Scope and Content
The collection consists of the moving image and sound footage, shot between 2000 and 2003, which led to the documentary film MANA : Beyond Belief (2004). Documents created during production and post-production are also included (logs, translations, shot lists, and notes).
Peter Friedman and Roger Manley describe the project as an "[investigation of] the myriad ways in which people around the world invest objects with special meaning or power. The power of objects is a familiar concept to the Maori people of New Zealand, who call it mana. There is no exact equivalent in other languages, but mana means something like 'prestige.' Objects with mana are as diverse as humanity itself, and may embody many different kinds of power and value--religious, artistic, economic, historical, or personal. But mana itself is universal--all people, all over the world, value or venerate something."
The 114 hours of raw footage depict object veneration in Italy, Japan, Benin, France, the United States, the Navajo Nation, Malaysia, Burma, India, New Zealand, and Germany. The footage encompasses subjects such as: a rare exhibition of the Holy Shroud of Turin; the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine in Kyoto; vodou ceremonies and The Door of No Return in Ouidah; the holy dirt of Chimayo; Navajo hogan and sweat lodge ceremonies; a modern-day dime museum in Baltimore; the one-year anniversary ceremony held at the ruins of the World Trade Center twin towers in New York city; Hindu idol-anointing in Penang; Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon; a Burmese car-blessing shrine; an Indian IT company in Bangalore; several interviews in New Zealand about the Maori concept of mana; fine art analysis in Berlin; and more.
The collection materials are primarily in English and French, with at least 19 additional languages recorded in ambient speech and interviews: Arabic, Burmese, Cantonese, German, Hindi, Hokkien, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Karen, Malay, Maori, Navajo, Pali, Spanish, Swiss German, Tamil Indian, Vietnamese, and Yoruba.