This year we are again delighted to present films from the nation's premiere showcase for ethnographic cinema, The Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival of the Museum of Natural History in New York. Ethnographic cinema, as J. Hoberman once observed, is "documentary's avant-garde," and the Mead offers a dazzling array of films from around the world that are artistic and compelling, often quirky, and always eye-opening. Between November 8 and 29, you can see Gypsies and jazzmen in America, a peripatetic showman in India, how cows and satellites relate in Mali, the lasting impact of cinéma vérité, and some innovative studies of racism, whether in Norway, Canada, or, in Chantal Akerman's new film, in the American South. This series is presented under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History's Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, New York, and in association with the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the Townsend Center for the Humanities, and the Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley. PFA thanks Margaret Mead Festival Director Elaine Charnov.The series is presented in conjunction with the course Ethnographic Film, taught by Thor Anderson. Special thanks to Prof. Anderson (himself an ethnographic filmmaker), who has contributed many of our program notes. Monday November 8, 1999
