Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life is a 1925 documentary film that follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Lurs in Persia as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures. It is considered one of the earliest ethnographic documentary films. In 1997, Grass was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Production The film was directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, with intertitles by Richard Carver and Terry Ramsaye. It was the first film produced by the team of Cooper and Schoedsack, who went on to produce King Kong and many other films. Cooper was a writer performing research for the American Geographical Society and Schoedsack was a cameraman. Reporter and former spy Marguerite Harrison was an instrumental member of the production team. Harrison had met Cooper at a ball in Warsaw, and she provided him with food, books and blankets when he was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1920 and sent to work in a prison camp. Harrison also appears in the film as herself. Years later, Schoedsack commented that Harrison had not done "a damn thing" during the expedition. Funding was provided by a loan of $5,000 from Cooper's father and brother, and Harrison contributed an additional $5,000. In filming the journey, Cooper, Schoedsack, and Harrison became the first Westerners to make the migration with the Bakhtiari. The only previous ethnographic documentary was Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922). According to Cooper, the filmmakers were unaware of Nanook until their return to New York City from filming in Persia. Summary The film's producers were mainly concerned with documenting a way of life that was unknown to all those outside the Bakhtiari realm. The film highlights the extreme hardships faced by nomadic peoples, as well as the bravery and ingenuity of the Bakhtiari on their migration in search of grass, which meant abundant seasonal pasture for their animals. Grass documents the caravan route from Angora (modern-day Ankara, Turkey) to the Bakhtiari lands in Persia (western Iran in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province and the eastern part of Khuzestan). The film then follows Haidar Khan as he leads 50,000 of his people and countless animals on a harrowing trek across the Karun River and over Zard Kuh, the highest peak in the Zagros Mountains. Reception