Ever Open (25 min.) tells a story about the largely unknown emergence of anthropology at Princeton, from its formation as a program in 1965 and through its first decade as a department in the 1970s. Using first-hand accounts from faculty and students who where there, the film takes viewers inside these early years as activist faculty push a number of frontiers: It forms as a hot spot in the new field of symbolic analysis; Native American Professor and activist Alfonso Ortiz (Tewa) hosts the first ever convocation of Native American scholars at Princeton, where they conceptualize Native American Studies; and the department leads the campus in gender equality and diversifying faculty and students. Yet as the decade unfolds,  the film's interlocutors vividly recall, there were a surprising series of internal crises and external threats to the department's existence. Ever Open also reveals how the department’s fundamental commitments to ethnography, concreteness, and relevance have been built-in since its earliest days. 

Ever Open is a first of its kind film of an anthropology department telling its own story in film, while situating it in the shifting attitudes of the discipline and wider social movements. The film is designed to be viewed and reviewed so viewers can pause to explore the compelling text and news stories that appear throughout. 

In the film, Producer-Director  Jeffrey Himpele (Director of the VizE Lab) intertwines fascinating interviews with more than 10 faculty and students who were part of the department at the time, and he shines light on fascinating personal and archival images that bring the story to life. The film's Executive Producer is João Biehl, the Chair of the Anthropology Department.

Himpele screened a first edition of Ever Open in September 2024. A second edition which will include a new set of impactful interviews is planned for completion in early 2025.

Ever Open is the first product of the Department's collaboration with Special Collections in Firestone Library in illuminating the work of the late Alfonso Ortiz (1939-1997).