1982, 16mm/DVD, 40 minutes

Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha

This groundbreaking work epitomizes the idea of “experimental ethnography”. Informed by poststructuralist theory, Min-ha’s use of disjunctive editing, personal narration, and acute observation upended the conventions of virtually all of the ethnographic filmmaking that came before. Her document of Senagalese village life, which focuses particularly on women, employs film poetics to luminous effect while fiercely resisting the impulse to essentialize.