Alejandro Mamani: a case study in culture and personality

United States, 1983

Film
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Episode number 8 of Series “Faces of culture”.
Alejandro Mamani is a leader in his Bolivian mountain community, but he is an old man and believes himself possessed of evil spirits. Many remedies are tried to rid him of these spirits, from traditional forms of exorcism to sleeping tablets, but all attempts fail and after making his will he eventually commits suicide. Did he go mad or did he simply make use of his culture to leave life, once he saw there was no further use for him and his affairs were in order? Narrated by David Carradine.

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Credits

director

Harry Ratner

producer

Ira R. Abrams

production company

Coast Community College District

Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Duration

00:30:00:00

Production places
United States
Production dates
1983

Appears in

Faces of culture

Group of items

Faces of culture

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Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

303902

Language

English

Subject categories

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Indians of South America

Family, Gender Identity, Relationships & Sexuality → Aging

Food, Health, Lifestyle, Medicine, Psychology & Safety → Aging

Short films

Short films → Short films - United States

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

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If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/82736--alejandro-mamani-a-case-study-in-culture-and-personality/ |title=Alejandro Mamani: a case study in culture and personality |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=1 July 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}