A Kalahari Family - Part One: A Far Country

A Kalahari Family is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Ju'hoansi of southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. These once independent hunter-gatherers experience dispossession, confinement to a homeland, and the chaos of war. Then as hope for Namibian independence and the end of apartheid grows, Ju'hoansi fight to establish farming communities and reclaim their traditional lands. The series challenges stereotypes of "Primitive Bushmen" with images of the development projects Ju'hoansi are carrying out themselves.

In 1951, the Marshall family set out to document the life of the Bushmen of the Kalahari. After a week of hard travel in desert-adapted vehicles, they met Toma Tsamkxao and his Ju'hoan band in Nyae Nyae. In their own words, Toma's extended family describes how they survive by gathering bush foods and hunting game. Thus begins a relationship between the Ju'hoansi and the Marshalls that will last over half a century.