Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival

The American Museum of Natural History’s Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running showcase for international documentaries in the United States. Encompassing a broad spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental nonfiction, the Festival is distinguished by its outstanding selection of titles, which tackle diverse and challenging subjects, representing a range of issues and perspectives, and by the forums for discussion with filmmakers and speakers.



The Mead was founded by the American Museum of Natural History in 1977, in honor of pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead on her seventy-fifth birthday and her fiftieth year at the Museum. A film festival represented an especially apt form with which to celebrate Mead's life, as she was one of the first anthropologists to recognize the significance of film for fieldwork.  To this day, the Festival continues to extend Mead's vision of bringing important topics and viewpoints to a general public.



Organized by the Museum’s Public Programs Division in the Department of Education, the Festival is held each November and a Traveling Festival, which includes a selection of titles from the Festival, travels to museums, universities and theaters around the United States and abroad.