Reporter Volume 26, No.22 March 30, 1995 By STEVE COX Reporter Staff Cultures from around the globe are coming to the Center for the Arts in April. The 18th annual Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival will make its first stop ever in Buffalo next month. The prestigious exposition of documentary films by anthropologists, the only festival of its kind in the country, is dedicated to the late world-famous anthropologist Margaret Mead. Mead, who worked in New York's American Museum of Natural History from 1926 until her death in 1978, was a pioneer in the use of film to document the world's cultures. Media Studies Professor Sarah Elder, herself a documentary filmmaker of national reputation, is coordinating UB's leg of the festival's nine-city tour. Once a Mead student at Columbia, Elder has seen all of her films featured in the festival. "She was very supportive of my work and helped me secure funding for my first film," said Elder of Mead. The festival will present screenings each Wednesday and Friday beginning at 7 p.m. during the first three weeks of April. All shows, to be presented in the Center for the Arts Screening Room, are free and open to the public. Wednesday, April 5: Invading Others: Anthropology, Film and Tourism. - Trekking on Tradition (Jennifer Rodes, 1992) Westerners search for mystique and inspiration in the Himalayas and in their searching often change Nepali lives. - The Anthropologist (Andrea Geschwendtner, 1992) Rudolph Poch, the first anthropologist of Vienna, was also a pioneer in using moving pictures and wax cylinder recordings in 20th century fieldwork. When WWI broke out he continued his studies in Austro-Hungarian POW camps. - Imagining Indians (Victor Masayesva, 1992) Masayesva, a Hopi filmmaker, visits Native American communities in the American West to introspectively examine the consequences to the Indians of the filming of Indian lives by documentary filmmakers. Friday, April 7: Home Abroad. - Homelands (Tom Zubrycki, 1993) The political and personal intersect in this dramatic story about two refugees from El Salvador who emigrated to Australia. A deeply engag-ing story, the film documents their struggle to maintain their culture and sense of family in their new land, while also exploring the ethics of documentary filmmaking. - Siki (Niek Koppen, 1992) The story of "Battling Siki," the first Senegalese to win the world light-heavyweight boxing title. It follows him through Africa and Europe to the U.S., where he died tragically in New York City. - Piemule (Jana Seveikova, 1991) A black-and-white production about a group of Czechs who settled over 150 years ago in hills near Timisoara, Romania. Isolated from a foreign world, this community has kept its language, culture and spirituality intact. Wednesday, April 12: Music: Performance to Protest. - From Little Things Big Things Grow (Trevor Graham, 1993) A story about Kev Carmody, an Aboriginal musician and songwriter touted by Rolling Stone Magazine as having produced the best protest album ever made in Australia. - Gandy Dancers (Barry Dornfeld and Maggie Holtzberg, 1994) A film focusing on the expressive culture of eight retired African-American railroad track laborers. The eight tell of life as laborers in the segregated south before civil rights, organized labor and occupational safety standards. - Earl Robinson: Ballad of an American (Bette Jean Bullert, 1994) A fascinating portrait of Earl Robinson, a balladeer of the American Communist Party who became a New Age spiritualist in later life. Robinson was the composer of the labor protest song "Joe Hill" and the operetta "Ballad for Americans." Friday, April 14: Shamans Today. - Children's Magical Death (Timothy Asch, 1974) A delightful, humorous story of a group of young Yanomami boys imitating their fathers. - Survivors of the Rainforest (Andy Jillings, Jacques Lizot, 1993) The Yanomami of Venezuela invite their enemies to settle old scores and feast. However, sickness and death overtake the preparations. Their shamans' healing powers are no match for these new diseases carried by gold prospectors. - A Shamanic Medium of Tugaru (Yasuhiro Omori, 1994) In northern Japan, famous shaman Kamisama (woman of spiritual being) summons spirits through a pair of puppets and other mediums. Wednesday, April 19: A Woman's Place: Ethiopia, Namibia and South Africa. - Our Way of Loving (Joanna Head, Jean Lydall, 1994) This stunning, complex film, Part III of the Hamar Trilogy, revisits Sago and Duka, a young married Hamar couple in the remote southwest of Ethiopia, as they candidly discuss conflicts and controversies in their relationship, centering on Duka's dissatisfaction with her husband's sometimes violent beatings of her. -N!ai, The Story of a !Kung Woman (John Marshall, Adrienne Miesmer and Sue Marshall Cabexas, 1980) An intimate portrait of an African !Kung woman in her mid-thirties. Remarkable footage shot throughout the 1950s and 1978 complement her narrative of the problems created by her wealth, from working with the Marshall film crew, and the continuing commercialization of African bushmen, with movies like "The Gods Must Be Crazy." Friday, April 21: Program. -Porteurs D'Ombres Electriques (Electric Shadows) (Herve Cohen, Renaud Cohen, 1993) The visually powerful portrait of a woman and two men who travel around the countryside, deep in the province of Sichuan, climbing forbidding terrain to present outdoor film shows. -Lighting the 7th Fire (Sandra Johnson Osaswa, 1994) An Ojibway prophecy indicates that Native Americans are living in the age of the "7th Fire" -- a time when traditional ways are strengthened. The video features the Ojibwas of Northern Wisconsin. -Copperworking in Santa Clara del Cobre (Beate Engelbracht, Manfred Kruger, 1989-93) A beautifully crafted film about the art of copperwork in this region, where it has existed since pre-Spanish times. -God's Alcatraz (Boris Stout, 1993) A powerful observational film by a British filmmaker about an African American community leader in Brooklyn, Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, who advocates segregation as a way to empower the community.