Toggle navigation
RAI FILM
Sales
Films with video
new
Film Sales public page
2023
public page
WordPress
Site
log in
found one film
with a digital version available
x
Status
"A"
x
Region
"West Africa"
x
Country
"Sierra Leone"
x
Keywords
"Rural"
x
Directors
"MacDonald, Bruce"
x
Country of production
"United Kingdom"
x
Year of production
"1990"
x
Film Festival Year
"0"
x
Price code - 1,2,3 or 4
or none-empty is required for Sales dropdown to show,
DVD and ASP Stream price depends on this.
"1"
x
films with a digital version
1
x
Section
Sales
1
Status
films with no status
0
show deleted films
0
show none-public films
0
show public and none-public films
1
show public films
1
x
Region
West Africa
1
x
Country
Sierra Leone
1
x
Keywords
Everyday Life
1
Rural
1
x
Social Organisation
1
Directors
MacDonald, Bruce
1
x
Series
Disappearing World Series
1
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
x
Year of production
1990
1
x
Film Festival Year
not set
1
x
Event type
not set
1
Festival Prize Category
not set
1
Review Status
not set
1
videoScreenRatio
Price code - 1,2,3 or 4
or none-empty is required for Sales dropdown to show,
DVD and ASP Stream price depends on this.
1
1
x
Film
The Mende
1990
52
'
Directed by
Bruce MacDonald
.
This is a portrait of Kpuawala, Sierra Leone, a village of some 260 Mende people living in a clearing in the forest in houses of mud brick and tin. Like any village portrait it gossips, happy households and divided ones. The film was made during the Muslim month of fasting. The day begins with the call to prayer and ends with gossiping around fires and swinging in hammocks. It was a month when one young man was eagerly preparing to marry a new teenage wife, in spite of having been sold to cannibals by his first wife and publicly humiliated by his second. Other villagers were dodging the official from the government rice loan scheme, come to collect debts. Everyone was anxiously watching the sky, hoping that the unseasonably early rain would not ruin the burning of the recently cleared forest. Side by side with these daily preoccupations, the Mende recognize the constant presence of the supernatural world, as unremarkable as the natural one. The supernatural affects farming and fishing, it comes into family arguments and explains why the palm-wine is strong.
West Africa
Everyday Life
Social Organisation
Rural