Fenced in behind high mountains, largely bypassed by history, the hill tribes of the Philippines have had a unique opportunity to evolve at their own pace: thus they still pursue the blood-feuds of their head-hunting ancestors, but now also have an organised police force; still carry out pagan sacrifices, though many now regard themselves as Christians.
It was into this society that Professor Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, anthropologist and explorer, took his cameras to record the beauty of their mountain rice fields and the savagery of their pagan buffalo sacrifices -sacrifices which some viewers may find almost too brutal but which are perfectly natural to the descendants of head-hunters.

For centuries the wandering Lapps and their reindeer lived in a forgotten world of their own -the endless snows and frozen forests of Lappland. Then came the snow-scooter and the snow-tractor, and almost in a single generation the Lapps turned from nomads to settlement dwellers.
But one man determined that their old way of life should not be forgotten: his name, Per Host, explorer, photographer, honorary Lapp. For two years he lived with the last of the wandering Lapps. He filmed the bitter hardships of winter spent in tents far within the Arctic circle. He recorded the excitement of reindeer round-ups and battles. And with the Lapps he endured the long spring trek to the coast, ending in the spectacle of the whole reindeer herd, nearly 1,000 strong, swimming an arm of the sea.
At the end of his wanderings he returned with a faithful picture of a now-vanished pattern of existence - life of great harshness led amid surroundings of great beauty.