John Marshall began his filmmaking career in the Kalahari Desert in 1950. Later, he studied anthropology at Yale and Harvard Universities. To date, Marshall has produced 26 films from the vast amount of footage he has collected over the years. He has worked to document the life of the Ju/'hoansi of southern Africa and to promote grassroots development projects that support agriculture and recognition of Ju/'hoan and rights.
This film depicts a moment of flirtation in a joking relationship between N!ai, the young wife of Gunda, and her great uncle, Tik!kay, under the shade of a big tree. Through the lens, the director of this film leads the audience to ponder on the possible relationships between the two sexes. The flirtation between the protagonists, indeed, is based on…
John Marshall is reunited with Toma’s family in 1978. Like the majority of Ju/’hoansi, they have settled at Tjum!kui, an administrative post run by the South African government. They came looking for water, jobs and an easier life, but found poverty, malnutrition and violence. Desperate for a more stable existence, the family heads back to their traditional water hole, /Aotcha,…
A Kalahari Family is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Ju/’hoansi of southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. These once independent hunter-gatherers experience dispossession, confinement to a homeland, and the chaos of war. Then, as hope for Namibian independence and the end of apartheid grows, the Ju/’hoansi fight to establish farming communities and reclaim…