From Trash Hunters to Bone Collectors: 11 Must-See Latino Docs at the Margaret Mead Film Festival

Anthropology and documentary have always gone together like rice and beans. Even back in the earliest days of film, pioneering documentarian Robert Flaherty turned his “objective” camera on the daily lives and rituals of Inuit hunters, Irish fishermen, and Samoan villagers. As the century went on, the tradition was continued by the groundbreaking work of anthropologist Margaret Mead, who was one of the first academics in the field to incorporate visual methods into her research.

In 1976, to commemorate Mead’s 75th birthday, the American Museum of Natural History honored her long career by founding the Margaret Mead Film Festival, which became one of the first American festivals dedicated exclusively to the documentary arts. Over the past 29 years, the event has branched out from its ethnographic roots and now includes everything from experimental nonfiction to community media and has premiered some of the world’s most respected documentaries along the way.

This year the festival celebrates its 2015 edition by exploring the borders and boundaries of our increasingly globalized world, bringing together over 50 films from all over the world that touch on the guiding theme of “Thresholds.” From Mongolian modernity to ancient textile traditions in Egypt, barrio museums, and Vietnamese funeral songs, “Thresholds” presents a tapestry of human experience in the 21st century and invites us to discover our commonalities.

And of course, this wide-ranging slate wouldn’t be complete without a handful of films from Nuestra América, and Margaret Mead delivers. A total of 11 features and shorts will bring New York audiences slices of life from Uruguay, Peru, Panama, Mexico, and much more. Here’s the rundown of this year’s Latino films so you don’t have to miss a single one.

The Margaret Mead Film Festival runs October 22-25, 2015 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.