Every climbing reward comes at the cost of a potential risk, but when you are a climbing pioneer, driven by the unknown and unexpected, you are willing to risk whatever it takes for the chance to find the perfect first ascent line. This is a story of exploration and discovery, a journey of friendship and solitude, a quest to fuel an obsessive passion. Starring Paul Robinson, Jimmy Webb, Daniel Woods, Chris Sharma and Niky Ceria.
Travel with Major Lazer to Ghana and Nigeria to make the world smaller by making the party bigger. They are collaborating with cutting-edge Afrobeats artists including Mr.Eazi, Efya, Teni, Sarkodie and Amaarae as they explore the culture and history of Africa. Chasing the Sound: Major Lazer, watch now only on YouTube.
Epic ground-breaking journey across India, China and Tibet to explore alternative medicine. With healthcare costs soaring in the west, looking east to alternative medicine is the answer. Now is the time to take the journey that will lead to better health – A Natural Way.
The life of Shona mbira player Gwanzura Gwenzi coexists in both the traditional and modern worlds: he works in the city for a large western corporation; at his rural homestead, he is the family head who hosts all-night spirit ceremonies, called bira. His sister Francisca is the family medium for the spirit of Kaodza, their great-grandfather. The highlight and centerpiece of the film is a bira, perhaps the only one ever completely captured on film. We see the various stages and liturgical components of the ceremony, culminating in the arrival of the spirits late at night. Francisca’s daughter, now-famous mbira player Stella Chiweshe becomes possessed by a snake spirit. Kaodza arrives through Francisca, and the family confers with the spirit in an extraordinary scene that shows how ancestors interact with the living. (Description credit: Villon Films)
Based on a poem by a Zimbabwean LGBT activist written in response to the gay hate speech that is being perpetuated president Robert Mugabe. The film was shot in South East London UK with a cast of six women from several African countries playing multiple roles in this portrayal of being a lesbian in homophobic Zimbabwe. Five of the actors and the producer are refugees who fled their countries in fear of persecution for their sexuality.
Filmed in the jungles of Peru, shaman Don Jose Campos introduces the practices and benefits of Ayahuasca, the psychoactive plant brew that has been used for healing and visionary journeys by Amazonian shamans for at least a thousand years.
It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.
A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.
Sachamama is a retreat lodge in Peruvian Amazonia. There, Francisco Montes leads ayahuasca ceremonies for tourists seeking insight and healing.
Povo da Floresta
In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.
This film explores the integration of religion and plant-based medicine in an Ewe vodu community in southern Togo. A village priest healer, local ethnobotanists, and a religious marketeer guide us through the medicinal and religious uses of many local plants and herbs. Here in West Africa, plant-based medicines permeate spirituality and illness, and help protect the social order of the community.
Many Zimbabweans have fled their economically stricken country, but they do send a lot of money home: in 2021 remittances totaled more than a billion dollars. One such migrant is Frank, who has emigrated to Cape Town. His brother Miles and sister Portia live in the UK, one in London, the other in Luton. His other sister still lives in Zimbabwe, but their mother MaMlilo thinks that she should also emigrate.
Aya: Awakenings' is an experiential journey by journalist Rak Razam into the world and visions of ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic plant medicine from the Amazon, capturing the experience and the western dynamic around it in unprecedented detail.
This documentary examines ayahuasca shamanism near Iquitos (a metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon), and the tourism it has attracted. The filmmakers talk with two ayahuasqueros, Percy Garcia and Ron Wheelock, as well as ayuahuasca tourists and local people connected with the ayahuasca industry.
The film is primarily a portrait of Kam Kelly, who teaches West African drumming to students at various New York schools, including Intermediate School 292 in Brooklyn. One of his students, Jessica Jackson, is featured. The piece was commissioned for the “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2012.
Once touted as Zimbabwe's saviour, Robert Mugabe has become synonymous with bad government and misrule. But where did it all go wrong?
In the African nation of Burkina Faso, drums such as the djembe are more than a simple instrument; they have long been used for communication and storytelling as well as musical accompaniment, as this fascinating documentary illustrates. Explore the role the drum has played in Burkina Faso's history, and how the current generations' quest to move away from tradition threatens this time-honored instrument of oral history.
A documentary covering the Second Chimurenga, the Zimbabwean War of Liberation.
The story of the Candeal favela in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, where musician Carlinhos Brown carries out social and cultural initiatives that protect and enrich the lives of its inhabitants every day.