An astonishing English tourist’s view of street life in pre-partition Srinagar and Kashmir.
Lord Louis Mountbatten arrives in India in March 1947 as Britain's Last Viceroy. He is committed to transfer administrative and authoritative power to an independent and sovereign India. Six months later India indeed was set free, but it had also been partitioned and overwhelmed by an orgy of sectarian violence involving Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.
Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.
This short film was made by filmmaker (later archivist) Liam Ó Laoghaire (aka Liam O’Leary) and was commissioned by the Cultural Relations Committee of the Irish Department of External Affairs. The film was designed to promote the city of Dublin to its inhabitants and to potential visitors from abroad. Brendan J. Stafford’s crisp black and white cinematography serves the city’s elegant architecture well while the narrator tells of the city’s cultural, literary and architectural history and its many venerable inhabitants. The elegant Georgian squares, the bustling markets, the tranquil parks and the sparkling nightlife present a city that is vibrant, cultured and steeped in history.
Travel films have an established format with their own conventions, history and baggage. It is a medium that has all too often sought to control, define and dictate perceptions of ”other” places. Comprised of footage shot while travelling on group excursions across Russia in 2019, An Uncountable Number of Threads is an attempt to draw out the ethical restrictions of a travelogue, while questioning how (and why) to make one. At times there is an awkward tourist-gaze, aware of its outsider position. But as a self-reflexive work that considers its own creation, it ultimately unravels, as the artist rationalises themselves out of a particular way of working, inviting the viewer into their uncertainty.
This travelogue begins at Bangkok's rail depot, a center of Indo-Chinese commerce. Next the narrator talks about Buddhism as the camera shows us some of Bangkok's many temples. Then, the narrator introduces us to the importance of traditional dance, with emphasis on the way that delicate wrist movements tell stories. It's on to the system of waterways in Bangkok, where more than 1,000,000 people live or conduct commerce. We take a ride down the Menam River, the country's most important commercial and social road. From our boat, we pass Wat Arun and other colorful signs of life typical in serene Siam.
This Traveltalk series short brings us to Lima, Peru where we see a modern city.
This documentary short features Chile's history, culture, and customs.
This Traveltalk short visits Rocky Mountain National Park and a nearby dude ranch in Colorado.
A Dream Trip Across India Some kilometers from Bombay, the Indian megalopolis, lost on a hill of Bollywood, is the grandiose set of a vast temple with a magical touch, reminiscent at the same time of an Indian shrine and an ancient Inca temple. Inside, Ten Ford Mustangs are waiting. Ten Ford Mustang with an incredible pedigree: Bullitt GT390, Shelby GT500, Shelby GT500 KR 1968... the deep sound of a gong resounds, the doors of the templeopen launching the first edition of the Maharajah of the Road. At the wheel of the ten Ford Mustang, passionate people coming from all over the world: Indian, French, American, Italian, Lebanese... they are business men, automobile designers, manufacturers, artists… From Mumbai to Jodhpur, a 2.000 kilometres tour will lead our Mustangs through India. From the Rats Temple in Deshnoke city to the thousand-and-one palaces, the two princesses will show the Rajasthan to the adventurers of the road in an eventful trip...
Richly detailed amateur ethnographic film on the agrarian economy and society in rural Punjab.
This short film presents a look at Italy's popular tourist spots.
This FitzPatrick Traveltalk series short looks at Czechoslovakia before World War II, including images of bridges, churches, and castles in Prague, also a non-military parade through the city.
This Traveltalk series short takes a look at Cairo's landmarks, people, and culture.
In a poetic hour and a half, director Mani Kaul looks at the ancient art of making pottery from a wide variety of perspectives.
Shortly after his mother’s passing, playwright and stage director Mohamed El Khatib receives a phone call from his uncle in Bab Berred, the family’s village in the Moroccan Rif, instructing him to come as soon as possible to collect his inheritance – mysteriously insisting that he should make the trip in a Renault 12. Coaxed by his father, El Khatib decides to make the journey from Orléans to Tangier. Structured like a road movie, Renault 12 is also the filmmaker’s quest to discover his own origins, in which he both documents chance encounters and stages situations to bring social, political, and cultural landscapes to light.
To the city come men, women, fruits, flowers, vegetables, goats and sheep – all ready for consumption. It is the process of consumption/exploitation that forms the core of the film.
A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theatergoer. Nicki Cochrane has been seeing a play every day for more than 25 years, acquiring free tickets using a variety of ingenious means.
Set in a small town in the region of Tamil Nadu, in southern India, the film follows the days and works of a hijra family. Silky, Mahima, Trisha, Durga, Kuyili, Priyanka, Vasundhara and Yamuna, under the firm protection of their guru Lakshmi Ma, deliver snippets of their marginal but sovereign existence. From a millenia-old sacred tradition to getting by every second, "Guru" composes with them a poem of intertwined voices in which the world is a tough playground, where the third gender is primarily the resistance force of a life shared.