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.
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
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.
The people, the scenery and the industrial traditions of the Stroud valley and the growth of the woollen industry.
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.
Richly detailed amateur ethnographic film on the agrarian economy and society in rural Punjab.
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.
Set in a Burkina Faso organic cotton weaving cooperative, a cacophonous cotton-spinning apparatus eats, digests, and takes a breath. Threads become the organs of a whirling, burping, guzzling machine animated by hands, looms, vats, cogs, and feet. Where does the machine end and the body begin? The weaving cooperative promises equitable remuneration for workers in an industry beholden to its colonial predecessor: today, Burkinabè cotton farmers live in permanent debt to cotton companies financed by European capital. By focusing on the repetitive labor unfolding within a cooperative that claims to serve its workers, Everything Here Holds Its Inverse examines the tension between empowerment and evolving oppressions. Can the ties that bind and define also set free?
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
Morgan Spurlock subjects himself to a diet based only on McDonald's fast food three times a day for thirty days without exercising to try to prove why so many Americans are fat or obese. He submits himself to a complete check-up by three doctors, comparing his weight along the way, resulting in a scary conclusion.
For decades, world governments have lied to the people about the alien presence on Earth. Project Blue Book was reportedly closed down in 1969, but the discovery of the AATP program dispels any notion that the military and ruling powers of the US and other nations aren't interested in UFOs. Now with verified video of UFOs from military sources, it's time to explore the truth and why the ruling factions have been deceiving us since the early 40's, even before Roswell.
In 1981, a Buddhist monk teaching at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, made the bold request of the Dalai Lama to come and perform a rare ritual, never before done outside of India or Tibet: the Kalachakra, among the highest of the Buddhist tantric teachings. In just a few months, with a team of dedicated students, and cameras rolling, they constructed a temple and organized an event for over a thousand spiritual seekers, in a cornfield outside Madison. The incredible footage was tucked away in the Smithsonian vaults, until now. What unfolds is the story of a powerful ritual, its impact on the people that made it happen, and the meaning behind this ancient initiation.
A Road of Prayer (2014–2016) is a 98-minute documentary that chronicles the filmmaker Tenzin Sedon’s return to her hometown of Lhasa, Tibet, after a long absence. Through her camera, she sought to connect with her homeland and the people—both familiar and unfamiliar—to her. In the film, three narratives intertwine through place, time, and urban change. By capturing the lives of ordinary people on the prayer road (Kora), she embarked on a journey to reconnect with her hometown.
The story of the 92nd Buffalo Division, the exclusively African American segregated combat unit which fought against nazism with outstanding heroism in Italy during the Second World War.
This film is a documentary on the archaeological excavation of the Snaketown Dig just out of Phoenix Arizona. Snaketown in Arizona is dated by some scholars to around 300 BCE., The site of Snaketown is positioned on the Gila River Basin near Phoenix AZ at the Gila River Indian Community. Both the Hohokam and the Ootam peoples have occupied the land and from what I gather there is some contention on who did what when. Isn't their always. This is a really great film on the excavation of Snaketown and is a valuable educational resource I am fortunate to have. The Pima Indian father of Ira Hayes makes an appearance.
A look at the world's toughest power-boat race, taking place off Britain's South Coast, from Cowes to Torquay.
Yelena Obraztsova is one of the brightest stars of international opera. She performed, and continues to perform on world stages in the star-studded shows of Herbert von Karajan and Franco Zeffirelli. In this film the great singer is captured during one of her rare visits to her apartment in Moscow along with her long-time accompanist, the piano virtuoso Vaja Chachawa.
The film's plotline was the rehearsals of the play "Brest Peace" based on the play of the same name by M.Shatrov at the Yevg.Vakhtangov State Academic Theater, which made it possible to see M. Ulyanov at work on the role of V.I.Lenin, to trace the birth of the image, to see the manifestation of his character.