Yarn and Cloth Construction

A new documentary that follows master Haida weaver Delores Churchill on a journey to replicate a spruce root hat discovered with the Long Ago Person Found. The 300-year-old traveler was discovered in British Columbia and DNA testing discovered living descendants in Canada and Alaska. Her search crosses cultures and borders, and involves artists, scholars and scientists. The project raises questions about understanding and interpreting ownership, knowledge and connection.

Set in Varanasi, an ancient city of India, Tana Bana offers a rare look at the hidden world of Moslem weavers and Hindu traders and how their lives are interwoven through the production of the silk and the beauty it creates. However, as the technology advances, the trade is threatened by computerization and globalization.

A group of Macedonian women are shown hard at work.

The people, the scenery and the industrial traditions of the Stroud valley and the growth of the woollen industry.

The Shipibo-Konibo people of Peruvian Amazon decorate their pottery, jewelry, textiles, and body art with complex geometric patterns called kené. These patterns also have corresponding songs, called icaros, which are integral to the Shipibo way of life. This documentary explores these unique art forms, and one Shipibo family's efforts to safeguard the tradition.

Documentary about weaving and braiding

Richly detailed amateur ethnographic film on the agrarian economy and society in rural Punjab.

A Weaverly Path offers an intimate portrait of Swiss-born tapestry weaver Silvia Heyden. The film captures the inner dialogue and meditations of an extraordinary artist in the moments of creation. Heyden works for over a year to create works inspired by the Eno River in Durham, North Carolina. And she shares how nature, music, her Bauhaus inspired education at the School of the Arts in Zurich and her life experiences anchor and inform her art. Heyden was a 20th century modernist whose body of work redefines the art of modern tapestry.

This film explores the traditional crafts of Native American tribes, specifically the Hopi, Navajo, and Iroquois. It highlights the craftsmanship of Hopi basket weaving and pottery, showcasing their techniques and cultural significance. The Navajo's weaving of wool blankets and rugs, as well as their silver jewelry making process, is also detailed. Additionally, the film discusses the Iroquois tradition of carving ceremonial masks from basswood trees. Each craft reflects the unique heritage and artistic expressions of these tribes.

A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

This documentary follows the French soccer team on their way to victory in the 1998 World Cup in France. Stéphane Meunier spent the whole time filming the players, the coach and some other important characters of this victory, giving us a very intimate and nice view of them, as if we were with them.

Festival panafricain d'Alger is a documentary by William Klein of the music and dance festival held 40 years ago in the streets and in venues all across Algiers. Klein follows the preparations, the rehearsals, the concerts… He blends images of interviews made to writers and advocates of the freedom movements with stock images, thus allowing him to touch on such matters as colonialism, neocolonialism, colonial exploitation, the struggles and battles of the revolutionary movements for Independence.

When Ariel was just 33, his legs were shredded by an industrial dough mixer in Mendoza, Argentina. He became a living embodiment of the ongoing duel between man and machine. From that point on, he began to rediscover the meaning of freedom: to rebuild his broken identity, keep his family together and design his own prosthetic legs. Following Ariel for 10 years from the time of the accident, director Laura Bari has created an intimate and metaphorical portrait of Ariel’s newfound transhumanity, juxtaposing his daily life with dreamlike inner worlds—and pushing the boundary between the real and the imaginary.

Just 60 miles north of New York City sits the poverty-stricken town of Newburgh, where, in 2009, four men were arrested for a plan to bomb two Jewish centers in the Bronx. But their leader, a suspicious Pakistani businessman planted by the government as an informant, led these men straight into the hands of the authorities. With endless footage gathered from hidden cameras, directors David Heilbroner and Kate Davis investigate just what homegrown terrorism truly means in this shocking and galvanizing exposé.

Drop out of school to ride with the Merry Pranksters. Form America’s most enduring jam band. Become a family man and father. Never stop chasing the muse. Bob Weir took his own path to and through superstardom as rhythm guitarist for The Grateful Dead. Mike Fleiss re-imagines the whole wild journey in this magnetic rock doc and concert film, with memorable input from bandmates, contemporaries, followers, family, and, of course, the inimitable Bob Weir himself.

From New York City to the farmlands of the Midwest, there are 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., yet one dish in particular has conquered the American culinary landscape with a force befitting its military moniker—“General Tso’s Chicken.” But who was General Tso and how did this dish become so ubiquitous? Ian Cheney’s delightfully insightful documentary charts the history of Chinese Americans through the surprising origins of this sticky, sweet, just-spicy-enough dish that we’ve adopted as our own.

Dramatization of the trial of Christian anti-war activists, known collectively as the "Plowshares Eight". In September 1980, they broke into a General Electric weapons plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and in an act of protest against nuclear proliferation, poured vials of their own blood onto secret missile plans, burned other files, and damaged nosecones intended for nuclear missiles. The direct-to-video production is intercut with clips from actual news coverage of the trial. The "Plowshares Eight" portray themselves in the production, and after taping was complete, reported to court for their imprisonment.

Utilizing a combination of professional actors and man-on-the-street interviews, French director Raymond Depardon has created a film about filmmaking that centers on a rather discriminating director's search for the perfect leading lady. The main problem is that the helmer (Luc Delahaye) doesn't really know what his next film will be about, let alone what kind of woman should be his star. Looking for inspiration, the director and his casting agent (Sylvie Peyre) visit the Saint Lazare train station in Paris and shoot some footage of passengers entering and exiting the trains. Later he encounters a few actresses, but rather than asking about their professional experiences, the director focuses on their personal lives. After several fruitless interviews, the director confesses to the casting agent that he really wants to utilize a non-professional actress.

On the island of Tanna, a part of Vanuatu, an archipelago in Melanesia, strange rites are enacted and time passes slowly while the inhabitants await the return of the mysterious John.