Sky Above and Mud Beneath

Sky Above and Mud Beneath
Theatrical poster
Directed byPierre Dominique Gaisseau
Written byPierre Dominique Gaisseau
Produced by
Cinematography
  • Jean Bardes-Pages
  • Gilbert Sarthre
Edited byGeorges Arnstam
Distributed byThe Rank Organisation (France)
Release date
  • May 1961 (1961-05)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
Box office$1.1 million (US/Canada)[1]

Sky Above and Mud Beneath (French: Le Ciel et la boue, lit. 'the sky and the mud'), also released as The Sky Above –The Mud Below,[2] is a 1961 French documentary film. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature[3][4] and was entered into the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.[5]

The film documented a 7-month, thousand-mile Franco-Dutch expedition led by Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau, into uncharted territories of what was then Netherlands New Guinea.[2] The expedition began in the northern region of the Asmat. The group interacted with tribes of cannibals, headhunters and Pygmies; battled leeches, hunger, and exhaustion; and “discovered” and named the Princess Marijke River, named after Princess Maria Christina (Marijke) of the Netherlands.[6]

Cast

See also

References

  1. ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1962". Variety. 9 Jan 1963. p. 13. Please note these are rentals and not gross figures
  2. ^ a b Daniel Blum, Daniel Blum's Screen World 1963 (Biblo & Tannen Publishers, 1963), 185.
  3. ^ Eleanor Mannikka (2011). "NY Times: Sky Above and Mud Beneath". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Baseline & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
  4. ^ "The 34th Academy Awards (1962) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved May 24, 2019.
  5. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Sky Above and Mud Beneath". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  6. ^ Kenneth White Munden, The American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States, Issues 1921-1930 (University of California Press, 1971), 999.


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