Meet the World here at Watershed, at the 14th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film. The Royal Anthropological Institute’s (RAI) unique international documentary film festival is celebrating its 30th birthday here, screening more than 70 award-winning films from around the world. See the full Festival programme.

Ethnography, put simply, is the study of human cultures through a long-term immersion in the lives of others. The ethnographic filmmakers featured in the festival have produced thought-provoking films on topics as diverse as life after genocide in Rwanda, the struggle of artists in Kashmir, to the experiences of a young dance troupe in a South African slum. They focus on the lives of a wide range of people including Swiss Yodellers, World of Warcraft gamers and the last travelling shepherd in Milan. But what all the filmmakers in this unique festival have in common is a passionate commitment to understanding and revealing the perspectives of others through nuanced, ethical and in-depth filmmaking. As well as film screenings, there will be a chance to meet many of filmmakers and several special film making workshops.

The Festival opens with screenings of The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The film will be discussed by one of Europe’s most distinctive producers, Signe Byrge Sørensen, together with Executive Producer and President of The Royal Anthropological Institute, André Singer and Director, Joshua Oppenheimer who will join the conversation via Skype.

To demonstrate the diversity and impact of an anthropological approach to filmmaking, we are also screening Salt of the Earth (Thu 18 June 18:00), Wim Wenders' study of great Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, whose images capture the epic struggle for humanity, Richard Linklater's Boyhood (Wed 17 June 17:40), a 12 year-in-the-making chronicle of a young boy that blurs the boundary between fact and fiction.

Another festival highlight is the preview and discussion of Channel 4s new experimental series ‘The Tribe’. It has installed fixed-rig cameras and tiny microphones in four huts and communal space belonging to a lively family of Hamar people in Ethiopia. “This is a new way of doing TV anthropology” Paddy Wivell, director and series producer from Renegade Pictures, said. He will be joined in a discussion by executive producer Harry Lansdown and Jean Lydall, anthropologist and filmmaker who has made films with the Hamar since the 1990s.

See the full Festival programme.

Ticket prices:

Tickets for individual screening sessions will be available from 08:30 on the day from Box Office, subject to availability. £7.00 full / £5.50 concessions. Please see RAI website for Festival (£95.00) or Day (£35.00) passes.

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