Empire of Madness

Don’t be misled by the title and put your lube away: True Gore II (aka Empire of Madness) (1989)–M Dixon Causey’s follow-up to the eponymous first entry–has virtually no true gore in it at all. Instead, the first half is a compilation of faux-snuff vignettes akin to something you’d find in a SOV horror collection like Snuff Perversions 1 & 2, Snuff Files, The Dead Files, Violations I & II, or even more recent titles like Murder Collection Volume 1. The second half is in turn a send-up of satanic panic style videos like Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, Devil Worship: The Rise Of Satanism, and countless others shat out during the 80s/90s. The vignettes are hilariously inept to the point where it seems clear that Causey was parodying the shockumentary form. Even the credits are a joke, mocking the seriousness with which shocku producers take themselves, crediting a ‘researcher’ for a film that clearly had none, and a ‘visual archivist’ being listed in place of a cameraman.

1989-01-01 | en

Asante Market Women

As retailers, wholesalers, and negotiators, Asante women of Ghana dominate the huge Kumasi Central Market amid the laughter, argument, colour and music. The crew of this `Disappearing World' film have jumped into the fray, explored, and tried to explain the complexities of the market and its traders. As the film was to be about women traders, an all female film crew was selected and the rapport between the two groups of women is remarkable. The relationship was no doubt all the stronger because the anthropologist acting as advisor to the crew, Charlotte Boaitey, is herself an Asante. The people open up for the interviewers telling them about their lives as traders, about differences between men and women, in their perception of their society and also about marriage.

1982-01-01 | en

Mondo Topless

Completely topless. Completely uninhibited. The craze that began in San Francisco is now exploding across the USA and Europe.

1966-11-17 | en

Tomboy - I misteri del sesso

1977-12-02 | it

Wolfram, a Saliva do Lobo

The darkness of the mine, invaded by the miners' light, by the noisy machines and the permanent and intense smell of ore in the air, leads us to an environment in which time and space become confused. A documentary film at Panasqueiras' Mine, between 2008/09. A reality captured by an eye-observer which does not interfere, but follows the compost that grows from the earth and is decomposed by man-machine.

2010-01-01 | pt

Faces of Death

A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV-material to home-made super-8 movies. The common factor is death by some means.

1978-11-10 | en

90 Nights Around the World

A sexy mondo movie narrated by Nico Rienzi. Starring transsexual superstar Bambi.

1963-01-01 | en

Naked and Violent

Cult director Sergio Martino, during the most glorious mondo years, delivered Naked and Violent, a documentary which unveils the brutality of the USA. Hidden behind a mask of perfection and justice, Naked and Violent traces the problems of American society in the 70s: from racial persecutions to the depraved sexual habits of the middle class, from the drug market to illegal gambling.

1970-07-29 | it

Malamondo

This documentary looks at strange behaviors and practices in Europe, including nude skiing in Switzerland, hot-butchering in Italy, and an orgy in a graveyard.

1964-04-30 | it

Slave Trade in the World Today

The film documents modern slave trade through a number of African countries, under dictatorship rule. The filming was conducted both in public places, and sometimes with the use of hidden cameras, for high impact scenes of nudity, sex, and violence - and a few surprises, as slaves made out of peregrins to Asia, and slave traders paid in traveller checks.

1964-06-27 | it

Ekstase - Der Prozeß gegen die Satansmädchen

Mondo Cane and the Schoolgirl Report series stand as obvious influences on this occasionally amusing but generally rather tedious exploitation film that alternates between documentary, fake documentary and docudrama. The theme is Satanism and the linking thread is a recreation of what is supposedly the real-life case of a murder and attempted murder of two Munich teenage men by a quartet of girls who had been dabbling in devil worship. During the ensuing trial, the lawyer resorts to dilatory tactics while the hearing is frequently interrupted by the girls breaking into incantation, temper tantrums or shivery fits ostensibly bearing on demonic possession. When the subject of the Manson killings is brought up, the most obnoxious of the defendants breaks in indignantly, claiming that Sharon Tate’s “execution” was justified as she posed dangers to the Satanic community.

1979-04-13 | de

Savage World Today

A new age Mondo film that explores the realm of urban decay and various oddities of the modern world, ranging from underground club scenes to sex change operations.

1985-08-24 | it

Choqela: Only Interpretation

This provocative and profound film documents the Choqela ceremony, an agricultural ritual and song of the Aymara Indians of Peru. By offering several different translations of the proceedings, the film acknowledges the problems of interpretation as an inherent dilemma of anthropology.

1987-01-01 | en

The Hunters

An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.

1957-01-01 | en

Machete Gillette... Mama

"With characteristic wit and rigor, experimental filmmaker Larry Gottheim here applies his impressionistic editing style to footage collected during his travels in the Dominican Republic. Gottheim’s formal emphasis on repetition and fissures between sound and image resonates here as a mode of sociological reflection (with the fragmentary montage mirroring elements of ritual while also destabilizing the ethnographic gaze). A largely overlooked antecedent to the contemporary blending of avant-garde and ethnographic filmmaking, MACHETTE GILLETTE… MAMA still poses a potent challenge to documentary convention." - Max Goldberg

1989-01-01 | en

Euskal herri-musika

An ethnographic documentary which looks at the relationship between music and work in predominantly rural cultures. It depicts the lives of fisherman, shepherds and farmers and their relationship with music. The film also describes Basque ancestral instruments, with special emphasis on the origin and history of ‘bertsolarism’ (Basque verse singing) as a form of oral communication.

1978-04-11 | eu

A Wealth of Nations

Experimental ethnographic digital feature exploring International student and teacher identity expressed through musical performance at the University of Jinan, Shandong, China.

2014-07-28 | en

Himalayan Herders

John Bishop and Naomi Bishop present a portrait a peculiar life style of the Himalayan indigenous Sherpa people in their documentary , the Himalayan Herders. The 76 minutes long film is about the diverse culture and life style of herders community near Mt. Everest region of Nepal.The film was made in 1997 as a part of Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology Series.

1997-06-11 | en

Naked World

Mondo documentary.

1963-12-01 | en

Cowboy and Maria in Town

Exploring individual responses to rapid social change, Cowboy and Maria in town follows the parallel lives of its two central characters. Cowboy and Maria have independently landed in Port Moresby, negotiating ways to survive urban life in a city ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world. Cowboy is an ex-raskol (urban bandit) and Maria an inhabitant of a squatter settlement. Unemployed and with a jail record, Cowboy has constructed an electric guitar out of scrap materials and plays on street corners. Maria lives an equally precarious existence, cultivating a seasonal garden in an urban settlement inflamed by frustration and intertribal conflicts. Far from being third world victims, they go about their daily lives with humour and imagination, rising to the challenge of enormous cultural upheaval.

1991-01-01 | en