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Dance of the Harvest

A 1930s glimpse of life in rural Sri Lanka

Documentary 1934 8 mins

Overview

The colonial obsession with the customs of the colonised, defined as β€œprimitive,” is represented in this film depicting the cultivation, harvest, threshing and winnowing of paddy. Shot in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film also includes a scene of a harvest dance.

This government film is a public record, preserved and presented by the BFI National Archive on behalf of The National Archives, home to more than 1,000 years of British history.