Comitiva Esperança(NaN)

Sprout Wings and Fly(en)

Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.

The Codes of Gender(en)

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

Through the Colorado Rockies(en)

This Traveltalk series entry on Colorado begins in Colorado Springs, then proceeds to Pike's Peak. We experience a train ride over Royal Gorge and the sights along the Gunnison River. In Palisade, Colorado, we see men on stilts picking the local peach crop in order to avoid ladder damage to the fragile fruit trees.

Salt Lake Diversions(en)

About an hour's drive from Salt Lake City, Utah is the ski resort of Alta, a former mining town, nestled within the Wasatch Mountains. Skiing and other winter alpine pursuits take place well into mid-spring. The relatively new ski lift is one of the longest in the western US. Some ride the lift not to ski down but to glance at the view from the 1,500 foot summit. Being the end of May, people at nearby Salt Lake are instead enjoying more summerly pursuits, such as boating. Behind only the Dead Sea, it ranks second among all large inland lakes for the saline content at 27%, the buoyancy from which makes it almost impossible to sink in. On shore at Black Rock Beach of the Bonneville Salt Flats is the site of many attempts of land speed records, most records held by Ab Jenkins. Another popular activity in the lake itself is the crystallization of salt around wire forms, the process which requires relatively still water and takes about two hours.

A Day in Death Valley(en)

A tour of the arid, inhospitable region of the southern California desert known as Death Valley, originally named because of the many travelers in the 1840s who died of thirst, starvation and/or exposure trying to cross it.

Colorful Colorado(en)

This Traveltalk series short starts off in Denver, capital of Colorado. Known as a recreational and health center, it is noted for its beautiful parks. The Museum of Natural History has specimens of local animal life. About an hour's drive from Denver on Lookout Mountain is the grave of Col. William Cody, 'Buffalo Bill', known as a scout and a plainsman. In Colorado Springs, there is a monument to the great American humorist Will Rogers who loved the stretches of open country. Much of the mountain area of Colorado is owned by the Federal government as national forest and there are many well stocked trout streams. In Mesa Verde National Park you will find the cave dwellings once used by Native Americans.

While The Night Falls(es)

An intimate portrait of the lives of Delvys and Carlos, siblings who live alone with their elderly mother in a rural part of a small Cuban town. The film portrays a family engulfed in their inner worlds. Between the sacrifices they make out of love for those who are present, and their longing for things that are absent, they struggle to find meaning as they reflect, contemplate, and carry the weight of existence, trying together, to move forward.

Sons of Haji Omar(en)

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.

Cowboys: A Documentary Portrait(en)

Told in the cinematic tradition of classic westerns, “COWBOYS - A Documentary Portrait” is a feature-length film that gives viewers the opportunity to ride alongside modern working cowboys on some of America's largest and most remote cattle ranches. The movie documents the lives of the men and women working on these "big outfit" ranches - some of which are over one million acres - and still require full crews of horseback mounted workers to tend large herds of cattle. Narrated through first-hand accounts from the cowboys themselves, the story is steeped in authenticity and explores the rewards and hardships of a celebrated but misunderstood way of life, including the challenges that lie ahead for the cowboys critical to providing the world's supply of beef. “COWBOYS” was filmed on eight of the nation’s largest cattle ranches across ten states in the American West.

Filhos de João, O Admirável Mundo Novo Baiano(pt)

A panorama of Brazilian popular music from the 60s and 70s through the musical group Novos Baianos. A retrospective of the community lifestyle adopted by its members and the influence inherited from singer João Gilberto.

L'Homme de L'Atlas(fr)

Bauxita(en)

Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists. The rural community of Belisário holds the country's second largest bauxite reserve, right below one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world: the Atlantic Forest. The small community was shaken when the beloved Gilberto, a Franciscan Friar, received a death threat followed by the lines: "you've been talking against mining way too much". PT: O Brasil é um dos países mais perigosos do mundo para defensores do meio ambiente. Em Minas Gerais, a comunidade rural de Belisário abriga a segunda maior reserva de bauxita do país, em uma das áreas de maior biodiversidade do mundo: a Mata Atlântica. A tranquilidade do pequeno vilarejo foi abalada quando Frei Gilberto, um franciscano que dedica sua vida à preservação da natureza, recebeu uma ameaça de morte com o seguinte aviso: "você tem falado demais contra a mineração".

The Pigeon People(en)

Directed by Patrick Gramm, 'The Pigeon People' (2023) takes you deep into Arizona's underground pigeon racing scene as racing rivals prepare for and compete in the Grand Canyon Classic - a 350-mile pigeon race from Utah to Arizona that crosses over the Grand Canyon.

Forever in Our Hearts: Memories of the Hebron Relocation(en)

In 1999, Innu community members who, 40 years previously, had been forcibly relocated from their remote northern region of Labrador to established settlements in the province, return to Hebron to reminisce and reckon with the destructive impact the relocation had on their traditional ways of life and Indigenous identity. This film serves as a companion piece to Carol Brice Bennett’s book "IkKaumajannik Piusivinnik – Reconciling With Memories," and stands as the only known audio-visual document of the reunion of a resettled community in Newfoundland & Labrador.

Time is the Thief of Memory(en)

A meditation on memory around Iceland's famous Ring Road.

A Hakka Song(zh)

A song is heard in the distance. It comes from the Hekeng village, famous for its ancient earthen buildings, also called tulou. It is where the last original Hakka families live amidst the exodus of those looking for a more modern environment. Among them there is Zhang Zhouyin, an elderly man concerned about the state of the village's temple; or her daughter-in-law, Wei Yi, who spends her entire day guiding tourists through these awe-inspiring houses. And then there’s young Zhang Weibo, her son, who manages to find joy even in the simplest of things... Hekeng: a place frozen in time whose songs have endured for centuries.

Lonely Trees(ku)

Darên bitenê is a fascinating documentary exploring the “dengbej” musical heritage of the singers, poets and storytellers from Northern Syria’s region. Featuring a stunning scenery of poetic landscapes, the film is interlaced with stories of Kurdish and Assyrian songs that narrate the long history of love and suffering of this semi-autonomous region.

Chasing the Light: Norfolk Island(en)

Chasing the Light: Norfolk Island with Ray Martin is a visual feast, rich in land and sea cinematography and photography by some of the best in the business, while at the same time telling the unique, exotic and often surprising story of one of Australia’s great treasures: Norfolk Island. World famous landscape photographer Ken Duncan chases the light in an odyssey to get the perfect shot on the spectacular island gifted by Queen Victoria to the Pitcairn Islanders, mutineers from the Bounty, their Tahitian wives and their families and descendants. Ken, the master, has his sidekick and protégé Ray Martin along with him and they link up with local photographer and underwater specialist Zach Sanders. Capturing their chase is one of Australia’s most awarded cinematographers Andy Taylor. Andy turns his own lens on the lensmen and Norfolk’s unforgettable scenery, characters, culture, and customs.

Voyage dans les ghettos du Gotha(fr)

Join sociologists Monique and Michel Pinçon-Charlot on their “investigation” of the French aristocracy and gentry. An entertaining and instructive movie on an exclusive and highly secretive world.

Rudy Maxa's World: Hong Kong & Bangkok(en)

Beginning with a private, rolling party on board one of Hong Kong's iconic streetcars, travel journalist Rudy Maxa and former chef and now Washington, D.C. restaurateur Daisuke Utagawa lead viewers through on of the worlds most exciting cities. Hong Kong takes cuisine from around the world and makes it its own. Explore the cuisine as well as the mostly unknown, lush side of Hong Kong where hiking trails and beaches rule. Bangkok - In a city where the weather is always hot, it is natural that residents spend so much time eating outside. Street food rules the capital of Thailand, and no visitor should miss the opportunity to follow local custom. Utagawa and Maxa taste their way through the city while exploring the Klongs (canals) and temples that make Bangkok a visitors paradise.