Documentary
Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized “Gauguin idyll,” the film celebrates daily rituals, communal traditions, and the passage into adulthood, suffused with what Flaherty called “pride of beauty, pride of strength.”
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
Shamanic Visions: Forgotten Territories
Double M Country
The Four of Moana
Plains: Testimony of an Ethnocide
La quemada
Slow, une histoire d'amour
Cidadão Jatobá
Grey Horse
Censored!
Japans tätowierte Helden
Club Native
On sourira de nous
Namatjira Project
maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore
Maximón: Devil or Saint
Ketwajê
The Invention of the Other
Vive La France
Essence of Healing: The Journey of American Indian Nurses
Monica in the South Seas
SIMILAR MOVIES
Shamanic Visions: Forgotten Territories
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2020
This film is an initiatory journey among the Fangs of Gabon and the Shipibos of Peru. With the sound of traditional instruments like the mogongo (arc in the mouth), the holy harp, and the Icaros, we discover the traditional peoples’ wisdom.Double M Country
IMDB 0 | May , 2023
Carrie Davis was part of the child removal system near the end of the Sixties Scoop. With guidance from her uncle Emmett Sack and the community, Carrie reconnects to their land, language, and culture.The Four of Moana
IMDB 7 | Mar , 1959
Documentary focused on underwater shootings and hawaiian dances.Plains: Testimony of an Ethnocide
IMDB 5 | Jun , 1971
A documentary on the massacre of Planas in the Colombian east plains in 1970. An Indigenous community formed a cooperative to defend their rights from settlers and colonists, but the government organized a military operation to protect the latter and foreign companies.La quemada
IMDB 5 | Oct , 2022
12 years later, a failed school short film is resignified to share the multiple experiences that exist in the creation of a film.Slow, une histoire d'amour
IMDB 8 | Jan , 2024
Cidadão Jatobá
IMDB 0 | May , 1987
Two Lawalapiti young men from Alto Xingu learn to build a canoe from the bark of the jatobá tree, a quick and simple technique that leaves the tree still rooted and alive, and that has ceased to be used and is only known by the oldest Lawalapiti men.Grey Horse
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2025
Samuel Grey Horse, an Indigenous equestrian from Austin, Texas, is known for rescuing horses from being put down. After a riding accident lands him in a coma, Grey Horse experiences an afterlife vision that changes his perspective on the world and his place in it.Censored!
IMDB 0 | Dec , 1999
A documentary about the cultural effect of film censorship, focusing on the tumultuous times of the teens and early 1920s in America.Japans tätowierte Helden
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2024
Club Native
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2008
With moving stories from a range of characters from her Kahnawake Reserve, Mohawk filmmaker, Tracey Deer, reveals the divisive legacy of more than a hundred years of discriminatory and sexist government policy to expose the lingering "blood quantum" ideals, snobby attitudes and outright racism that threaten to destroy the fabric of her community.On sourira de nous
IMDB 0 | May , 2022
Four friends tired of protests are thinking about another way to shake up capitalist society. Driven by fiction, they decide to blow up a Brussels shopping center. How to think the attack? What roles do they need to play in order to imagine taking action? Is their friendship reconcilable with such a radical act?Namatjira Project
IMDB 0 | Sep , 2017
From the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace - Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family, tracing their quest for justice.maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore
IMDB 5 | Jan , 2020
An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.Maximón: Devil or Saint
IMDB 10 | Feb , 2014
MAXIMÓN - Devil or Saint is a documentary about the controversial Maya deity, also known as San Simon or the drinking and smoking saint of Guatemala. He is a mixture of ancient Maya beliefs and Christianity. The movie concentrates on the people who surround Maximón with their strong personalities, opinions and faith. The documentary gives us a rare view into the rituals and fiestas honoring Maximón. The cult of Maximón is flourishing because he performs miracles. He is also feared and despised because he is used to cast curses that can result in death. Ultimately, Maximón transcends the duality of good and evil, reflecting the Maya cosmovision in which everything in the universe co-exists.Ketwajê
IMDB 0 | Nov , 2023
The Mentuwajê Guardians of Culture (a group of young Krahô filmmakers) invite the Beture Collective (Mebêngôkre-Kayapó) to visit their village and attend the Kêtwajê festival – an important initiation ritual that has not taken place for ten years. Over the course of several days, children and adolescents undergo various “tests” to transform into adult warriors, under the watchful and shared gaze of the local filmmakers and the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó guests.The Invention of the Other
IMDB 8 | Nov , 2022
In 2019, the Brazilian government coordinates the largest and riskiest expedition of the last decades into the Amazon rainforest to search for a group of isolated indigenous people in vulnerability and promote their first contact with non-indigenous. Bruno Pereira, who would later be murdered in the same region and turned into an international symbol in favor of the indigenous and the forest, leads the expedition.Vive La France
IMDB 0 | Aug , 2014
Kua and Teriki will soon get married. They live on the distant Tureia island in the French Polynesia, Pacific Ocean and have just been told that something is wrong with their son Maokis heart. It is a consequence of living only 100 km away from the island of Moruroa, where France has tested 193 atom bombs for 30 years. Several of their family members are sick and Moruroa can soon collapse, which can lead to a tsunami likely to drown all of them. Vive La France is a personal and intimate story about harvesting the consequences of the French atomic program.Essence of Healing: The Journey of American Indian Nurses
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2017
Essence of Healing is a documentary exploring the life journeys of 14 American Indian nurses - their experiences growing up, their experiences in nursing school, and their experiences on the job. They are part of a larger story - a historical line of care and compassion that has run through hundreds of indigenous tribes for thousands of years.Monica in the South Seas
IMDB 0 | Nov , 2023
Finnish filmmaker and artist Sami van Ingen is a great-grandson of documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty, and seemingly the sole member of the family with a hands-on interest in continuing the directing legacy. Among the materials he found in the estate of Robert and Frances Flaherty’s daughter Monica were the film reels and video tapes detailing several years of work on realising her lifelong dream project: a sound version of her parents’ 1926 docu-fiction axiom, Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age.