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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
Login
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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
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Films
found one film
Region
“West Africa”
x
Keywords
“Everyday Life”
x
Series
“Disappearing World Series”
x
Country of production
“United Kingdom”
x
Year of production
“1990”
x
films with a digital version
1
Region
West Africa
1
x
Country
Sierra Leone
1
Keywords
Everyday Life
1
x
Rural
1
Social Organisation
1
Directors
MacDonald, Bruce
1
Series
Disappearing World Series
1
x
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
x
Year of production
1990
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