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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
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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
“Melanesia”
x
Country
“Papua New Guinea”
x
Directors
“Owen, Chris”
x
Series
“0”
x
Country of production
“United Kingdom”
x
Status
“A”
x
Region
Melanesia
1
x
Country
Papua New Guinea
1
x
Keywords
History of Anthropology
1
Religion / Belief / Faith
1
Ritual
1
Directors
Owen, Chris
1
x
Series
not set
1
x
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
x
Year of production
1981
1
Status
Film
The Red Bowmen
1981
50
‘
Directed by
Chris Owen
.
In a remote part of the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea, the Umeda people eke out a difficult living from the sago swamps and primary rain forest that surround them. Until recently, these people performed an annual ceremony, the Ida, which dramatised their relationship to the forest and celebrated their continuing survival. The ceremony was the major social occasion of their year in essence a fertility ritual focussing on a complex metamorphosis of figures representing cassowaries. This film is a record of the Ida ceremony, and an analysis of it, seen through the eyes of anthropologist Alfred Gell.
Melanesia
Ritual
Religion / Belief / Faith
History of Anthropology