John Marshall ‐ The !Kung Project

John Mar­shall, film­mak­er and activist, is best known for his life­time involve­ment with the Ju/‘hoansi (!Kung Bush­men) of Nyae Nyae in Namib­i­a’s Kala­hari Desert. He first picked up a camera in 1949, at the age of 17, during the first of sev­er­al expe­di­tions to the Kala­hari orga­nized by his father, Lau­rence Mar­shall. The whole Mar­shall family - includ­ing John’s mother, Lorna, and sister, Eliz­a­beth Mar­shall Thomas - became engaged in a multi-dis­ci­pli­nary study of the Ju/‘hoansi. John applied him­self whole-heart­ed­ly to the task of film­ing, he was a nat­ur­al cam­era­man. His first film, The Hunters (1957), was an almost instant clas­sic of ethno­graph­ic film. John con­tin­ued his doc­u­men­tary record of Ju/‘hoansi, direct­ing his final shoot in 2000. He has since shot over 600,000 feet of film from which 26 films were edited. A KALAHARI FAMILY (2002) his epic six-hour series, tells the story of the Ju/‘hoansi from 1950-2000 and charts John’s evo­lu­tion from film­mak­er to activist. John con­tin­ued his advo­ca­cy work until short­ly before his death in 2005. His legacy - both in film and in the Ju/‘hoan com­mu­ni­ty - lives on. … read more