Documentary Films

Bitter Melons


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From the !Kung series
by John Marshall
(study guide available)
color, 30 min, 1971



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This film, shot in 1955, focuses on a small band of /Gwi San living in the arid landscape of the central Kalahari Desert in present-day Botswana. The hardships of their everyday survival are woven into the songs of a blind musician, Ukxone, who composes music on a hunting bow. His songs evoke the /Gwi landscape and its diverse wildlife; they depict the routine of their daily lives: gathering food, collecting water, hunting for animals, and sharing as a community. "Bitter Melons," his favorite song, is about a woman who learned from her Bantu neighbors to plant melon seeds despite the agriculturalists protesting that wild melons taste bitter. Song, dance, landscape, and life are not so separated for the /Gwi San; their margins are fluid.


Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards
CINE Golden Eagle
American Film Festival Blue Ribbon


Other films in the series:
An Argument about Marriage
Baobab Play
Children Throw Toy Assegais
A Curing Ceremony
Debe's Tantrum
First Film
A Group of Women
The Hunters
A Joking Relationship
A Kalahari Family
!Kung Bushmen Hunting Equipment
The !Kung San: Traditional Life
The !Kung San: Resettlement
Lion Game
The Meat Fight
The Melon Tossing Game
Men Bathing
N!ai, The Story of a !Kung Woman
N/um Tchai: the Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen
Playing with Scorpions
Pull Ourselves Up or Die Out
A Rite of Passage
To Hold Our Own Ground: A Field Report
Tug-Of-War, Bushmen
The Wasp Nest