Beyond the Maypole

Documentary following English folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention as they celebrate their 45th anniversary in 2012. Fairport's iconic 1969 album Liege and Lief featured some of folk music's biggest names - including singer Sandy Denny, guitarist Richard Thompson and fiddler Dave Swarbrick - and was voted by Radio 2 listeners as the most influential folk album of all time.

A short musical film on the Old Harp tradition from East Tennessee, shot around a gathering in a church of the Smoky Mountains

Eric Andersen is widely regarded as one of the most poetic songwriters that sprang from the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s. His artful mélange of love, despair, hope and stirred memory has earned him a passionate international following and the respect and admiration of artists ranging from Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen to Lou Reed and Wyclef Jean. The Songpoet offers a look into the mind, soul and creative process of this multifaceted, complex and singularly driven artist whose career saw great expectations waylaid by misfortune.

Every year in June, the small Bulgarian village of Balgari celebrates St Constantine with a special ritual. Initiated ‘nestinari’ go into a music-induced trance and dance on bonfires in a display of religious passion.

The final episode in our Mini-Docs series comes from musician and writer Jake Anderson, who explores the niche music genres which find an increasing audience in the North East. On a mission to discover outside-the-mainstream sounds and the driving forces behind their creation, Jake chats with musicians Me Lost Me, SQUARMS and Mariam Rezaei, along with some of the major players keeping these sonically-engaging sound makers doing what they’re doing, including Simeon Soden from Kaneda Records and Lee Etherington of TUSK. This mini-documentary features reflections on some of the most unique acts in the North East, what genre boundaries actually mean and artists’ hopes for the future of the North East’s alternative scene. This is an Art Mouse film for NARC. TV, written and directed by Jake Anderson.

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.

Documentary about the folk scene around Castilla y León

At the forefront of the folk revival movement since the 1950's, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are a highly influential group of Irishmen. Popularizing the traditional music of their homeland, the Brothers brought Celtic music into America, and remain some of its most avid performers.

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.

Unustatud rahvad (1970 - 1989) by Estonian composer Veljo Tormas is based upon six Balto-Finnic peoples traditions. Collegium Musicale choir brought the songs to different sides of Baltic coasts to liven current citizens connections for fleeting past and strengthen their identity.

An intimate look into the lives of one of the most iconic folk-rock bands in America - the Indigo Girls. With never-before-seen archival and intimate vérité the film dives into the songwriting and storytelling of the music that transformed a generation.

Tracing his career up to the point of his 1966 motorcycle accident and subsequent disappearance from the spotlight, this unauthorized documentary uncovers a side of Bob Dylan never revealed before. Includes extensive interviews and rare footage.

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

In this interview, conducted for the Criterion Collection in 2014, Elijah Wald, who collaborated with folksinger Dave Van Ronk on his memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, discusses the people and places central to New York's Greenwich Village folk scene of the late fifties and early sixties - a scene transformed by the arrival of Bob Dylan.

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.”

Wirklich alles?!

As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home-studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on, the musician – now Glenn Copeland – began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered.

Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.

This special celebrates the harmonious pop-rock group, blending full-performance clips, rare home movies and exclusive interviews with the members.

Fans continue to treasure the songs and performances of John Denver, one of the most popular recording artists of the 20th century. Before his death in 1997, Denver toured the world, landing in Birmingham, England, for the 1986 concert captured here. The sunny country star provides heartfelt renditions of many of his biggest hits, including "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Sunshine on My Shoulders."