In Advanced Search, you can enter search terms and then limit results by any of the following categories: Year, Topic, Genre, Audience, Availability, Format, Language, Region or Country, and Country of Distributor or Repository. You can limit by as many categories as you choose.
1. Clear search choices: Click the Clear button (at top of the page or next to the Search button at the bottom of the page) before conducting a new search to avoid unintended limits from a previous search in a new search.
2. Enter search terms: Type search terms in the search box provided.
Choose “With all of the words” “With the exact phrase” or “With at least one of the words.”
- By default, only records with all terms you enter in the search box will be shown.
Choose “With all of the words” if all terms must appear in the record. For example: truth AND reconciliation. If two words must appear as a phrase (example: civil war), choose “With the exact phrase” instead (see below).
- For results with any of the search terms, select "With at least one of the words." This often yields many results. Avoid common words like a, an, the, of, for, by, etc.
Choose “With at least one of the words” for two words with similar meaning, only one of which might be appear in the record. For example: discrimination OR segregation; liberation OR independence.
- Exact phrase is useful if you are searching for the exact name of a film.
This option operates like enclosing the phrase in quotation marks ("like this") on many other websites.
3. Choose the order of search results: You can display search results beginning with:
- Most recent film (the default option),
- Oldest film, or
- Alphabetically by film title.
4. Limit categories of search: Use the checkboxes and dropdown boxes to select choices in any of eight categories - Year, Topic, Genre, Audience, Availability, Format, Language, Region or Country, and Country of Distributor or Repository. Choose as many categories as you like to narrow your search results.
- For example, if you limit Genre to "Documentaries" (from the dropdown box provided), your results will include only documentary films with the search terms you enter.
- The Region and Country category allows you to limit search results to films about individual countries or any country in a region of Africa.
- The Topic category contains 16 broad topics. This is useful if you are looking for a film to teach about "Women and Gender" or "Health & Medicine" or "Art, Music & Performance."
- Limiting the search by one or more category should not only improve your search results, it also may speed up your search.
5. Clear search choices by clicking on the Clear button (at top of the page or next to the Search button at the bottom of the page) to delete the limits from your previous search before conducting a new search.
