Bulgaria: Fire Dance Ritual

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

In March 2005, Neil Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Four days before he was scheduled for a lifesaving operation, he headed to Nashville, where he wrote and recorded the country folk album Prairie Wind with old friends and family members. After the successful operation and recovery period, he returned to Nashville that August to play at the famed Ryman Auditorium, once again gathering together friends and family for this special performance.

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.

Latcho Drom is a vista of the music, culture, and journey of the Romani people—from their homeland of India, to Europe and Southwest Asia.

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.

AquaBurn is an award-winning documentary film by director Bill Breithaupt showcasing "The Floating World" theme of the 2002 Burning Man Festival. AquaBurn features many of the incredible Burning Man art installations, the imagination and originality that went into their creation, and the artists who conceived them. Unlike conventional documentaries on the Burning Man Festival, AquaBurn captures the true feeling and excitement of the event itself, transporting the viewer to a hot, dusty wonderland without ever leaving home.

During a decade rife with paranoia, in the middle of the McCarthy era, Music Inn was a bold experiment. Halfway between the Second World War and The Civil Rights Movement, Phil and Stephanie Barber created an oasis in the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts where aspiring musicians came to learn from the very best. Students and faculty, young and old, rich and poor, white, black, and brown convened together and learned from each other. Defying the surrounding environment, Music Inn harbored a racial and cultural harmony where music was all that mattered.

On the 38th anniversary of the seminal music documentary, Heartworn Highways - a film that explored and captured the nascent roots of the Outlaw Country movement in the mid-70s - this followup documentary celebrates the authenticity and expresses the feelings of the legendary original, via a community of contemporary "outlaws" living and creating music in Nashville, Tennessee.

The music speaks for itself in this performance documentary that highlights some of the biggest names within the country-folk scene in Texas and Tennessee during the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976, eschewing narration and staged interviews.

An unvarnished chronicle of Bob Dylan's metamorphosis from folk to rock musician via appearances at the Newport Folk Festival between 1963 and 1965.

The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will honor either a songwriter, interpreter, or singer/songwriter whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting the genre of song as a vehicle of artistic expression and cultural understanding. Paul Simon, one of America's most respected songwriters and musicians, was the recipient of the first annual Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Named in honor of the legendary George and Ira Gershwin, the award recognizes the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world's culture.

Comitiva Esperança

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.

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

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 untold story of Jackson C Frank, an American folk legend. His tragic life produced some of the most timeless folk music of our time.

The story of six young people addicted to heroin in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Hubert von Goisern - Brenna tuat's schon lang

Interviews and rare archive footage weave together performances from a landmark multi-artist concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, celebrating the songs and artistry of the great folk-blues troubadour Bert Jansch.

In the frigid waters off of Russia’s Bering Strait, Inuit and Chukchi hunters today still seek out the giant sea mammals that have provided their people with food since time immemorial. It is known, that the whale hunting today is controversial and subject to international criticism and regulations. But the Inuit and Chukchi hunt is permitted by international law because of the whaling is the foundation of their culture and their life. The contemporary story of elders Aleksandr and Aleksei blends seamlessly with that of “the woman who gave birth to a whale” and other ancient myths, told here in vivid animation, in this ongoing struggle for survival and preservation of a traditional lifestyle in one of the most remote places on earth.