A class of 9-year-old children is making an animated movie, whose chosen theme is the “War on Iraq”. Their protagonists are the same we see on TV: George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Saddam, and Bin Laden. But the story is quite more imaginative… Children talk with no interference from adults, and the final result is the product of their free expression. While they discuss war matters and fiction strategy, camera captures their dialogs with intimacy, and shows us their unexpected sense of humour. Nevertheless, they commit to the story with total dedication and faithfulness, as in a real labour. The way they make decisions, and talk and listen to each other, is a vivid lesson of democracy (in every place of the world).
An old Bolivian man nears the end of his life. He has property and status, but not contentment. Believing himself posessed by evil spirits, he opens his heart to reveal his anguish. His personal tragedy brings us close to every man's confrontation with the unknown, old age, and death.
Amidst the political upheavals of a nation and the world, the filmmaker navigates cultural, geographical and linguistic distances in search of wisdom and hope from her 100 year-old Taiwanese activist grandmother (Ama).
The textures and complexities of everyday life in India unfold in Michael Camerini's richly observed story of two poor women and their efforts to improve their lives.
Lisa Herdahl, a Mississippi mother of six, is forced to sue her public school district in order to have The Bible removed from her childrens' classrooms.
African-American residents in Norco, Louisiana, who believe that increasing pollution is negatively impacting their health, demand to be relocated from under the shadow of a Shell oil refinery.
An unprecedented and unflinching look at how the citizens of South Africa are living with the AIDS epidemic, given the climate of governmental confusion and neglect.
In 1976, Hubert Smith set out with a group of researchers to visually document Yucatec Maya society within the village of Chican. This project resulted in the 4-part series, The Living Maya. During filming, however, it was impossible to ignore the use of sign language in the village. Smith and his team saw a lot of the deaf residents, filmed them often, and went back to have these sign exchanges translated. Now it is time to share a story solely about them.
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.
Aamakaar tells the story of preservation. This film depicts the struggles of a small fisihing village in North Kerala that is fighting the assault on its estuary by sand mining. The villagers are also engaged in the conservation of Olive Ridley turtles that have come to their beach to nest. They make a connection between a species fast becoming extinct and the fate of a community that could face displacement.
Just as the rivers of the Andes mountains twist and coil in a curious maze, so does the grave situation of Peruvian women's health care. Through the compelling story of one Andean woman, Judyth Aguero Vega, we see the horrors and triumphs of Peru's volatile health care situation. Inside a small adobe kitchen, Elsa Romero-Murrado, a midwife in the rural town of Capacmarca, takes us through rarely seen birthing ceremonies. Down the dirt path, her neighbor Judyth, 27, shares her fears of birth as she bestrides the lines of modern and traditional medicine. Their town sits seven hours from the nearest hospital. Cerlia Mendoza, president of the Mother's Club, testifies to a list of 200 women who were bribed by doctors to undergo sterilization.
Sky Burial follows the ritual of "jha-tor", the giving of alms to birds in a northern Tibetan monastery - where the bodies of the dead are offered to the vultures as a final act of kindness to living beings. At the Drigung Monastery lamas chant to call the consciousness from the body. Juniper incense is burned to summon the vultures. Special body breakers, or "rogyapas", unwrap the bodies and cut away the flesh. The bones are crushed and mixed with tsampa, roasted barley flour. The entire body is consumed by the birds, assuring the ascent of the soul. The sky, or the universe, is where the sacred world lies. To merge with the sky after death is a holy event, one that replaces the sufferings of this world with peace.
Viracocha features mestizos and campesinos in the Andean highlands interacting within a near-subsistance economic system. Market days and fiestas provide opportunities for Spanish-speaking mestizos, alternately benign and abusive, to assert their traditional social dominance over the Aymara and Quechua campesinos.
This documentary about the early Indians of the Great Basin emphasizes the traditional culture of the last 5,000 years. The story unfolds through the words and skills of the older Piaute women of southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada. They tell us how they make cakes from berries, baskets from tulles, cord for nets…necessary daily tasks linked with an ancient heritage. The earth is ever present in the film, wildlife, rivers and marshes, sagebrush desert, all part of the story. The lifeways of the Northern Paiutes are followed through a seasonal cycle, from root-gathering in spring to building shelter in winter.