Documentary Educational Resources

COMING SOON – GOODBYE, CAPTAIN relates the story of Brazil's indigenous Gavião people and their efforts to maintain their language, livelihood, and identity throughout a half-century of upheavals.

https://store.der.org/goodbye-captain-p1088.aspx

At the center of this historical narrative is "Captain" Krôhôkrenhum Jopaipairé, leader of the Gavião community in the south of Pará. Krôhôkrenhum shares the history of his people and details his commitment to restoring the community’s cultural traditions.

Woven throughout this history is the relationship between the captain and Vincent Carelli, who began filming the community using a VHS camera in 1987. The film opens with Carelli’s return of an audio-visual archive to the Gavião community and the promise of fulfilling Krôhôkrenhum’s wish to maintain the memory of his people.

COMING SOON – THE SONG OF AIDA is a portrait of resilience amid persistent marginalization and cultural constraints.

https://store.der.org/the-song-of-aida-p1092.aspx

The film follows Aida, a Roma woman living in a Roma camp in Bari, Italy, from adolescence to adulthood as she pursues independence. Her journey reveals the obstacles she faces both from her traditionally patriarchal community and an Italian society marked by strong anti-Roma sentiment. Shot over a twenty-year period, this longitudinal view allows viewers to embrace Aida’s struggle as she finds her voice and independence.

Giovanni Princigalli
90 min, 2024
in Romani, Romanian, and Italian
English, Spanish, French and Italian subtitles

COMING SOON – CO-HUSBAND is a portrait of the practice of fraternal polyandry in the communities of the indigenous Humlo people in the Humla district of Nepal.

https://store.der.org/co-husband-p1094.aspx

This family structure is closely related to the caravan trade, when men were absent for long periods of time– traveling for up to eight months at a time to transport salt from Tibet and rice from the Achham region. Told from the perspective of the wives and husbands as well as the members of the community who reject this model, the film explores the economic, cultural and emotional dimensions of this custom and the social consequences for those who don’t practice it.

Nepalese filmmaker Ganesh Panday’s documentary invites a dialogue about how different a household and a family can look, what economic considerations go into such a structure, how to define a ‘successful’ household and what role love plays in marriage.

Ganesh Panday
35 min, 2020
in Nepali and Humlo
with English subtitles

COMING SOON – BALLAD ON THE SHORE
https://store.der.org/ballad-on-the-shore-p1095.aspx

In the fishing villages of Hong Kong, singing could once be heard from the sea. These songs illustrated the lives of fishermen, both their struggles and their joys. But as the generations pass, fewer and fewer people know the songs or the language they’re sung in. BALLAD ON THE SHORE chronicles Ma Chi Hang’s ethnomusicological work preserving this centuries-old oral tradition.

Taiwan International Documentary Festival, Taiwan
Sinophone Musics Film Festival, Taiwan
RAI Film Festival, UK

Ma Chi Hang
97 min, 2017
in Cantonese with English and Cantonese subtitles