Arte Distribution

From India to the Bijagos archipelago, discover the last of the world’s matriarchies through the stories of the women who run them. Each of the five films in the collection is an immersion into one of these societies, through the eyes of a woman.

EPISODE 1 – The Minangkabau of Indonesia, an Islamic world where women have the power
EPISODE 2 – The Moso: No fathers, no marriages
EPISODE 3 – The Khasi and gender equality
EPISODE 4 – Orango: The Island of Priestesses
EPISODE 5 – Makhuwa: The weaker sex is not the one you think

Fire dancing in Papua New Guinea or climbing to the top of the Ethiopian cliffs to introduce one’s child to God: this series reveals how some people today still practice rituals that structure their lives and become, beyond a simple social bond, a structuring force and a source of culture.

In societies that struggle to find their bearings, rituals - whether pagan or mysterious - are of particular importance when people are confronted with the unknown, illness, death, not knowing what tomorrow is made of. Rituals help organise chaos, warding off our fears and bringing to light the meaning in our lives.
Anthropologist, Anne-Sylvie Malbrancke, helps us understand and experience these moments with those who practice them.​

Hernin and Marcellin Abong are two Vanuatu twin brothers with very different backgrounds: one has become the “Very Great Chief” of his tribe, while the other is an ethno-archaeologist. 

Their culture is slowly but surely disappearing forever. To keep a record of it, they both delve into the most remote parts of Vanuatu in search of the customs and rites of their people. On foot and by canoe, their journey takes them to grandiose and isolated territories, to discover spectacular and unknown rituals, even for them.

All along the Arctic coast of Norway, there's a bloody battle going on between three different species: orcas, whales…and humans! And it's all over the vast schools of herring that migrate to the Frozen North to seek shelter there in the fjords.! 

Follow Didier Noirot, one of the world's greatest underwater cameramen, as he tracks down the giants of the deep - using 8K underwater cameras and drones - and dives right into the heart of the hunt. Orcas – or "killer whales" – have developed what is called the "carousel" technique for catching herring: they surround them with bubbles then drive them up to the surface. But now the other whales are no longer scared of joining in to claim their share of the booty. Then there are the humans, with their huge nets: they too are after the same prize. Who is going to win the Herring War?

In the outer reaches of Siberia, the frozen shores of Lake Baikal are swept by a bitter wind. Those particularly hostile conditions inspired the Russian power to deport its enemies there from the 16th century onwards. 

There, these exiles – from religious minorities and Russian intellectual circles – build villages, develop their own culture and spread their ideas as far as Irkutsk; the city was soon nicknamed the Siberian Paris.

Quito, the capital of Ecuador, seems imprisoned among volcanoes. At its heart, the city has some impressive and richly-decorated churches which bear witness to an auspicious period for South American architecture.

Baroque art came from Europe with the colonists and acquired another dimension here in contact with Amerindian culture. So much so that it became a stamp of Ecuadorean cultural identity.

Iceland is a land of glaciers and volcanoes. This island with its black soil was still wild and uninhabited when the first Vikings arrived in the 9th century. The first colonists settled in the bay of Reykjavik and soon spread across the whole territory. 

From the first Icelandic parliament in Thingvellir to the myths that endure today, the arrival of these pioneers would change this isle of ice and fire forever.

Bodies and heads decorated with garlands of flowers move to the sound of tribal percussion on the black sand of a Polynesian beach. This sacred dance, with its links to the earth, is the Ori Tahiti, which goes back to the descendants of the island’s first inhabitants. 

It has survived through the ages, withstanding the ban that was imposed by the first Protestant colonists, and it remains a key component of Tahitian identity.

A ruminant mammal of the camelid family, like the alpaca of which it is the ancestor, the vicuna lives on the high plateaus of the Andes mountain range. 

Forcenturies, these graceful animals have been hunted for their meat. Threatened with extinction and now protected, they are only caught for their precious coat, an extremely fine, warm and light wool.

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, the Minangkabau are a matriarchal society. While Koranic law attributes only one-third of the inheritance to girls, the property of a Minangkabau family is passed on from mother to daughter and men can be repudiated by their wives.

Reini is a young woman from the Minangkabau ethnic group in West Sumatra. She is getting married. She goes to pick up her future husband from his parents’. According to their tradition, she is the one who has to lead him to the ceremony where the guests are waiting. After the wedding, the young husband will move in with his in-laws and take care of the children of his clan, while Reini will work in the fields.
 
But in Indonesia, in recent years, Islam has become more rigid. Nowadays more and more men want to restrict women's freedom. Reini knows that the Minangkabau way of life and traditions are in danger, but she plans to fight to protect them.

In this true "Kingdom of Women", the female presence is visible, unavoidable even. In Shillong, they are everywhere on the front lines: in banks, schools and even in parliament.  

They are the ones who sell meat or cigarettes behind tiny street stalls, and the ones who sell vegetables or fruit on the side of the road. Men most often meet each other playing cards or rocking a baby while accompanying another child to school.
But this ancestral model of society could well falter: among the Khasi, men are not necessarily satisfied with their fate and have begun to rebel.
A movement for the liberation of men was launched a few years ago – it is called Symbai Rimbai Tong Hai. It demands property rights for male children and a greater role for men in the family. “We find it unfair that women have all the power and we have none. We have no role to play except to feed our babies and change their diapers. I have friends who were so frustrated that they started drinking and taking drugs. We want to feel useful to society. After all, we have rights too”; some men in the community are now protesting.
 
Will the Khasi, this rare bastion of women's power in India, resist this surge in activism?

In the heart of the Amazon rainforests of Brazil, the Sateré-Mawé people have a rite of passage to adulthood where a show of bravery turns boys into men.

Some 20 years ago, Sergio left his tribe to study in the city. This year, he is returning to the community with his son Jackson, aged 12. It is time for the young boy to join the ranks of the Sateré-Mawé. To earn this status, Jackson must suffer the worst the jungle has to offer – the ritual of Da Tucandeira: Placing his hand inside a glove woven with hundreds of bullet ants whose venom is said to be the most painful in the world.
 
According to tribe members, this painful initiation prepares the young men for life and proves they are capable of fulfilling their reproduction obligations. The boys must endure the ordeal 20 times in their lives. For the Sateré-Mawé, virility is demonstrated through one’s resistance to pain, with no tears and no weakness.