This film examines the Egyptian rural craft of making a sieve called ghurbal (from the Arabic ghurbal meaning "to winnow" which is used to both "winnow" babies on their seventh day of life and to winnow grains for making ceremonial dishes, particularly kouskousi. Embedded in this material culture artifact are layered meanings of creative regeneration of the cosmic and human worlds. We visually follow the material process from tree log cutting to making...

Carnival time is big in this small Spanish town in Andalusia. Appropriately described by a local as a 'newspaper', the carnival is a time of dressing up and coming together. The men compose 'spicy' songs about local affairs and sing their social criticisms of national events.

An old Bolivian man nears the end of his life. He has property and status, but not contentment. Believing himself posessed by evil spirits, he opens his heart to reveal his anguish. His personal tragedy brings us close to every man's confrontation with the unknown, old age, and death.

This film is about the life of Hoy Fok, a fourteen-year-old boy, who lives with his family on a fishing junk near a small island in the Hong Kong Territory. Hoy Fok helps his family in fishing and attends the island school.

The Nuer call themselves Naath. Only their immediate neighbors, the Dinka, Shilluk and Arabs, call them Nuer. Most foreigners, which includes those with whom the Nuer neither fought nor traded, are called Bar which means 'almost entirely cattleless'.

A collage of daily life in Aq Kupruk builds from the single voice that calls the townspeople to prayer, the brisk exchange of the baazar, communal labor in the fields, and the uninhibited sports and entertainment of rural Afghans.

In Egypt, a birth ritual called el-sebou', meaning "the seventh", happens on the seventh day following the physical birth of a child of either sex and is celebrated by Coptic and Muslim families of all status groups, rural and urban. Characteristic of this ritual is the gender-linked imagery also manifest in the ritual clay pot. The ceremony celebrates the newborn's crossing a threshold from a neutral gender and status into a world of gender differentiation...

Yanomamo feasts are ceremonial, social, economic, and political events. They are occasions for men to adorn their bodies with paint and feathers, to display their strength in dance and ritualized aggression; for trading partnerships to be established or affirmed; and for the creation or testing of alliances.

"A cinematographic interpretation of the life of a group of Grand Valley Dani, who are mountain Papuans in West New Guinea (Irian Barat, Indonesia), studied by the Harvard-Peabody Expedition (1961-1963). This film was made by Gardner in 1961, before the area was pacified by the Dutch government. The film focuses on Weyak, the farmer and warrior, and on Pua, the young swineherd, following them through the events of Dani life: sweet potato horticulture,...

Made by a team of distinguished filmmakers/anthropologists, Seed and Earth is a film about everyday life in rural West Bengal, India. It follows the daily schedule of the families of two brothers who live side by side and cooperate in many daily activities. We see how gender and age determine work, ritual and leisure activities.