Quietest Boy – The Lillebjørn Nilsen Story

Blues and folk singer Karen Dalton was a prominent figure in 1960s New York. Idolized by Bob Dylan and Nick Cave, Karen discarded the traditional trappings of success and led an unconventional life until her early death. Since most images of Karen have been lost or destroyed, the film uses Karen's dulcet melodies and interviews with loved ones to build a rich portrait of this singular woman and her hauntingly beautiful voice.

How the Fiddle Flows follows Canada's great rivers west along the fur-trading route of the early Europeans. The newcomers introduced the fiddle to the Aboriginal people they intermarried with along the way. A generation later, their mixed-blood offspring would blend European folk tunes with First Nations rhythms to create a rich and distinct musical tradition. From the Gaspé Peninsula, north to Hudson Bay and to the Prairies, How the Fiddle Flows reveals how a distinctive Metis identity and culture were shaped over time. Featuring soaring performances by some of Canada's best known fiddlers and step dancers and narrated by award-winning actress Tantoo Cardinal.

A teenager's quest to launch Norwegian Black Metal in Oslo in the 1990s results in a very violent outcome.

Appalachian Journey is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). It offers songs, dances, stories, and religious rituals of the Southern Appalachians. Preachers, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, moonshiners, cloggers, and square dancers recount the good times and the hard times of rural life there. Performers include Tommy Jarrell, Janette Carter, Ray and Stanley Hicks, Frank Proffitt Jr., Sheila Kay Adams, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, Raymond Fairchild, and others, with a bonus of a few African-Americans from the North Carolina Piedmont.

Connie Converse was a trailblazing singer-songwritter who bared her soul through thought-provoking music only to discover that 1950's America was unprepared for such candor from a woman. Discouraged, Connie packed her VW Bug and disappeared forever, leaving behind a body of work in a carefully indexed filing cabinet, hoping the world might someday be ready.

Morocco is a land of ingratiating variety and intense contrast. Its people are as diverse as its topography. The cosmopolitan Atlantic coast fuses with the Berber heritage of the northern Rif and Atlas mountain ranges as the ancient Saharan trade routes wind their way from the south into the city of Marrakech, where all points collide, creating a vibrant mixture of the traditional, the exotic and the supernatural.

Folk music of the Sahara is an intoxicating experience of sight and sound captured among the Tuareg and Libyan people of North Central Africa. Filmed from the perspective of actually being one of the performers, this mind-blowing IN YOUR FACE document captures the spirit of Libyan folklore and the essence of emotion armed with pounding rhythms and wailing vocal choruses. Both men and women are featured here equally as overseers of the hybrid forms of expression where central African traditions collide with the tones and colors of the Arab world creating one of the most unique overviews of Saharan folk music ensemble and dance the outside world has ever witnessed. The diversity of faces is extraordinary, every costume is stunning, and the women are among the most beautiful on earth.

Wirklich alles?!

Feuertanz Festival 2011

July 7, 1977. Tormented by tinnitus and fiending for fame, folk musician Paul Cody has isolated himself at a remote cabin in the sweltering summer woods. Plagued by indescribable sights and sounds, he’s about to uncover what creeps and crawls within the house's walls.

Glade jul

Documentary about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers, and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.

Through concerts and interviews, folk-progressive group Harmonium takes Quebec culture to California. This documentary full of colour and sound, filmed in California in 1978, recounts the ups and downs of the journey of the Quebec musical group Harmonium, who came to feel the pulse of Americans and see if culture, their culture, can succeed in crossing borders.

Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.

Three eclectic, never-quite-famous folk bands come together for the first time in decades following the death of their manager to put on an reunion concert in his honor, at the request of his son.

Fleisch ist mein Gemüse

Two storytellers put forth their versions of the story of Shravan Kumar. The art for the film uses painted images from a wooden portable shrine called a Kaavad. The film is a collaborative work between traditional Kaavad storytellers and Kaavad artists from Rajasthan, together with the filmmaker. Combining lush animation with live-action, the film is an interpretation of two stories which are forever fused in the act of telling and retelling.

This show shot in 2003 at Lupo's and unpretentiously directed by Eric Masunaga captures Thompson and his band in a top notch performance. The only flaw with the DVD is it's too short--many of Thompson's shows can go well over the two hour mark and I suspect that many songs are missing from this terrific show.

Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.

The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.