Documentary Educational Resources | Ethnographic, Documentary, and Non-fiction Films from Around the World

COVID-19 Update

To protect our community, the DER staff will be working remotely until further notice. We will do our best to continue meeting the needs of filmmakers, educators, students, and others during this challenging time. READ MORE

NEW RELEASE

Ophir

Ophir tells the story of an extraordinary indigenous revolution for life, land and culture in Bougainville, a colony of Papua New Guinea. The film documents a history of resistance and the imminent emergence of the newest nation in the world, revealing the invisible chains of colonization and its enduring cycles of physical and psychological warfare.
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FILMMAKER INTERVIEW

My Rembetika Blues

We spoke with Mary Zournazi, the filmmaker behind acclaimed new release My Rembetika Blues. We discussed the personal odyssey she undertook to tell this story, the importance of preserving cinema as a communal experience, and the generation spanning journey of the music itself. Listen to a condensed interview or read the full transcript here.
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EVENTS

Archival Legacies of the Yanomamö Series

DER co-hosted a panel at the Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival focused on the technical and aesthetic issues underlying film preservation and digital restoration and exploring the value of these films for the Yanomamö and anthropologists interested in more equitable collaborations.
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RESOURCES

Indigenous Studies Film Initiative

Our Indigenous Studies Film Initiative is a commitment to decolonize and indigenize the DER film collection and improve access to our catalogue for Indigenous audiences through the creation of an interactive map, application of reparative language to subject categories, and outreach and collaboration with communities depicted in our collection.
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EVENTS

DER50: Tim Asch Symposium at USC

In November 2018, the USC School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California held a day-long symposium on the work of Timothy Asch, an event which also helped celebrate DER’s 50^thanniversary.
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EVENTS

The Cinema of Patience: Reflecting on N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman

As part of DER’s 50^th Anniversary celebrations, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University hosted a film screening & panel discussion on N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman.
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