This is one of the few films to document archaeological work on ancient civilizations in Africa. It also deals with an important subject, African iron smelting, and presents convincing evidence for early indigenous technologies far more complex than previously expected. The Tree of Iron is set in Tanzania, East Africa, on the western shores of Lake Victoria, where Haya people have lived for centuries.
Like many St. Lawrence Island legends, this story is set in Siberia where Chukchi, the Reindeer People, live. Pelaasi, an elder from Gambell, speaks Siberian Yupik. His mythical story, about a man who goes out in search of a reindeer thief is an ungipaghaq, a tale that has been passed down unchanged through generations and believed to be based in truth.
The eastern Indonesian island of Sumba is the last island in the Malay archipelago where the majority of the people still follow their ancestral religion, called marapu. This film, shot in 1986, focuses on a challenge to the authority of the spirits and ancestors in a village ritual to restore fertility after a fire and famine. Narrated by the priests who communicate with the spirits in prayers and sacrifices, it documents a week of offerings, dancing and oratory in "Dream Village" in the western Kodi district. The name comes from a dream of prosperity the village founder once had, and dreams are also the ways in which priests are called to serve the spirits.
This traditionally ethnographic sequence film focuses on the negotiations betwen representatives of two families during a payment of bridewealth. In the past the husband's group would carry a spear and a sword to hang in the wife's house. Now, a payment is made as a substitute for the spear and sword. The payment of bridewealth is a long and complex ceremony in which representatives from the husband and wife's family engage in a heated negotiation process. The bride and groom are completely excluded from the negotiations and never appear in the film.
In this film, Dammbeck explores his own decision to relocate to Hamburg, West Germany, and tries to sort out his past as an artist. In the process, he interviews artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, and Hans Scheib, who had been core members of the alternative art scene in East Germany. They had all worked together in the 8mm scene and organized or planned multimedia and crossover exhibitions, including Tangents I in 1976-77 and the First Leipzig Autumn Salon in 1984. Each left for West Germany in the mid-1980s. What has become of their former artistic strategies and positions? How do they deal with their past? What is the force behind their art now? And how do they cope with the western art market?
Time and Judgement is a sci-fi/documentary that combines biblical prophecy with events across the African diaspora between 1980 and 1987. Archive footage includes Haile Selassie, Bob Marley, Kwame Nkrumah, Maurice Bishop, Walter Rodney, Kwame Toure, Bernie Grant.
This program investigates the ways various art forms are used to sway minds and to argue political causes. Examples include Napoleon and Hitler; artist such as Daumier, Hogarth and Shann; writers Dickens, Swift and Orwell; and pop artists who mock popular ideals.
Tadao Ando, a self-taught architect, proposes an international architecture that he believes can only be conceived by someone Japanese. His architecture mixes Piranesian drama with contemplative spaces in urban complexes, residences and chapels. This film presents the formative years of his impressive career before he embarked on projects in Europe and the United States.
Francis Bacon revolutionised figurative painting in the 20th century. The English painter unmasked his subjects in a provocative and ruthless manner. Deformed bodies, grimacing faces and the materiality of colour make us aware of brutality and sexuality, existential abysses and the fears of existence. Author Melvyn Bragg accompanies the painter throughout his day. This begins in his London atelier, leads us on to his favourite pub and ends up in gambling club in Soho.
Helena Rubinstein is rightly seen as one of the pioneers of a market worth millions - the female beauty market. Born in Krakow, Rubinstein started her career in the early years of the twentieth century in Australia, from where she quickly went on to conquer Europe and the United States. What began with twelve jars of her mother's beauty cream was to develop into a company with 100 branches in 14 countries and a workforce of 30,000 employees.
In 1987, to capitalize on his growing success in Europe, Prince toured extensively to promote the album of the same name and sales increased accordingly. However, the United States remained resistant to his latest album, and sales began to drop; it was at this point that Prince decided to film a live concert promoting the new material, for eventual distribution to theaters in America. Featuring the band that accompanied Prince on his 1987 Sign o' the Times Tour, including dancer Cat Glover, keyboardist Boni Boyer, bassist Levi Seacer, Jr., guitarist Miko Weaver, drummer Sheila E. and former member of The Revolution keyboardist Dr. Fink, the film sees the group perform live on stage (although "U Got the Look" is represented by its promotional music video).
This one-hour film, narrated by Actor BURT LANCASTER, explores the lingering effects of The Hollywood Blacklist, which occurred in the late forties and early fifties as part of the Anti-Communist witch-hunts that terrorized the nation. This film is seen through the eyes of the wives and children of the now deceased Hollywood figures whose careers were destroyed when studio bosses, along with guild and union officials capitulated to the demands of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Documentary filmmaker Christian Blackwood profiles controversial Filipino director Lino Brocka, detailing his rags-to-riches rise in the mainstream film industry of the Philippines. Primarily using interviews with the effusive director himself, Blackwood allows Brocka to describe, in his own terms, the common thematic threads tying together his work, from his own homosexuality to the political repression suffered by Filipinos at the hands of Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorial government.
Huey Lewis And The News: BEFORE! follows one of the world’s top rock-and-roll bands of the 80’s and a crew of fifty technicians to the Bahamas for the making of a music video for their number one hit single, “Stuck With You” for their album, “FORE!” Blank takes us behind the scenes for an off-beat look at what happens when a song is transformed into visuals and musicians are transformed into actors. Hidden in the straightforward reportage are sly comments on the MTV machine, sexism in the media, and the business of rock-and-roll. Best of all, Huey Lewis and the News maintain their sense of humor even when absurdity threatens to overwhelm them.
This little-known Blank gem is a portrait of the Serbian-American communities of Chicago and California, highlighting their history in this country, their music, dancing, and religion.
A rock 'n roll extravaganza with hosts Frankie Avalon and Connie Stevens, as they preside over music, contests, parties, and fireworks from the beach in Fort Lauderdale and other Florida locations.