Visits the Zulu Independent Churches of South Africa to explore the black African response to Christianity. Traces the history of religious beliefs in Africa, from the arrival of the first Christian missionaries to the current rediscovery of the African religious identity
Root Hog or Die is a portrait of a living remnant of this once pervasive but rapidly vanishing way of life. Filmed in 1973 in hilltowns across Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont, it follows the cycle of the farming year from spring to winter. In its course we visit with an array of elders, who reflect on farming's deep natural patterns, share their family histories and personal memories, and ponder the inevitable forces of technological and social change they have endured. The bittersweet nature of their challenges is manifest, as is the quiet pride they take in their lives as farmers.
In Sweet Sorghum we are introduced to the filmmaker's daughter, Rosie, (now in her early twenties) as she reflects on her childhood spent among the Hamar herdsmen, an isolated people of southwestern Ethiopia. The film reveals the intimacy of shared family life and childhood relationships between the Hamar, Rosie and her brother. We learn about the important role sorghum plays in the Hamar diet, how the sorghum is harvested and the different ways it can be prepared. The practicality of the design of cooking utensils is shown.
Every year, in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, the "sorrowful way" of Good Friday is recreated by a path of colored sawdust and flower petals. Along this road several hundred people take turns carrying a ponderous mahoganybier.
Every year, a ritual known as ida is performed by the Umeda people, who inhabit the dense primary forest of the Waina-Sawanda district of West Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Ida, the central social and cultural drama of the Umeda, is a fertility ritual, in which a dominant theme is the metamorphosis of the cassowaries. An ethnography by anthropologist Alfred Gell, Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries, complements the film.
The first account on film of the growth of multinational corporations, their impact on people at home and abroad, and their influence on U.S. foreign policy. This is the film that helped kick-off the anti-globalization movement. Upon release, it quickly became a standard "audio-visual text" for those concerned about the growing impact of multinational corporations on global affairs. The film examines how the ever-increasing concentration and velocity of capital affect employment in the U.S., shape patterns of development in the Third World, and influence our nation's foreign policy.
Exploring the relationship between Aboriginal people and their land (including the Dreaming, sacred places), this film was inspired by Silas Roberts’ submission to the 1976 Australian Government inquiry on uranium mining - the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry. Silas, whose tribal name is Ngourladi, is an elder of the Allawa clan and was the first chairman of the Northern Land Council, established to assist Aboriginal people make land rights claims based on traditional ownership. The film, which moves from Arnhem Land in the north to Yuendumu in the centre, examines the importance of maintaining Aboriginal culture and laws and explains the reasons why they object to the mining being carried out.
The young, gifted and black generation of the '70s who started the British Reggae movement is captured in this unique documentary. Groove to the smooth sounds and see rare footage.
Lucy Jarvis -- the plucky camerawoman known for becoming the first Westerner to film inside communist China -- breaks barriers once again with this exclusive look at the world-famous Musée du Louvre, a place that previously barred access to all filmmakers. Charles Boyer is your host on this personalized tour of the museum's most prized possessions, including works by da Vinci, Michelangelo, Vermeer and Van Eyck.
American documentary film-maker George C. Stoney visits the Aran Islands to try and unravel some of the myths surrounding a film that had engrossed him as a youngster - Robert Flaherty's famous documentary "Man of Aran" released in 1934.
A visual record of London punk life in the late '70s, filled with never-before-seen live concert footage and commentary from the Clash, the Jam, X-Ray Spex and the Electric Chairs.
Documentary in two parts that blends dramatized reconstructions, personal reminisces and newsreel footage to tell the story of the flight of German refugees through occupied France to Marseilles in 1940. In 1977 Ingemo Engström and Gerhard Theuring embark on a journey through France. They trace the escape route of the German emigration in France 1940/41, documenting the places, talking to witnesses, relating the temporal layers. The film Escape Route to Marseilles that was the result of this journey, carries the subtitle “Images from a working journal (1977) on the novel Transit (1941) by Anna Seghers”.
Werner Herzog takes a film crew to the island of Guadeloupe when he hears that the volcano on the island is going to erupt. Everyone has left, except for one old man who refuses to leave.
How Finnish immigrants came into contact — and conflict — with industrial America. Three generations of Finnish-Americans recount how they coped with harsh realities by creating their own institutions: churches, temperance halls, socialist halls, and cooperatives.
A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.
CANAL ZONE is about the people who live and work in the Panama Canal Zone and shows both the operation of the Canal and the various governmental agencies — business, military, and civilian — related to the functioning of the Canal and the lives of the Americans in the zone. The film includes sequences of ships in transit, the work of special canal pilots, aspects of the civil government, work of the military, and the social, religious and recreational life of the Zonians.
Explores the history of the Afrikaners and Afrikaner nationalism, and the development of apartheid and its relevance to South Africa's political situation today.