Changa Revisited (2016)

Directed & Produced by Peter Biella & Leonard Kamerling
Edited by Peter Biella, Daniel Chein, & Leonard Kamerling
Photography by Peter Biella & Richard Cross

Synopsis

Changa Revisited is the story of Tanzania Maasai elder Toreto ole Koisenge and his family, seen from two points in time across a thirty year divide. His life has drastically changed since anthropologist Peter Biella first visited his home thirty years ago. Then he had six hundred cattle. Now disease has reduced his herd to twenty. The world of Maasai pastoralists has gotten smaller and smaller since the Tanzania government forced them to live in permanent villages and end the seasonal cattle migrations. “The world is upside-down…what can you do except change?” says Toreto. The film draws on hundreds of photographs and audio recordings taken in 1980 by Peter Biella. These images, woven with contemporary video footage, create a deeply personal portrait of the unfolding of a family’s life through three decades of tumultuous change.

Winner

Best International Film, Astra Film Festival 2016

Official Selection

Nordic Anthropological Film Festival 2016
Jean Rouch International Film Festival 2016
EthnograFilm Festival Paris 2016
Royal Anthropological Film Festival 2017
Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival 2017
National Museum of Estonia World Film Festival 2018
Displacement Virtual Film Festival 2018
Athens International Ethnographic Film Festival 2018
Moscow International Ethnographic Film Festival 2019