Build Your Vocabulary (Second Edition)

The wild beauty of the Bella Coola Valley blends with vivid watercolor animation illuminating the role of the Nuxalk oral tradition and the intersection of story, place and culture.

There are about 250 people with a unique ancestry. Livonians – one of the smallest and most endangered nations. Each of Livonians has a duty to preserve their identity and the great history of their ancestors. Trillium follows the footsteps of a poet and researcher Valts Ernštreits, who is one of 20 people able to speak fluent Livonian – an indigenous language related to Estonian and Finnish – in his efforts to look after the language and culture of these ancient settlers of the Baltic Sea coast.

The three speakers represent two of the dialects, with the most common one - the middle dialect spoken in Riga and central parts of Latvia - not featured in the film. In intimate surroundings, a farmer, a schoolteacher, and a herder of ostriches talk about perceived differences between Latvian speakers, and about language policy and their lives.

They just arrived in France. They are Irish, Serbs, Brazilians Tunisians, Chinese and Senegalese ... For a year, Julie Bertuccelli filmed talks, conflicts and joys of this group of students aged 11 to 15 years, together in the same class to learn French.

Come back to this day, next year. Ain't nothing, chief.

A story about the Livonian (Liv) language going extinct, and about the people still trying to keep it alive.

This short begins at Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam). The electricity generated here by the Colorado River is sent to Hollywood, where movie studios need it to make movies. After a tour of the MGM studios' power plants, we see short advertisements for upcoming MGM releases.

This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance--a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours. The commentary explains that the interior warmth and the wind outside cement the snow blocks firmly together. As the short winter day darkens, the two builders move their caribou sleeping robes and extra skins indoors, confident of spending a snug night in the midst of the Arctic cold!

Se dice poeta

The amazing story of 1,000,000,000 people and their MAD MAD MAD rush to learn English! China 's love affair with the English language has reached feverish proportions. With half a million or more visitors descending on Beijing for the Games, can the Chinese pull it off with their newly-acquired English? Mad About English! follows the inspiring and heart-warming efforts of a city preparing to host the world by learning a once-forbidden tongue.

Instructive short on using cylinders to construct all manner of fun objects.

Thomas Lang presents the unique and innovative system that he has used to develop his awesome speed, control, finesse and coordination-a step-by-step system that will allow you to hone your drumming chops so that you can play more effectively, in any style of music.

Despite an unrivaled talent for communicating, Jake has trouble talking to women. When an impossible situation presents itself, Jake ignores the signs and goes on a wild goose-chase to pursue his quest for love. When his plan is foiled, a new best friend helps him finally express himself successfully to a woman – without uttering a single word.

A surreal trip into the world of an extremely long german word.

Pete Rose instructs children in the fundamental mechanics of playing baseball.

A TV-hour length documentary film depicting the relationship between language, culture, place, music, tradition, and magic on an active volcano, in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, on the island of Ambrym.

It Ain't Necessarily So captures a budding Japanese jazz singer and her biracial vocal instructor who struggle to agree on the proper way to sing Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy.” Humor is no stranger to jazz singers Eiko Katayama and Kazue Hiraoka who star alongside Masa Fox, their English teacher. "Master at capturing hyper-awkward moments... brilliantly explore how representations of culture and identity ain’t necessarily how they appear." --Wilda Wong, San Diego Asian Film Festival

Explores school vandalism by re-creating a true incident involving four youths. Discusses motives and consequence of vandalism.

From A for accent to Z for zero - everything you wanted to know about the English language.

The joys of 1960s modern education - as seen at a not-exactly-typical local comp.