While artists would be expected to be at an arts festival, and anthropologist enthusiasts would be expected to be at a culture-focused event, the universal themes on display at last week’s National Georgraphic’s fifth annual All Roads Film Festival brought in a crowd as diverse in interests and backgrounds as the topics that the festival’s art covered. The film festival was organized in an effort to share the vibrant lives of underrepresented indigenous cultures with a broader audience, featuring a series of films and photographs from award-winning artists of diverse backgrounds.

Upon entering National Geographic territory, one was met with a courtyard display of photographs from four acclaimed photographers. The display was labeled “Images and Stories: A New Generation,” which refers to a new generation of storytellers who have emerged in the photojournalism world and are exposing fascinating visuals of their own cultures. All of the photographers projected potent images through their lenses, but each took a unique approach to exposing the lifestyles of communities from around the globe.

Topics included the lives of women in Afghanistan, the effect of modern life on traditional culture in Argentina and Azerbaijan and poverty and environmental threats in Bangladesh. Particularly poignant was the series of photos shot by the nascent Afghan photographer Farzana Wahidy, who incorporated the burqa as a common element in all of her photos on display in order to portray the religious restrictions imposed upon women in their daily lifes in Afghanistan. One of her photos even offered the viewer a rare glimpse of the bustle of everyday life through the eyehole webbing of an Afghan woman’s burqa.

In addition to the eye-catching photo display that greeted the audience, a focal aspect of the festival was the presentation of films directed by filmmakers of indigenous minority-culture backgrounds not generally represented in the film industry who sought to share stories through documentaries from their own cultures. The short films were shown in a series of viewing sessions that spanned the four-day festival and were grouped by common themes.

To give a taste of the organization of the film presentation, Saturday’s program included a three-film showing entitled “New Warriors.” All three films exposed the struggle of individuals and communities to make their voices heard within their respective countries.

In National Geographic’s Grosvenor Auditorium, a multicultural crowd of considerable size was presented first with a documentary entitled “Under the Open Sky,” which depicts the struggle of the people of El Carrizalillo, Mexico, for pecuniary compensation from the giant Goldcorp Mining company that encroached upon its land. Although much of the film followed a discouraging routine of complaints from community members about a lack of respect and a series of negotiations in which the company authorities were unrelentingly stingy, the small but united community of El Carrizalillo proved the power of persistence when at the end of the film they made great gains against the intruding corporate giant.

Similarly, the next documentary in the series, called “What Was Promised,” includes a struggle of a community against a considerably more powerful force. This time the audience was brought to Iraq, where a recruitment program attempting to integrate women into the Iraqi army and police force was implemented after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The film includes commentary from Iraqi women who entered the army and police force as well as from U.S. military officers who were in Iraq promoting the recruitment of women.

This film divulged the disillusionment of many of the recruited Iraqi women with the Iraqi army for the frequent sexual harassment that occurred during training. The women also expressed disappointment with the Iraqi interior ministry, whose laws limited the rights of Iraqi women to be involved in defense. The film was very enlightening and evoked frustration in the audience with regard to the treatment of women in Iraq, but it ended on a somber note of uncertainty about the future of women in the country.

The third film in the series took place in a more familiar setting — San Francisco, Calif. — but dealt with a culture that is largely unfamiliar to many: the Samoans, a Polynesian ethnic group in the city. The film, entitled “Young, Gifted and Samoan,” presents a glimpse into the lives of three Samoan youths creating music as a form of multicultural expression. Its tone was more upbeat than the previous film, but there was also an apparent struggle of the individuals to reconcile their Samoan background with the starkly contrasting culture of American teens. The film was an appropriate conclusion to the viewing session, as it provided some comic relief in the form of slam poetry to a film presentation that exposed injustices and dealt with a theme of struggle inherent to human nature.

Throughout the world, storytelling has long been a method of preserving a culture’s history. In today’s world, film and photography are forms of divulging the customs of communities from all walks of life. National Geographic has long been a proponent of these art forms as a means of celebrating and raising cultural awareness to the international community, and the All Roads Film Festival was a successful step in achieving this goal.