This documentary offers a deep, candid, and historical look at the Christian experience of America's largest and best-known tribes: the Dakota and Lakota. Its exploration into Native American history also takes a hard and detailed look at President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace Policy of 1873, which was, in effect, a "convert to Episcopalianism or starve" edict put forth by the American government in direct violation of its Constitution. The devastation it had on the values of the people affected were dramatic and extremely long-lasting. Grant's policy was finally ended over 100 years later by the Freedom of American Indian Religions Act in 1978. Interlaced with extraordinarily candid interviews, this documentary presents an insider's perspective of how the Dakota and Lakota were estranged from their religious beliefs and their long-standing traditions.
To mark his fiftieth birthday in 1988, London's Tate Gallery staged a major retrospective of his work. Melvyn Bragg joined David Hockney for an exclusive private view of the exhibition and they were filmed discussing pictures from all stages of Hockney's remarkable career.
The first Muslim woman to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi has inspired millions around the globe through her work as a human rights lawyer defending women and children against a brutal regime in Iran. Now the film, Until We Are Free, tells her story of courage and defiance in the face of a government out to destroy her, her family, and her mission: to bring justice to the people and the country she loves. The Iranian government would end up taking everything from Shirin Ebadi – her marriage, her home, even her Nobel Prize medallion – but the one thing it could never steal was her spirit to fight for justice and a better future for the women of Iran.
Experiencing violence is commonplace for Syrian women but they do not discuss the prevalence of – often sexual – exploitation for fear of revenge. A collective of young women want to break the taboo with a theatre project. But how free are they themselves?
In the news, California often grabs the headlines. In this state, the agriculture is suffering from a lack of water and farms are being abandoned at an alarming rate. But some people seem to have found a solution. Here, and in many other dry regions around the world, land restoration is helping water infiltrate into the soil to help increase crop yields.
This film sheds light on the little-known history of plantations and the enslaved in North Florida. It seeks to advance a sense of place and identity for thousands of African-Americans by exploring the invisible history of slavery in Leon County.
When an ex-hippie-turned-businessman hears about a miracle-making saint, he goes to India to find him to keep from living an empty life. A world music soundtrack by Grammy nominee Jai Uttal, exclusive interviews with Ram Dass and Krishna Das, rare footage of Neem Karoli Baba, and a new perspective on Eastern philosophy make this documentary unique.
Filmmakers (and canyon residents) Alexander and Anne Christine Von Wetter filmed this documentary for German Television in the early 1970s as a revealing close-up of an extraordinary period in America. The camera masters and 16mm negative were consequently lost to a devastating fire. Luckily, a lone VHS copy had been made, which spent the next 30 years on the studio shelf. The VHS was found heavily damaged, but a restoration team managed to salvage a fair grade of quality, which has since been remastered.
Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.
A feature documentary film following individuals grappling with the current systemic failures of how we have dealt with addiction and their journey to develop and employ new, innovative, and often controversial solutions to the problem.
Cody High: A Life Remodeled Project focuses on the efforts of the impoverished Cody Rouge community pulling together to provide safe pathways for children by removing blight and abandoned homes in Detroit. In 2014, with the partnership of Life-Remodeled, a Detroit-focused non-profit organization, the Cody-Rouge Community rose up alongside over 10,000 volunteers in order to remodel three schools, tear down three burned-out houses, remodel 25 homes of students and their families, board up 254 vacant houses, and remove blight/create beauty on 303 blocks. Cody High: A Life Remodeled project skillfully portrays the powerful stories of community members directly involved, and how their lives are being shaped as beacons of hope within the great City of Detroit.