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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
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Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
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RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
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Archive of past editions
RAI FILM
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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
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Films
found one film
Country
“Ethiopia”
x
Country of production
“United Kingdom”
x
Year of production
“1985”
x
films with a digital version
1
Region
North and Northeast Africa
1
Country
Ethiopia
1
x
Keywords
Collective / Community identity
1
Refugees / Displaced populations
1
Social Change
1
Directors
Wason, David
1
Woodhead, Leslie
1
Series
Disappearing World Series
1
In Search of Cool Ground: The Mursi Trilogy
1
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
x
Year of production
1985
1
x
Film
The Migrants
1985
52
‘
Directed by
Leslie Woodhead
David Wason
.
The Migrants is the third film in the trilogy ‘In Search of Cool Ground’ for Granada Television’s Disappearing World series. It is about a drought-induced migration of Mursi from their traditional territory in the Omo valley to the Mago valley, about fifty miles away. This migration has brought them, for the first time, into contact with the market economy of the Ethiopian Highlands. David Turton notes that, when he first met the Mursi, men were seldom, and women never, seen at the highland markets. Now the Mago migrants, and especially women, are familiar figures in the weekly market at Berka, just four hours walk from their new settlements. With their foothold in the pastoral economy weakening (tsetse flies make the Mago area quite unsuitable for cattle herding) and their dependence on market exchange growing, the migrants are in the process of becoming settled agriculturalists, like their highland neighbours, the Ari. By tracing the present and likely impact of this move on the lives of the migrants, the film shows how they are beginning to carve out a new ethnic identity for themselves, as well as a new home. D. Turton, 1988. ‘Looking for a Cool Place: The Mursi, 1890s-1980s’. In D. Johnson and D. Anderson (eds.) The Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History, pp. 201–82. Lester Crook Academic Publishing and Westview Press, Boulder and London. D. Turton and P. Turton, 1984. ‘Spontaneous Resettlement after Drought: An Ethiopian Example’. Disasters, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 178–89. L. Woodhead, 1987. A Box Full of Spirits: Adventures of a Film-maker in Africa. Heinemann, London.
North and Northeast Africa
Social Change
Collective / Community identity
Refugees / Displaced populations