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

Four years after the filming of “Return to the Land of Souls”, about the rituals of trance and possession, the narrator travels to Ivory Coast in search of a priestess possessed by the Spirit of

In 1993, Anthony Forge filmed the cremation of an older woman from an affluent ‘commoner’ family. As her body was moved from her family compound to the cremation tower, men of the ward seized the

In a remote part of the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea, the Umeda people eke out a difficult living from the sago swamps and primary rain forest that surround them. Until recently, these

In 1978, as part of the preparations for the island-wide ceremony eka dasa rudra, religious officials urged all Balinese to cleanse the island by cremating their dead. Many were forced to pool

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

The film begins as the groom’s side gathers the animals and money for a bridewealth payment, and discusses problems that might arise in negotiating the exchange. In ritual silence, they walk to the

‘The Temple in the Sea’ looks at ritual and religious practice at a well-known Hindu shrine and its associated cremation grounds in Central Trinidad. Documenting the daily life of the Temple, and

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