The Kanaga mask is used in deeply sacred rituals by the Dogon people of Mali. Carving this mask is as important a ritual as the ceremonies in which the mask is used. The carver, a blacksmith, finds the proper tree and, in a secret cave outside the village, he shapes the mask with gestures which repeat the movement of the dancers who will wear it. When a dancer wears the Kanaga mask he becomes the Creator symbolically. He touches the ground with his mask and directs a soul to Heaven. Although these dances are now frequently performed for the public, the meaning of Kanaga is retained by the Dogon who fear, respect and depend on the power of the mask.
In the Footsteps of Taytacha follows a group of Quechua-speaking musicians and dancers as they leave their remote villages high in the Andes Mountains of Peru and join thousands of other highlanders on the annual religious pilgrimage to the sacred peaks of Qoyllur-Rití. Quollur-Rití, the largest and most important religious ritual in the southern Andes, occurs only five days out of the year and involves walking both day and night in terrain over 4400 meters in altitude.
Weaving the Future is a video portrait of a unique indigenous community living in the Andean highlands of northern Ecuador. The story of the Otavalo Indians is not a stereotypical tale of "isolated people struggling to survive." Just the opposite. The people of Otavalo have successfully adapted their traditions of weaving and crafts to the international marketplace. Selling their textiles in the U.S., Europe and even in Japan, the Otavalos are by any measure the most prosperous Native people in South America. Theirs is a fascinating story of economic success and social change.
The stories in The Habits of New Norcia are told by former Western Australian Aboriginal child 'inmates' of the New Norcia Benedictine Mission who were separated from their families in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and confined in this "orphanage without orphans". In recent decades the New Norcia Monastery has been packaged as one of the State's leading cultural tourist attractions. "A unique blend of Spanish architecture, European art treasures and pioneer history," "Monks, Music & Mystery," "New Norcia, Australia's only monastic town," the brochures announce. Aboriginal testimony in the film challenges this revised and sanitised history. The documentary provides damming evidence of the continuing violence of the Mission against its victims by deliberate omission of their experience in the New Norcia museum, guided tours, art gallery and promotions — an omission that represents a cruel and wounding cover-up.
The arrival of the European button accordion to Texas and its merging with traditional Mexican songs gave birth to an explosive new sound called conjunto. From the early pioneers to the new generation of accordionists experimenting with rock, blues, and metal, ACCORDION DREAMS captures yesterday's and today's squeezebox trailblazers. Produced and directed by critically-acclaimed filmmaker Hector Galan and narrated by singer/songwriter Tish Hinojosa, ACCORDION DREAMS features performance footage of conjunto greats like Valerio Longoria, Mingo Saldivar, Ruben Vela, Eva Ybarra, and Flaco Jimenez and the newer generation of accordionists like Joel Guzman, Jaime De Anda, Albert Zamora, and Jesse Turner.
Filmed on location throughout Texas, Songs of the Homeland tells the story of Tejano Music. This critically acclaimed documentary features images of the past and present and includes performances and interviews with musical pioneers such as Tony de la Rosa, Valerio Longoria, Lydia Mendoza, Isidro Lopez, Sunny Ozuna, Mingo Saldivar, and Little Joe Hernandez. Produced and Directed by Award Winning Filmmaker Hector Galán, Songs of the Homeland is an exuberant journey into the heart and soul of Tejano music. Songs of the Homeland tells the story of Tejano Music. This critically acclaimed documentary features images of the past and present and includes performances and interviews with musical pioneers such as Tony de la Rosa, Valerio Longoria, Lydia Mendoza, Isidro Lopez, Sunny Ozuna, Mingo Saldivar, and Little Joe Hernandez. Produced and Directed by Award Winning Filmmaker Hector Galán, Songs of the Homeland is an exuberant journey into the heart and soul of Tejano music.
FRONTLINE and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters from local journalism partner Star Tribune examine one of the most pivotal events in the history of race and policing in America.
Nicknamed the "Harlem Hellfighters", these African-Americans wanted to become ordinary citizens like everyone else. They saw fighting heroically in the trenches as their chance to achieve this. In 1918, the 15th New York National Guard Regiment became the most highly decorated unit of the First World War.
A story of love, rivalry and betrayal – Synge’s best-known work is a must-see from this multi-award winning company.' Synge’s great comic masterpiece tells the story of Christy Mahon, who stumbles into a public house in County Mayo claiming he has killed his father and so capturing the romantic attention of the daughter of the house, Pegeen Mike. Performed at Donmar Warehouse in London's Covent Garden by the Druid Theatre Company of Galway, Ireland.
The award winning wildlife director Adam Schmedes' personal experience of Madagascar, the stunning richness of chameleon species that are found nowhere else in the world. It's a personal journey into the most remote parts of the jungle and into the dilemma of poverty - the trade with rare species of chameleons.
Stephen Dorff and director Casey Tebo take us on a journey into the vast and confusing world of legal cannabis and hemp in the United States where things are not exactly what they seem. A plant, a medicine, a drug? Illegal for decades for many confusing reasons, the most glaring being systematic racism, we're still stuck in that rut today in many states. It's almost as if everyone has a different take, which is why even in these forward thinking times, Cannabis and Hemp still remain - BARELY LEGAL.
Featuring sit-down interviews with experts and historians, follows the story of the Japanese American soldiers of WWII who fought for the ideals of American democracy.
The Garifuna are a Central American people of West African and Native American descent. One of their most popular rituals is wanaragua, a three-fold system of masked Christmas processionals commonly called Jankunú. This ritual is a unique blend of African, European, and Native American (Arawak and Carib) art traditions in which social and cultural identities are expressed through music, dance, and costume. As dancers adorn themselves in colorful regalia to mimic past foreign oppressors they symbolically affirm their identity. They perform stylized movements to the accompaniment of drums and social commentary songs composed by men. Descriptions of the three processions and dance styles are interspersed with interviews by Garifuna singers, drummers, dancers, cultural advocates, and scholars on the significance of rituals.
After spending 15 years working in the conventional funeral industry, John Christian Phifer is paving uncharted territory to help create Larkspur Conservation-the first natural burial ground of its kind in Tennessee.
What happens when a rabbinical matchmaker, a Hasidic couple and a single, explore the precise meaning of humanity's most powerful word? Using downright silliness, Kosher Love reveals that we're all the same in our search for love.