2014-06-25
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A five-year visual ethnography of traditional yet practical orchestration of Semana Santa in a small town where religious woodcarving is the livelihood. An experiential film on neocolonial Philippines’ interpretation of Saints and Gods through many forms of rituals and iconographies, exposing wood as raw material that undergoes production processes before becoming a spiritual object of devotion. - A sculpture believed to have been imported in town during Spanish colonial conquest, locally known as Mahal na Señor Sepulcro, is celebrating its 500 years. Meanwhile, composed of non-actors, Senakulo re-enacts the sufferings and death of Jesus. As the local community yearly unites to commemorate the Passion of Christ, a laborious journey unfolds following local craftsmen in transforming blocks of wood into a larger than life Jesus crucified on a 12-ft cross.
The first Easter Island documentary, filmed in 1935 when the Belgian naval ship Mercator came to collect Drs. Henri Lavacherry and Alfred Métraux, who had arrived six months before to carry out archaeological and ethnological work. The film, directed with melodramatic gusto and featuring a full orchestral score by Maurice Jaubert (who also did the narration), shows islanders, the monuments, and a public dance. A theme of decay and decadence characterizes the film, the motif portrayed gruesomely by extensive close-ups of the inhabitants of the leper colony there at the time. The film suited a romantic image of a mysterious lost civilization, the survivors eking out a pitiful existence on a barren rock. (Grant McCall)
Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.
"Journey to the West" is an embedded documentary film into a bus full of Chinese tourists visiting Europe (6 countries in 10 days!) for the very first time. This road movie captures with humor, poetry and spirit the cultural differences between China and Europe in a play of mirrors and contrasts. It also destroys the stereotypes about the emerging Chinese middle class and reveals what they think about the "others" who are "us", the Westerners.
After almost thirty years of his career, the musician Fran Nixon joins film director David Trueba for a travel around Spain in which they'll talk about it and meet some friends.
Paying tribute to some of America's only surviving drive-ins – and those who keep them running – this heartfelt documentary captures efforts to preserve these nostalgic theaters in small-towns across the country.
The fascinating landscape formations of Iceland in the North Atlantic bear witness to the beauty and primal power of nature. They were created through the interaction of powerful volcanic, geological and biological processes that have been changing the face of the earth for billions of years. This is what the Earth might have looked like four billion years ago. Iceland is the realm of ice and fire. Nowhere else is there such a high density of volcanoes. The landscapes, which are continually reshaped by eruptions, make the island a natural laboratory full of clues about the formation and development of the earth. The documentary follows a group of scientists through the most active areas of Iceland, along a mountain range that has emerged from the ocean. On the slopes of the volcanoes, in the fog of the fumaroles and on streams and rivers, the three researchers explore how the first forms of life populated the earth's surface and in what evolutionary steps they took over the earth.
Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo, Benin and Senegal). The nonlinear structure of NAKED SPACES challenges the traditions of ethnographic filmmaking, while sensuous sights and sounds lead the viewer on a poetic journey to the most inaccessible parts of the African continent: the private interaction of people in their living spaces.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Matisse's birth and of the exhibition at the Center Pompidou which will be dedicated to him in 2020, this art documentary brings us back to life of the journeys made by Matisse that influenced his art. And particularly his last trip to Polynesia in 1930 which will bring him to the threshold of contemporary art with the invention of his gouache cut-out papers.
An ethnographic documentary following the Folia de Reis party that is celebrated every year at Morro de Santa Marta on Rio de Janeiro.
John Bishop and Naomi Bishop present a portrait a peculiar life style of the Himalayan indigenous Sherpa people in their documentary , the Himalayan Herders. The 76 minutes long film is about the diverse culture and life style of herders community near Mt. Everest region of Nepal.The film was made in 1997 as a part of Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology Series.
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
Five men delve deep into the mountains of Utah, hitting five national parks within five days. What seems to be a typical hiking trip manages to turn into a reflective odyssey, with nostalgia bursting at the seams. Hikes swell into past moments already experienced, and current moments turn into those that will be remembered and told for lifetimes to come.
Film about the singing and dancing culture of the Ingush people