Ama Girls Backdrop Blur
Ama Girls Poster

Ama Girls

Oscar winning documentary short from 1958

Top Cast

  • Winston Hibler

    Winston Hibler

    Narrator

Overview

Oscar winning documentary short from 1958

Rating

7.0 / 10
8 Reviews
0 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    6 Feb 11, 2024

    This isn't really about the "Ama" girls, more a review of a Japanese maritime community in the 1950s. With a slightly sarcastic and borderline condescending commentary from Winston Hibler, we spend a day with the villagers whose lives have hardly changed in centuries. The employ a myriad of techniques - some quite innovative - as they plunder the sea and the beach for anything edible or sellable to a nation that values freshness over everything. We do see a little of these renowned ladies. They dive deep into the rocky crevices in the chilly waters looking for rare seaweed or maybe the odd pearl. The arrival of the sardine boat means it's all hands to the pump to get this huge, but never sufficient, cargo unloaded and despatched to market and by the end of the day, everyone is in need of a rest and a good - if really quite sparing - meal. This is an ancient and proud culture that mucks in together to ensure that everyone is taken care of - they even have a stock of fresh fish kept alive in a basket in a pond for emergencies, and their flat-bottomed boats and intricate fishing contraptions are quite remarkably inventive.

Recommendations

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Night Will Fall

7.6 2014