Lightning struck the hut of a Fulani shepherd near a village of settled fishermen, Ganghel, in Niger. A yenendi, a purification ceremony to obtain "water from the sky but not fire from the sky", is organized, with Sorko priests, ritual musicians and dancers, and the faithful from Niamey. The musicians call on Dongo, god of storms, and his brother Kirey, god of lightning. To the rhythm of the orchestra, a man goes into a trance, becoming Dongo's horse and at the same time the riding genie. Then a woman is possessed by Kirey. When the riding gods have mastered their horses, the gods visit the men. Dongo purifies the lightning-struck land and the oldest fisherman prepares the purification vessel, addressing Dongo.

How’s the Big Everything? Garba asks Nicole. For them, the “Big Everything” encompasses family, poli...

The people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, are see...
At dawn a nomad caravan descends on Aq Kupruk from the foothills of the Hindu Kush. In their camp, a...
A collage of daily life in Aq Kupruk builds from the single voice that calls the townspeople to pray...

AMIN portrays Qashqai musician Amin Aghaie, a young modern nomad and his family who despite facing s...
Rites and operation of the circumcision of thirty Songhai children on the Niger. Material of this fi...

Commemorative celebrations of the independence of the Republic of Niger filmed in December 1961 and ...

The Greek shadow puppetry began 130 years ago. A student of Greek shadow puppetry travels to China, ...

The Reef Islands Ethnographic Film Project was started in 1994 by the two anthropologists, Jens Pinh...

On the night of 3 August 1996 a school of striped dolphins ran ashore near the village of Tuo on Nga...

The film follows a group of Nenets women gathering firewood in a snow-covered tundra. This film is p...

A group of filmmakers travel to a Kolla community in Salta to film their folkways. We see all aspect...

This intimate ethnographic study of Voudoun dances and rituals was shot by Maya Deren during her yea...

A ritual vase, the hampi, is placed in the center of the Musée de plein air de la République du Nige...

Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions ...

Traversing 700,000 square kilometers over 700 days, the filmmakers bring the stories of five people ...

Estonia's first ethnographic film. Made by Johannes Pääsuke in 1913 on his expedition to Setomaa, th...