Kalo (taro) production on each of the major islands of Hawai'i circa 1994. Meet the amazing people who love and continue to cultivate taro on lo'i that in some cases has been in the family for generations and centuries! Young, old, and family growers on Maui, Moloka'i, Hawai'i, O'ahu, and Kaua'i islands. Includes history/culture of kalo, Issues related to land and water, uses of kalo, and prospects for the future.
Concerned about the declining health of people all around them, Native American women are sparking physical and spiritual rejuvenation through reclaiming traditional foodways.
Keeping the Vision Alive is a documentary film containing the voices and images of Korean women filmmakers-both senior filmmakers and also the peers of director Yim. The film is Yim’s homage to both contemporary Korean women filmmakers, written by a filmmaker of the same age, and also to the history of women filmmakers in Korea. Yim does not reveal her own voice or opinion and lets the voices and images of the filmmakers speak for themselves through a non-interventionist camera. From the pioneers, Park Nam-ok, and Hwang Hye-mi, who directed First Experience in 70’s, to recent filmmakers, Byun Young-joo and Jang Hee-sun, the film traces their experiences, troubles, concerns and thoughts as women and women filmmakers. Keeping the Vision Alive calmly and enthusiastically encourages and celebrates the struggles, the resistance and the survival of women filmmakers in a conservative Korean film industry and a male-dominated and sexist social system. (Kwon Eun-sun)
What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee, born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.
When French writer Marguerite Duras (1914-96) published her novel The Sea Wall in 1950, she came very close to winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt. Meanwhile, in Indochina, France was suffering its first military defeats in its war against the Việt Minh, the rebel movement for independence.
Sixteen-year-old Jewel Wilson is the next generation in a long line of prolific Inupiat subsistence hunters in Unalakleet, Alaska. Her ability to hunt moose is hindered by two pressing issues – scarce wildlife and the pressures of high school life. Finding sufficient food competes with track practice and homework in Jewel’s multilayered world. Along with her father, Jewel turns to the land to feed their family and finds that their village’s way of life is endangered by the same environmental shifts that could affect us all. In hunting moose, we see that Jewel is also hunting for answers. How will her village survive if subsistence hunting is threatened? Can she honor the traditions of her Elders while navigating the pressures and anxieties of a modern, connected teenager? "Jewel’s Hunt" proves to be both physical and philosophical in this insightful exploration of what it means to come of age in complicated times in Unalakleet, Alaska.
"The Ninth Island" tells the story of Hawaii’s indigenous population and its struggles to stay connected to its ancestral home.
During a long hot summer in the forest, Child is forced to grow up. First her Dog becomes ill, then out of the blue her Mother returns to their dacha with a new lover. Child's world is turned upside down. With each unsettling event, her visions become stronger to the point where she decides on a dangerous decision. Chado combines digital animation and Risograph printing to transform a coming of age tale into an enchanting short film.
Humorous, melancholy documentary about copywriter, photo model and poet Frans Vogel (1935-2016). A handsome kid who became involved in the art world of the 1950s. Thanks to his absurd humor and provocative behavior, Vogel became a familiar face on the Rotterdam art scene.
This hour-long documentary is a provocative look at a historical event of which few Americans are aware. In mid-January, 1893, armed troops from the U.S.S Boston landed at Honolulu in support of a treasonous coup d’état against the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen Lili‘uokalani. The event was described by U.S. President Grover Cleveland as an "act of war."
This short film follows Tonisha, Toneil and their family as they reclaim their Navajo history and reconnect with ancestors within the canyon walls.
Self-portrait of a 38-year-old mother from Abitibi, struggling with breast cancer.
A documentary about a beloved South Bronx matriarch and former "First Lady" of the Savage Skulls gang struggling to remain visible in a rapidly gentrifying community she helped rebuild in the 1980s. With one foot firmly grounded in the outlaw life and the other as an activist and spiritual advisor, Lorine Padilla straddles the complexities of multiple worlds.
The story puts İlhan Çomak at the center, even though he is not physically present in the film. It focuses on the 21 years that İlhan spent in prison and his family’s experience of those years without him. The narrative is constructed through the letters İlhan wrote and aims to describe his life, his emotions and longings. The film constructs İlhan’s history through a chronology in the prison but refrains from restricting it only to a “prisoner’s quest for justice”, and rather tells a story of the situations he finds himself in over the years and his emotions and their equivalents in life.
If your family photographs could speak, what stories would they share? Interweaving interviews with family artefacts, 'My Lovely Grandma' is an exploration of my maternal family history from the perspective of Molly and the woman she was before she became my lovely grandma.
The gripping story of legendary American actor John Travolta: his rise to stardom in the 1970s; his agonizing fall in disgrace in the 1980s; and his stunning artistic rebirth in the 1990s.
Focusing on three women from vastly different backgrounds this film weaves together powerful moments from each of these Rosie's journeys of transformation.
A spiritual journey into the highlands of Harar, immersed in the rituals of khat, a leaf Sufi Muslims chewed for centuries for religious meditations – and Ethiopia’s most lucrative cash crop today. A tapestry of intimate stories offers a window into the dreams of youth under a repressive regime.
This film about agricultural advances in the USSR was meant to serve as a teaching aid. Featuring documentary footage and animation.
A found footage poem made with laser prints of intertitles from the film AELITA.