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The RAI FILM Festival will take place in Bristol (UK) from 11 to 15 June 2025, and online (available worldwide) from 16 June – 16 July, including the online film conference from 1 to 4 July.

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30 films found

  1. In this fifth and final film in the Doon School quintet, MacDougall focuses on the life of one student whom he discovers at the school. The film was made in...

  2. Filmed as a collaborative project with Arnav Koshy in 2008, this film explores the mind and activities of an intelligent and observant child of six. Arnav is fascinated by the...

  3. Filmed in South India, Andhra Pradesh, at Rishi Valley School, founded by the 20th Century Indian thinker Krishnamurti, ‘Awareness’ explores the sensibilities of two groups of young Indian teenagers, a...

  4. This video is a series of 12 short films that are the result of ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall’s a five-year project video workshop project with Indian children. In six workshops...

  5. An account of Aboriginal people steering their way through the often frustrating processes of official decision-making, as it is seen from their viewpoint far away from Canberra. Gordon Smith, head...

  6. David MacDougall’s long term visual study completed. The Doon School, located in Dehra Dun in Uttaranchal, is perhaps the most famous boys’ boarding school in India. Although it has sometimes...

  7. Anthropologist Peter Sutton is taken by an Aboriginal family, the Naponans, to map hereditary clan country in northern Queensland where they hope to live one day. To the children it...

  8. A monolithic building on the outskirts of Delhi provides food and shelter for 350 boys. Some are orphans, some have been abandoned, others have run away from home. About half...

  9. A last request of a Tiwi man on Melville Island was that a film be made of the pukumani (bereavment) ceremony to follow his death. The film follows his family,...

  10. This third film in the Doon School quintet follows the main protagonist of ‘With Morning Hearts’ into the next phase of his life in Jaipur House, one of the five...

  11. The filmmaker goes on the road with Link-Up, an organisation which re-unites Aboriginal families separated in earlier decades by the New South Wales government. As the film shows, being reunited...

  12. The Turkana are a group of semi-nomadic pastoralists who inhabit a harsh environment of dry thorn country in northwestern Kenya. Lorang’s Way focuses upon a Turkana elder. Having spent time...

  13. This classic ethnographic documentary, by the renowned filmmaking team of David and Judith MacDougall, explores the nomadic life of the Jie of Uganda. During the dry season the Jie leave...

  14. The social dynamics of the group is the focus of this study of life in Foot House, one of Doon School’s dormitories for new boys. It begins a few days...

  15. This film is an exploration of the cultural and personal meanings of photographs in a hill station in northern India. The ‘photo wallahs’ are the local photographers of Mussoorie, a...

  16. Inspired by the cinema of Lumière and the ideas of the 20th century Indian thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti, David MacDougall follows up the Doon School Quintet, his series of films about...

  17. A film about the famous experimental, co-educational boarding school in South India, the Rishi Valley School, founded by the influential Indian thinker Krishnamurti. In this film about a progressive co-educational...

  18. A film which explores the philosophy of teaching and learning of Sunny Bancroft, manager of an Aboriginal-run cattle station in northern New South Wales. It also tells the story of...

  19. A true story of a country family’s gradual involvement and growing passion for ‘picnic racing’. Sunny Bancroft is an Aboriginal cattle-station manager in New South Wales. With his non-Aboriginal wife...

  20. On March 13, 1978 the Queensland Government announced its intention to take over management of Aurukun Aboriginal Reserve from the Uniting Church. The people of Aurukun complained bitterly, fearing that...

RAI FILM Festival 2025

The next RAI FILM Festival will take place in person from 27-30 March 2025 at the Watershed Cinema and the Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts in Bristol (UK) and online throughout the month of April 2025.