbed in their own private worlds provide a rare document of the complexity, creativity, and spontaneity of children at play. DER is proud to present on DVD these four films - Playing House, In the Dirt, Treehouse, and Sandbank - cinema verité shorts without narration or text.