Wedding in poetic Karjala (A.O. Väisänen, 1921)

Häidenvietto Karjalan runomailla - A Wedding in the Karelian Songlands is not only Finland's first ethnological film, but it is also the country's first extensive film made with an accompanying musical score. The film produced by the Kalevala society depicts an archaic wedding in Suojärvi, Border Karelia, on the northern side of Lake Ladoga. This region, which in the early 1900s was home to kalevala-metre rune -singing, Karelian ethnic religious practices and the Orthodox faith, has belonged to Russia since the Second World War. Drawing from two of his earlier operas, composer Armas Launis arranged the musical score for the film.

 
 Häidenvietto Karjalan runomailla (A.O. Väisänen, 1921)

History of ethnographic film (1895-1960)

(Chrono-Photographic Shots, Felix Regnault,  1895)

Malu-Bomai Ceremony at Kiam (Alfred Cort Haddon, 1898)
Information in the Colonial Film Catalogue

Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (Thom Andersen, 1975)

Australian Expedition (Baldwin Spencer, 1901)

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In the land of war conoes (Edward Curtis, 1914)

Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922)

A Stone Age People in New Guinea (1936-7) from Pitt Rivers Museum archive films on Vimeo.

Ladakh (1939-45) from Pitt Rivers Museum archive films on Vimeo.

Walkabout: A Journey with the Aboriginals (Charles Mountford, 1946)

Childhood Rivalry in Bali and New Guinea (Gregory Bateson & Margaret Mead, 1952)

Trance and Dance in Bali (Gregory Bateson & Margaret Mead, 1952)

Les Maîtres Fous (Jean Rouch, 1955)

Moi, un Noir (Jean Rouch, 1958)

Fake or Mock Documentaries

"Fake documentaries are fiction films that make use of (copy, mock, mimic, gimmick) documentary style and therefore acquire its associated content (the moral and social) and associated feelings (belief, trust, authenticity) to create a documentary experience defined by their antithesis, self -conscious distance" (Juhasz, 2006: 7). 

 "Fake documentaries can readily educate viewers about the uncertain links among objectivity, knowledge, and power—usually the hidden, ugly secret of straight documentary" (Juhasz, 2006: 12). 

 A recent one: Operación Palace (2014)

Video link

Some classics

Las Hurdes (Luis Buñuel, 1937)

David Holzman's Diary (Jim McBride, 1967)

F is for Fake (Orson Wells, 1973)

Daughter Rite (Michelle Citron, 1980)

Bontoc Eulogic (Marlon Fuentes, 1995)

Bibliography

• Juhasz, Alexandra & Lerner, Jesse (eds.). (2006).  F Is for Phony. Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Roscoe, Jane and Hight, Craig ( 2001). Faking It. Mock-documentary and the Subversion of Factuality. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

More information

• Fake and Mock Documentaries list at the Media Resources Center of the UC Berkeley 
• Library Mockumentary: Reflexivity, satire and a call to play