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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
RAI FILM
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
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
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Films
found one film
Region
“North and Northeast Africa”
x
Country
“Ethiopia”
x
Keywords
“Social Organisation”
x
Directors
“Woodhead, Leslie”
x
Year of production
“1974”
x
Colour / Black and white
“Colour”
x
films with a digital version
1
Region
North and Northeast Africa
1
x
Country
Ethiopia
1
x
Keywords
Social Organisation
1
x
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
1
Directors
Woodhead, Leslie
1
x
Series
Disappearing World Series
1
In Search of Cool Ground: The Mursi Trilogy
1
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
Year of production
1974
1
x
Colour / Black and white
Film
The Mursi
1974
52
‘
Directed by
Leslie Woodhead
.
The Mursi are a cattle-keeping and agricultural group without chiefs or leaders from south-west Ethiopia. This film, made under extremely difficult conditions, focuses on the way decisions are made in this society at a time of crisis. The crisis occurs when a shortage of grazing land, during a drought in 1974, led to warfare with their neighbours, the Bodi. The greater part of the film is concerned with a debate over the Bodi peace proposals. The Mursi reach their political decisions in formal debate at which point each warrior who rises to speak is heard patiently until all the important issues have been raised and a measure of agreement has emerged. The Mursi is a serious and important film, both ethnographically and as a contribution to the understanding of political systems. W. James and T.B. Selassie, 1976. Review of the film. RAIN, 16, pp. 6–7. Woodhead, Leslie 1988. A Box Full of Spirits – Adventures of a film-maker in Africa. Heinemann, London. *What made this trilogy special was that, unlike most television reportage, it had a temporal dimension. That is to say, it offered not a brutal, intrusive and uncomprehending snapshot, but a sympathetic, well-informed and thoughtful history of ten difficult years in the life of a tribe. Its insight derived from an anthropologist, David Turton, who has been studying the Mursi for years and who was able to provide the absolutely essential explanations of the mysterious events filmed by the Granada crew. This is the kind of illumination which is often provided by books or by personal experience, but almost never by television.* (John Naughton) W. Shack, 1987. Review of the trilogy. American Anthropologist, Vol. 89, pp. 780–81.
North and Northeast Africa
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
Social Organisation