Changa Revisited

Original title Changa Revisited

Changa Revisited is the story of a Maasai elder, Toreto ole Koisenge, observed from two points in time across a thirty-year divide. His life has changed drastically since anthropologist Peter Biella first visited his homestead, over three decades ago. Then, he tended his father’s herd of six hundred cattle, now decimated down to twenty by years of sedentary existence and disease. The world of the Maasai pastoralists has shrunk since the Tanzanian government forced them to settle in permanent villages, ending their seasonal cattle migrations. “What else can you do except change?” asks Toreto. The film draws on photographic and audio recordings taken by Peter Biella in 1980, and on footage of Toreto’s present-day life. Together they create a rare view across time, one that brings to the audience the transforming emotional and cultural landscape of a contemporary Maasai family. Changa Revisited is about the deeply personal unfolding of a family’s journey, across decades of tumultuous change.

Trailer Click for view

Author/s Peter Biella and Leonard Kamerling

Peter Biella directs the program of Visual Anthropology at San Francisco State University. He has made films in the US, Egypt, El Salvador and Romania, but works primarily with the Tanzanian Maasai. His film The Chairman and the Lions won first place at EtnoFilm in Croatia, and the Audience Award at the Zanzibar Film Festival.

Leonard Kamerling’s films on Alaska Native cultures have won numerous international awards. Throughout his career he’s been concerned with issues of cultural representation in film, and the role documentary film can play in eliminating stereotypes, and in credibly translating one culture to another.

Research Peter Biella and Leonard Kamerling
Photography Richard Cross and Peter Biella
Sound Peter Biella and Leonard Kamerling
Editing Peter Biella, Daniel Chein, Leonard Kamerling