Ayrudzi

The Matica slovenská (a mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic, and archival institution) employed Karol Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President’s Office in 1928 to produce an hour-long documentary about village life, Through Mountains and Valleys (Po horách, po dolách). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932.

Karel Plicka was also cinematographer of this short movie. Editor in charge was Alexander Hackenschmied. There is an extraordinary emotional charge, every shot is working on its own, such as photographs, paintings and poetic complement intertitles in this short. From the perspective of nature and the perspective is shifting to the people and their habits, work and clothes. Peculiar documentary shots underscore Ruthenians (men, women and children) who are interested in looking into the camera and the curious "eye" showing off their habits.

Shot in part at 10,000 feet at Gross Reservoir in Colorado over a span of 12 years, this short film, featuring the indomitable Rennie Harris, shares a dreamscape glimpse into the vernacular dance form, hambone, or “Patin’ Juba.” This work positions the powerful resilience of the Black male body in the face of white surveillance and the survival and evolution of the dance/music form of hambone within and beyond the histories of enslavement.

Venerdì Santo - Bronte

"Scottish Myths & Legends" explores the magic, mystery and sprinkling of mayhem that covers the dramatic landscape of Scotland. From the ancient tales of the Loch Ness Monster to the stories of shape shifting Kelpies, we go on a fascinating journey of discovery to uncover the stories behind the myths and the magnificent Scottish landscape that has inspired these truly legendary legends.

A bissele Glik

Gerald S. Doyle was one of the first collectors of Newfoundland folk songs. He was also an avid cinematographer who left a collection of 12 hours of colour film, shot in outport Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's.

A powerful cultural documentary about a Caribbean father and son who return to Grenada to reclaim ancestral stories. Blending folklore, myth, and underwater visuals, the film preserves Black heritage and reframes the feared Jab Jab as a symbol of resistance and identity.

Karol Plicka was an important musician and composer. He recorded folk songs immediately after hearing them in musical notation to preserve them for future generations. Similarly, he records and interprets traditions associated with dance, folk song and local stories that vary from region to region in his film The Eternal Song. The short documentary presents merry-making in Slovak and Czech regions that are changing with the coming modernization and transformation of musical records.

The millennia-old myth and tradition of St. Lucy's fire told through the eyes of teenagers on the shores of the Ionian Sea.

Echando Raíces

A short film about traditional crafts and culture that can still be found in the Wallachian mountains today.

Taneční zeměpis III. – Mládež pěti kontinentů

Horňácká svatba

Documentary about the ethnographic festivities in Strážnice in the summer of 1949.

A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her ‘dark-eyed sailor’ to return from war, bearing the other half of their token, a gimmel ring. Three veterans pass on the road as she waits, and she asks them: “When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?” In reply the veterans relate their recollections. The garden images in the accompanying film represent ‘home’, but also stand for a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return at any time, disguised and changed, to renew the present: “Each moment of time is a garden gate,” the song goes, “Through it my love may walk.”

An examination of the life of acclaimed 'horse whisperer' Buck Brannaman, who recovered from years of child abuse to become a well-known expert in the interactions between horses and people.

At 74, Yves Landry is still a passionate rider, a fierce competitor in the filed of Three Day Eventing. This is the story of Yves and his passion for horses. Among them, his best partner ever named Boucane.

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.

Children parade through the streets of Hinton St George in Somerset on the last Thursday of October. Children have hollowed out pumpkins or mangelwurzels, a type of animal fodder turnip to make lanterns following a tradition in this part of West Somerset that coincides with Halloween. Punky or Punkie Night is thought to date from the turn of the 20th century or perhaps medieval times chanting rhymes and following a Punkie King and Queen.