About the Mead
The American Museum of Natural History's Margaret Mead Film Festival, occurring October 18–21, 2018, screens documentaries that increase our understanding of the complexity and diversity of the peoples and cultures that populate our planet. The festival has evolved with the times while maintaining its important history and has grown steadily to reflect the ever-evolving incarnations of storytelling, technology and growing access to communities near and far. The Mead presents the best in documentary, experimental films, animation, hybrid works, and more.
The Mead is no longer accepting submissions.
The Margaret Mead Film Festival considers a range of non-narrative films and videos including feature length documentaries, hybrid works, shorts, experimental films, essay films, animation, and new media. Productions must have been completed within the last three years. Works in any language other than English must have English subtitles or English voiceover narration.
Festival Highlights
Last year, we debuted 12 US premieres and 33 total film screenings featuring more than 42 countries from around the world–all in 3 days at the Mead. Filmmaker Benjamin Wigley presented Paa Joe & the Lion, a film about a master coffin craftsman and his son from coastal Ghana. On the left of the stage is one of his masterpiece coffins from the Museum’s anthropology collections.
Stop-motion animation artist Amanda Strong, Indigenous (Michif) filmmaker, and the Spotted Fawn Productions crew made their US debut of Stories As Living Beings—an installation featuring the stunning characters and environments from their award-winning short films.
Strong’s stop-motion films peel back layers of colonial history based on her own family experience. Using a unique aesthetic, her hybrid, surreal work is grounded in First Nations histories and contemporary concerns.
Special events and dialogues complement our extraordinary slate of films each year. Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez—creator of La Borinqueña—discussed the roles humor, activism, and ethnographic research play in writing a graphic novel.
The Mixed Media Lounge showcased virtual reality, augmented reality, and more as modes to encounter diverse cultural stories. Museum anthropologists Jacklyn Lacey, Unambwe Mafie, Natalia Rodríguez Nuñez presented Wapi Utamaduni? (Where is the Culture?) an immersive 360-degree short film featuring WaMeru tribe elders and youth.
The Closing Night award ceremony featured a live breakdancing performance by the internationally competitive Israeli team from Babylon Dreamers followed by a festive hip-hop dance party.
The Mead is distinguished by a commitment to hosting filmmakers from around the world to attend their screening and participate in Q&As after films often moderated by Musuem curators or anthropologists. Pictured here (from left to right) is Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astronaut Charlie Duke, filmmaker Rob Lewis, and drummer and composer Jojo Mayer, after the screening of Lunar Tribute.
The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award recognizes documentary filmmakers who embody the spirit, energy, and innovation demonstrated by anthropologist Margaret Mead. The 2017 Mead award recipient is Warwick Thornton for his We Don’t Need a Map—a feature-length exploration of the Southern Cross and it’s role amidst the rise of extremist white Austrialian nationalism. From left to right: Mead juror Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, Mead's granddaughter Sevanne Kassarjian, Warwick Thornton, and Faye Ginsburg, anthropologist and director of NYU's Center for Media, Culture and History.
Mead volunteers are integral to festival operations—from flyer distribution to screen testing films to staffing our virtual reality stations. We are lucky to work with such a talented and passionate group! Learn how to get involved.
The Margaret Mead Film Festival is made possible by the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Support for the Margaret Mead Film Festival is provided, in part, by the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc. and the family of Frederick H. Leonhardt.
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American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St
New York, NY 10024
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