Uzbek and Tajik women in eastern Uzbekistan celebrate the arrival of spring by gathering at the grave of an Islamic saint. The Afghan redbud trees growing on the site are in full bloom. The magical

The film is an intimate portrait of Merayk, an 80 years old Lepcha shaman or Padim. Merayk lives with his family in Dzongu, a Lepcha reserve in North Sikkim. He performs healing rituals for

Located on the North China Plain about 200 miles south of Beijing, 'Song Family Village' is home to about 1,300 people. Some 80% of all villagers are members of a single lineage of the Song surname.

In isolated mountain hamlets in Nigeria’s Jos Plateau the Ngas have traditionally observed the movements of the moon in the night sky. The moon is a key symbol in Ngas cosmology, believed to

Nigerian writer Dul Johnson returns to Tarok land to observe the local death rituals and the record of the Tarok ways of dealing with grief and honoring departed. This film provides a rare and

This outstanding documentary is placed in Northern India among a group of Tibetan refugees. They celebrate the New Year, following a ritual of their religion, Bonpo, which is older than Buddhism.

Held every October in the city of Matsuyama, the Dogo Autumn Festival is one of the most violent religious festivals celebrated in Japan. Eight teams of men carrying massive portable wood shrines

'We Don't Need a Grave' attempts to show how the people who choose Shizenso rather than the typical family grave try to accept one's death. Shizenso is a natural mortuary practice that has no

This ethnopsychiatric film shows the management of psychiatric disorders by the Yoruba of Nigeria. There are two basic types of institutions to deal with psychiatric disorders. First there are