Thirty years after its release, N!ai, The Story of a !Kung Woman remains an exemplar of ethnographic filmmaking. Directed and edited by Adrienne Miesmer and John Marshall, the film documents the life of N!ai, a Ju/’hoan woman, and the harsh realities of apartheid in 1980s Namibia, offering an intimate portrait of life in one of the last communities to live by hunting and gathering. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Documentary Educational Resources, this program will explore the film’s importance to the preservation of intangible culture and Marshall’s work in relation to the development of educational, personal and activist documentaries.

The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring:

Michael Ambrosino, Former Executive Producer, Public Television; Creator, PBS series NOVA and Odyssey
Ilisa Barbash, Curator of Visual Anthropology, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
Sue Marshall Cabezas, Former Executive Director, Documentary Educational Resources
Ross McElwee, Professor of the Practice of Filmmaking, Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University

Moderated by Alice Apley, Executive Director, Documentary Educational Resources