The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival—the longest-running documentary film festival in the United States, celebrating 33 years in 2009—will screen an outstanding and eclectic selection of 33 titles culled from more than 1,000 submissions at the American Museum of Natural History from Thursday to Sunday, November 12 to 15, 2009. Founded by the Museum in 1977, the festival presents a far-reaching selection of documentaries and other non-narrative works as well as animation, experimental films, and indigenous media.

Steeped in the history of ethnographic film, the Mead has grown with the evolution of the documentary form to screen a range of innovative films. This year’s line-up features an array of inspiring true stories that include surviving catastrophic loss, thriving while living with disabilities, facing the consequences of war, and adapting to the modern world while maintaining cultural traditions. The festival will present a special multi-media presentation by famed pop-culture icon DJ Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller), whose Science of Terra Nova explores climate change through live music and photographs from the AMNH archives. The festival includes films and filmmakers from Austria, Bosnia, Czech Republic, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, The Netherlands, Ukraine, and the United States.

Learn more about the festival here, and see the full schedule and reserve tickets here.