Eskimo Arts and Crafts

How Inuit peoples perform arts and crafts, on the island of Baffin Island on what is now the territory of Nanavut.

Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.

How the Fiddle Flows

How the Fiddle Flows follows Canada's great rivers west along the fur-trading route of the early Europeans. The newcomers introduced the fiddle to the Aboriginal people they intermarried with along the way. A generation later, their mixed-blood offspring would blend European folk tunes with First Nations rhythms to create a rich and distinct musical tradition. From the Gaspé Peninsula, north to Hudson Bay and to the Prairies, How the Fiddle Flows reveals how a distinctive Metis identity and culture were shaped over time. Featuring soaring performances by some of Canada's best known fiddlers and step dancers and narrated by award-winning actress Tantoo Cardinal.

Okimah

This documentary focuses on the goose hunt, a ritual of central importance to the Cree people of the James Bay coastal areas. Not only a source of food, the hunt is also used to transfer Cree culture, skills, and ethics to future generations. Filmmaker Paul M. Rickard invites us along with his own family on a fall goose hunt, so that we can share in the experience.

Place of the Boss: Utshimassits

In the '60s, the Mushuau Innu had to abandon their 6,000-year nomadic culture and settle in Davis Inlet. Their relocation resulted in cultural collapse and widespread despair.

Blood Quantum

A documentary exploring the controversial use of blood quantum in determining Native American identity.

靈山

For hundreds of years, Taiwan has been under different colonial rules. From the Dutch, the Spanish, the Japanese, and nowadays Republic of China, each regime left their footprints on this island. Only the indigenous people of this island experienced of the process. They were given different names during different periods of colonisation and their cultures have been changed. Through the life of a Truku elder, we see the history of aboriginal recertification movement.

Toorumi Pojad

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.

Café: Cantos de humo

In the town of San Miguel Tzinacapan, in Puebla’s Nahua Mountain Range, a family lost its father. His absence transforms the lives of those who were so deeply connected to him. Tere, now in charge of the family, must make money by selling crafts. Jorge is about to finish school and will soon have to choose his own path. Chayo, 16, must make an important decision. A year has passed, and the members of the family have been able to redefine themselves, finding their own destiny while always venerating their father’s memory.

La medicina del perdón

Benito Arévalo is an onaya: a traditional healer in a Shipibo-Konibo community in Peruvian Amazonia. He explains something of the onaya tradition, and how he came to drink the plant medicine ayahuasca under his father's tutelage. Arévalo leads an ayahuasca ceremony for Westerners, and shares with us something of his understanding of the plants and the onaya tradition.

Esas voces que curan

Herlinda Augustin is a Shipibo healer who lives with her family in Peruvian Amazonia. Will she and other healers be able to maintain their ancient tradition despite Western encroachment?

Kellergassen in Niederösterreich - Weinkultur und Lebensfreude

A Kellergasse – the cellar lane – is one of the distinguishing cultural and physical features of the winegrowing region Niederösterreich – Lower Austria. There are more than a thousand of them. Until recently, wine was not only stored in the Kellergasse, but pressed and fermented there as well. Today, the Kellergassen have less to do with occupation and more with recreation. A documentary by Georg Riha follows a year in the life of this valuable cultural legacy.

Habilito: Deuda por Vida

Documents the conflicts and tensions that arise between highland migrants and Mosetenes, members of an indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. It focuses particularly on a system of debt peonage known locally as ‘habilito’. This system is used throughout the Bolivian lowlands, and much of the rest of the Amazon basin, to secure labor in remote areas.

The Congo Dandies

“La Sape” is a unique movement based in Congo that unites fashion-conscious men who are ready to splurge money they don’t really have on designer clothes. Dressing in stark contrast with their surroundings, these elegant ambiance-makers become true local celebrities… but this fame comes at a price.

Träume der Lausitz

Man Who Chooses the Bush

This short documentary follows Frank Ladouceur, a man who lives alone for months at a time, trapping muskrat in the vast, desolate wilderness of northern Alberta. He receives no visitors, and rarely voyages to his family home in Fort Chipewyan. What some may consider an unthinkably lonely, isolated existence is the calling of this fiercely independent Métis man. Remarkably determined and self-sufficient, Frank makes his home in the wild bush.

La muralla criolla

Documentary film about the "zanja de Alsina", a long trench dug in the Argentinian Pampa in 1876 as way to separate the "civilized" from the "barbarians" during the massacre of indigenous peoples known as "campaña del desierto".

Augusta

This short documentary is the portrait of an 88-year-old woman who lives alone in a log cabin without running water or electricity in the Williams Lake area of British Columbia. The daughter of a Shuswap chief, Augusta lost her Indian status as the result of a marriage to a white man. She recalls past times, but lives very much in the present. Self-sufficient, dedicated to her people, she spreads warmth wherever she moves, with her songs and her harmonica.

This Is the Way We Rise

An exploration into the creative process, following Native Hawaiian slam poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, as her art is reinvigorated by her calling to protect sacred sites atop Maunakea, Hawai`i.

Amazonia: Healing with Sacred Plants

Psychologist and anthropologist Alberto Villoldo talks with traditional healers of Madre de Dios, a department within in Peruvian Amazonia. They and Dr. Villoldo explain aspects of ayahuasca, a powerful, plant-based medicine of crucial importance.