Films

Cemeteries are not only places for the dead. They are also spaces in which the living interact with each other – and with the dead. “Cultivating Death” depicts the different ways in which

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, from the days of preparation to their

When Geraldine Kawanka’s husband died, she and her children left their house at Aurukun on Cape York Peninsula. In earlier times a bark house would have been burnt, but today a ‘house-opening’

A film about how anthropological knowledge is developed through active participation in traditional exchange ceremonies on the small island of Baluan in the South Pacific. The film follows the

Nigerian writer Dul Johnson returns to Tarok land to observe the local death rituals and the record of the Tarok ways of dealing with grief and honoring departed. This film provides a rare and

‘We Don’t Need a Grave’ attempts to show how the people who choose Shizenso rather than the typical family grave try to accept one’s death. Shizenso is a natural mortuary practice that has no