Explore the 2019 programme below, either by browsing the separate sections, or looking at the timetable view.
Student showcases films made by the new generation of ethnographic filmmakers, often as part of doctoral projects
RAI/Basil Wright features the films competing for the top prizes at this year’s festival
Material Culture focuses on films with something to say about the way we engage with our material world
Intangible Culture explores worlds of music, dance, performance, and ritual
Special Interest explores a range of fascinating topics, including programmes with a special director or thematic focus
Shorts is new for 2019, and celebrates the best in short-form ethnographic filmmaking as a cauldron of innovation
The Arhuacos are the guardians of the forest and the ice of Colombia’s highest mountain - the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. This indigenous community draw a sustained and singular spirituality from this unique environment, in which they have purposely isolated themselves. Whilst this community does not seem to have changed for centuries, its survival has been hard won. Thinking Like a Mountain is an elegant, meditative montage of images that introduces us to the Arhuacos, their cosmology, and their beautiful landscapes - and the shifting political contexts on the fringes of their lands. It is a story of resistance and preservation, through a voyage in space and time: from the shores of the Caribbean to the stars that light up the night on the glacier; from the Arhuacos encounter with the first European colonists, to the homecoming of an Arhuaco guerrillero following the laying-down of arms by the FARC.
Location(s) depicted
Sierra Nevada Santa Marta
Language(s) of film subjects
Chibcha, Spanish, German
