This groundbreaking, five-part study of India’s most prestigious boys’ boarding school is a contemporary masterwork of renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall. Sometimes called “the Eton of India,” Doon School has developed its own characteristic style and presents a curious mixture of privilege and egalitarianism. Each of the five films can stand on its own and may be purchased separately. But taken together as a series the five films provide a unique and revelatory cultural portrait that will take its place among the classics of ethnographic cinema.
Please use this page to order The Doon School Quintet only if you wish to purchase the entire series (five titles) at its discounted price of $1,175, plus shipping and handling. If you desire further information regarding each title or if you wish to purchase individual titles from the series you may do so on this web site; here are the links to the individual titles:
“The Doon School Project in India by David MacDougall is perhaps the most noteworthy digital ethnographic film project.” — Jay Ruby, Prof. Emeritus of Anthropology, Temple University, in The Last 20 Years of Visual Anthropology – A Critical Review (2005)
“Without doubt the Doon Project will provide plentiful material for discussion of such matters as the place of such a school in a democratic society; the acculturation of children; identity in the old sense versus ´identity´ in its new sense of national or cultural conformism; how an Úlite perpetuate its values; or, at a more experiential level, how we may each position ourselves in relation to the machineries of social constraint. Nevertheless, simply to call these anthropological films would, while true, be a little like calling Things Fall Apart [by Chinua Achebe] an anthropological novel. They are a major contribution to our screen culture, and deserve to be seen well beyond the confines of the discipline.” — Dai Vaughan, film editor, novelist, and author of For Documentary (University of California Press, 1999), in Visual Anthropology (Vol. 18, 2005)
Awards
Margaret Mead Film Festival honorees
Association for Asian Studies honorees
American Anthropological Assn. selections
Society for Visual Anthropology selections
Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival honorees
Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, honorees
Gottingen Intl. Ethnographic Film Festival honorees
Selected for screening at dozens of major film festivals and academic conferences worldwide
