The matriarch of visual anthropology, Margaret Mead, trekked the globe for decades, exploring divergent cultures and civilizations. Despite her death in 1978, her work and influence continue to live on.
The Margaret Mead Traveling Film and Video Festival, celebrating its 29th year, features a series of films at the Center for the Arts that will run through Nov. 10.
Whether they're cultural documentaries or works of fiction, the films address topics that are cinematically daring and socially provocative.
The first feature, "Marry Me," screened on Sept. 22, explored the cultural complexities of a Cuban-German marriage, while lasts week's "Afghanistan Unveiled" went behind the lens of Afghani female filmmakers who surveyed the lifestyle of Afghani women.
The third installation, "A Panther in Africa," plays on Thursday Oct. 6. The documentary tells the story of a sixties-era Black Panther convicted of a gun charge. He flees to Africa where he and his wife fight for civil rights and a better standard of living.
Sarah Elder is a co-host of the weekly event and a professor of media studies at UB.
"Mead was a visionary in anthropology," Elder said. "A lot of people fought her on that, claiming that films weren't scientific enough. They wanted to use notebooks."
Bruce Jackson, the other host of the Festival and a distinguished professor of American Culture, described the filmmaker's endurance to inspire change.
"I am in wonder at the profound resilience of the human spirit," he said, "and astonished by the ability of ethnographers to go to difficult places and look at difficult things and then bring back to the rest of us pieces of what they saw."
From 1925 to 1939 Mead studied seven cultures in Samoa, studying the impact of culture on children. She gradually formulated theories in order to aid the public's understanding of culture.
In 1977, The American Museum of Natural History created the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, commemorating her ability to make cultural anthropology digestible for the public.
Jackson supports visual anthropology for its ability to deliver the audience from preconceptions.
"It is the medium that, more than any other, lets you not be a total prisoner of the anthropologist and the anthropologist's hang-ups," he said.
Throughout her career, Mead wrote ethnographies and produced cross-cultural documentaries attempting to inform the average person.
"I think a lot of people are hungry for information about our world," Elder said, "They just don't know how to find out about it."
In addition to making ethnography enjoyable and accessible, Mead fostered an acceptance for a wide range of topics. This open-mindedness is reflected in the festival by inviting all varieties of independent ethnographic documentaries.
Mead was an anthropological gymnast, stretching to reach all earnest minds and demonstrating the flexibility of communicative media and the strength of cross-cultural influences.
"Why should we see anything about anyone else other than ourselves?" Elder asked. "If we don't have a greater sense of the world, we may damage it without meaning to."
Two more documentaries will be featured on Thursday Oct. 27. Jean Rouch's "Margaret Mead: A Portrait by a Friend" is a biopic on the life of Margaret Mead. "Jaguar" tells the story of three friends who leave the Nigerian savannah in search of fortune in the cities of Ghana.
On Nov. 3, the digitally animated "How to Fix the World," examines the effect of Soviet collectivism on Muslim-based satellite countries. "Oscar" is about a taxi driver and artist who protests capitalist advertising in Argentina.
The Festival concludes on Nov. 10 with "The Future of Food," which takes a critical look at how governments and corporations influence the food industry.
The Margaret Mead Traveling Film and Video Festival takes place Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. in the CFA Screening Room. Admission is free.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
