Film list

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AWAKE, A Dream from Standing Rock 2017 89'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Josh Fox James Spione Myron Dewey .
The native-led resistance to the construction of a pipeline across the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, North Dakota, captured the world’s attention. Awake tells the story of the defiant Water
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All God's Children 2022 67'
    Werbner Award Directed by Robert Lemelson Chisako Yokoyama Adair .
Well over half a million children in Indonesia are on the autism spectrum and have varying difficulty with social interaction and communication. Idris is a nonverbal autistic boy living in rural Java
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Anshan Diaries 2022 27'
    Student Directed by Xiuzhi Dong .
Director Charles Xiuzhi Dong uses real family life as its backdrop. Casting his grandpa he investigates and retraces his family saga spanning three decades of Chinese post-cultural revolution history.
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Cara Romero: Following the Light 2022 27'
    Shorts Directed by Kaela Waldstein .
An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA and the urban sprawl of Houston, TX.
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Changa Revisited 2016 60'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Peter Biella Leonard Kamerling .
This is the story of Tanzania Maasai elder Toreto ole Koisenge and his passage through three decades of cultural and economic change. Seen from two points across a thirty year divide, the film uses
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Chosen People 2016 18'
  Directed by Qihui Wu .
Responding to systematic racism and historical erasure, the African diapora has developed a multitude of tactics for mitigating oppressive ideological conditions. Among them, the Hebrew Israelite
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Drokpa 2016 79'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Yan Chun Su .
Drokpa is an intimate portrait of the lives and struggles of nomads on the eastern Tibetan plateau. With rare access to a small community of nomads living on the vast yet rapidly degrading
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The Eagle Huntress 2016 87'
    Special Interest Directed by Otto Bell .
Aishol-pan, a 13-year-old girl, trains to become the first female in 12 generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down
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The Eye Begins in The Hand 2022 16'
    Shorts Directed by Yehuda Sharim .
El Ojo Comienza En La Mano is a tribute to campesino histories in rural California through the artwork of an artist largely absent from critical conversations on Chicanx art, Ruben A. Sanchez, as
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Five Faces of Shiva 2018 60'
    Directed by R.A. Fedde .
Five Faces of Shiva follows the rise and fall of the popularity of Hindu god lithographs, arguably India’s first mass media. Lithography — a printing technique which allowed for highly detailed
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Floating Raft 2018 29'
    Directed by Zhang Chong .
Floating Raft takes an observational look at the life of a vibrant Chinese Buddhist monk Shi Yanyi and his Buddhist brothers, in Los Angeles. The Shaolin Temple is famous for its 1500-year Buddhist
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Gringo Trails 2013 79'
    Special Interest Directed by Pegi Vail .
For many the tourist pathway across South America, Africa and Asia known as the “gringo trail” offers life-altering adventures. For host nations, it offers financial security. But this trail
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I (heart) Jack Lalanne: A Cartoon Memoir 2022 14'
    Animation Directed by LeAnn Erickson .
The filmmaker, a lesbian, feminist baby boomer, shares her coming out story with the help of exercise guru Jack LaLanne. Combining animation with the written memoir, I (heart) Jack LaLanne pushes the
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The Intersection 2021 30'
    Shorts Directed by Daniel Quintanilla Jessamine Irwin .
Cecile reconnects with the French of her childhood, thanks to recently-arrived Franco-African immigrants, like Trésor, seeking asylum in Cecile’s hometown of Lewiston, Maine. Cecile’s Franco
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J. C. Abbey, Ghana's Puppeteer 2016 55'
    Intangible Culture Directed by Steven Feld .
This film presents an exceptional fifty-year artistic career, from Accra’s streets to Ghana’s villages to international TV. In fifteen delightful puppet shows, Mr. Abbey chronicles Ghana's music
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Kivalina 2016 64'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Gina Abatemarco .
More than a hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, an Inupiaq Eskimo community is living on an island that is fast disappearing into the ocean. With no resources to move and only a precarious sea
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The Land Beneath Our Feet 2016 60'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Sarita Siegel Gregg Mitman .
The Land Beneath Our Feet weaves together rare archival footage from a 1926 Harvard expedition to Liberia with the journey of a young Liberian man, uprooted by war, seeking to understand how the past
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Legacies 2018 34'
    Student Directed by Clair Maleney .
The pioneering approach of Jubilee School in West Philadelphia seeks to empower its students (mainly black, and from low-income households), via a curriculum which highlights the arts, social
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The Modern Jungle 2016 72'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Charles Fairbanks .
The Modern Jungle is a portrait of globalization filtered through the fever dream of its main character – a Mexican shaman, don Juan – who falls under the spell of a pyramid-scheme-marketed
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On the water 2020 67'
  Directed by Anna Grimshaw .
During April, George and Mark, his son and sternman, begin setting traps for the season ahead. It’s cold and rough on the ocean, and lobsters are scarce. Halibut fishing, permitted for only
North America Hunting/Gathering/Fishing Trade
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Paltik Families 2016 60'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Jason Fox Roel Arcilla .
Set in the ten days leading up to mayoral elections in Danao, Philippines, Paltik Families follows the Arcillas, a family engaged in an illegal network of counterfeit American gun manufacturers, an
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Promenade 2016 31'
    RAI Basil Wright Directed by Philip Cartelli .
Recorded during two years but organized around a single day, “Promenade” observes a series of movements and interactions on a renovated section of the Marseille waterfront. During the day a cast
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Sailing a Sinking Sea 2015 65'
  Directed by Olivia Wyatt .
Sailing A Sinking Sea explores the culture of the Moken people of Myanmar and Thailand. The Moken are a nomadic seafaring community and one of the smallest ethnic groups in Asia. Spending eight
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Singing "Bird": Carrying on the Kumeyaay Tradition 2018 30'
    Directed by Teri Brewer .
The Kumeyaay, an indigenous people of Southern California and Northern Mexico still perform more than a dozen ancient song cycles kept alive through a process of apprenticeship and study which can
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Slow Return 2021 80'
    Main Competition Directed by Philip Cartelli .
A river flows out to sea through a network of wetlands, salt marshes, and petrochemical plants. A melting glacier, its surface covered in protective cloth, still attracts tourists. Slow Return
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The Song Collector 2016 54'
  Directed by Erik Koto .
In the 1960s Morup Namgyal sparked a social movement to preserve the traditional Himalayan culture of his homeland. What Morup could not imagine at that time was that he would ultimately embrace
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Stories about Mlimani Park Orchestra 2022 110'
    Ethnomusicology Directed by Frank Gunderson .
Tanzanian rhumba band, Mlimani Park Orchestra (aka Sikinde), performs in the music genre musiki wa dansi (literally, “music for dancing”), a variation of the Cuban-based rumba idiom that has been
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TRIBAL JUSTICE 2017 87'
  Directed by ANNE MAKEPEACE .
TRIBAL JUSTICE is a feature documentary about a little known, under-reported but effective criminal justice reform movement in America today: the efforts of tribal courts to create alternative
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Together Apart (MA Thesis) 2018 57'
    Directed by Maren Wickwire .
Carren has spent most of her adult life apart from her children. When her daughter Guil Ann arrives on the island of Cyprus to join her as domestic worker, unexpected events lead to Carren’s
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Tracing Roots: A Weaver's Journey 2015 26'
    Material Culture Directed by Ellen Frankenstein .
This film follows master Haida weaver Delores Churchill on a journey to replicate the spruce root hat found with Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, also known as the Long Ago Person Found. The remains of the
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Two Poets and a River 2021 76'
    Ethnomusicology Directed by Richard K. Wolf .
Using the Oxus river as a topos, this film explores themes of love and loss through the lives and musical poetry of the two most prominent and innovative Wakhi musicians in Central and South Asia:
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Unearthed 2021 16'
    Shorts Directed by Colin Rosemont .
The film examines the intersections of history, spirituality, colonialism, and contemporary archaeology through the experiences of archaeologists and Native Californians brought together by an excavation.
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Visible Silence 2015 43'
  Directed by Ruth Gumnit .
Visible Silence offers a rare glimpse into the lives of Thai tomboys (toms), ladies (dees), and lesbians striving for recognition and acceptance in a traditional Buddhist society. The film highlights
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Walker's 2018 11'
    Student Directed by Kyle Myers-Haugh .
In this portrait of a historic black barbershop in Wilmington, North Carolina, we witness the everyday rituals that bind the men in this community together. Tight close ups illuminate intimate
[what-about-china--Film-image]
What about China? 2022 135'
    President's Award - Trinh T. Minh-ha Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha .
Influential filmmaker, writer, composer Trinh T. Minh-ha’s latest film takes the notion of harmony in China as a site of creative manifestation. Highly valued as a virtue and a guiding criterion in
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Yours Truly 2018 15'
    Directed by Maddi Barber Charlotte Hoskins Christopher Murray .
Yours Truly follows the trail of taxidermic pieces collected by The Manchester Museum during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Archival letters between the museums directors, explorers, and
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The world like a jewel in the hand: unlearning imperial plunder ii 2022 58'
    Focus on: Ariella Aïsha Azoulay Directed by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay .
This film travels over open books, looted objects and postcards to look for the imperial foundations of the world in which we live. Within this wide landscape the film focuses on the destruction of