Films about body art, Gypsies, technology and tradition, community spirit and identity and gender — once again, the Margaret Mead Traveling Film and Video Festival brings fascinating stories of people’s lives and experiences to the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Highlights include “To Walk Naked,” a 1995 film that revisits a 1990 incident in which South African women stripped to protest the destruction of their squatter settlement by the Nationalist government; “Village of Widows,” Peter Blow’s 1999 documentary about the Sahtu Dene of Deline, Canada, and their tragic connection to the victims of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki; and “Women of the Wall,” Faye Lederman’s 1999 look at the Jewish immigrant women who challenged the Orthodox ban on women leading prayers at the Western Wall.

--S.S.

MARGARET MEAD FESTIVAL: 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17 and Friday, Feb. 18, and 11 a.m., 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 19, in Harrison Auditorium, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 33rd and Spruce streets. Admission for each evening screening $6, students/seniors/Museum members/PennCard holders $3; Saturday morning and afternoon screenings included with Museum admission ($5, students/seniors $2.50, Museum members/PennCard holders free). Half-price admission for opening night available through a “Go West! 3rd Thursday” promotion; visit www.gowest.org or call 1-888-GOWEST-7 for details. A complete schedule and description of films is available at www.upenn.edu/museum on the World Wide Web.