The 11th Anthropological Film Festival

In a reflective move, Trinh Minh-ha uses excerpts she filmed in the first half of the 1990s in villages of Eastern and Southern China to decipher the window of time when China is further open to the world but is still a traditional rural society.

In Iceland, a girls’ basketball team and their determined coach aim to change the world by demanding to play against boys’ teams, only to discover local regulations do not allow this. We join their daunting journey in this insightful and heartfelt film that will make you loudly cheer for a group of inspiring young girls.

Once a year, the villagers of Meukot climb up the highest and coldest parts of the Himalaya, preparing for the harvest of a mysterious aphrodisiac caterpillar-mushroom worth more than gold. This is also an opportunity for an annual respite from arduous village life.

Born in Sri Lanka, Priyangika was adopted by a Norwegian couple. Lost between two continents, she always felt that her adoption was a mistake. No Place Like Home follows Priyangika’s search for her biological family, an expedition with astounding revelations about her family and adoption processes.

The transition from home birth to hospital birth is slowly taking place in traditional societies. As medical workers visit her village trying to introduce medical supervision for pregnant women, Huluager finds herself caught between the threshold of modernity and deep-rooted traditions. 

Ferries run along the vast expanses of the Peruvian Amazon, transporting people and goods, dictating the rhythm of the heartbeat and the flow of life. The film follows one such ferry on its journey and invites us to meet the local people waiting on the banks of the river.

As part of the anti-poaching efforts in the Greater Kruger Park, South Africa, the conservation authority (dominated by white Afrikaner men) form the first all-female defense unit. This mission offers the women, perhaps for the first time in their life, a sense of liberty and empowerment.