Robert Gardner was the Director of the Film Study Center at Harvard University from 1957 to 1997. He is known for his work in the field of non fiction film. He is an internationally renowned filmmaker and author whose works have entered the permanent canon of non-fiction filmmaking. In the 1970s Gardner produced and hosted Screening Room, a series of more than one hundred 90-minute programs on independent and experimental filmmaking. Robert Gardner received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His latest book, Making Dead Birds-Chronicle of a Film, will be published in October/November of 2007.
Dead Birds is a film about the Dani, a people dwelling in the Grand Valley of the Baliem high in the mountains of West Papua. When I shot the film in 1961, the Dani had a classic Neolithic culture. They were exceptional in the way they dedicated themselves to an elaborate system of ritual warfare. Neighboring groups, separated by uncultivated…