Nestled below the rugged Chilean peaks of the Andes lies the gold mining town of Andacollo. The town's remoteness and mining economy has nurtured religious beliefs in the power of the Virgin over the

Majê Molê is an Afro-Brazilian dance group which offers girls and young women in Olinda, Northeast Brazil, the opportunity to rise above the poverty, drug addiction and crime that scars their

In the divine Afro Brazilian cult Candomble is an initiation religion centred around possession. The filmmakers concentrate on children who introduce and guide us to this world. The children play

'The Bastard Sings the Sweetest Song', using direct cinema style, introduces us to the Smith family in Georgetown, Guyana, where both Muscle, and his mother Mary, each struggle to fight the family

Eudosia is still searching for her husband’s remains in the highlands of Ayacucho; Lucero has been in prison for 25 years now for the crime of terrorism against the Peruvian state; since 2009 the

The film follows master Cobra Mansa and his friends in the search for the African roots of the Brazilian martial art Capoeira. A powerful myth links Capoeira to a legendary Angolan game called Engolo

For 100 years Maskoy people worked in Carlos Casado’s tannin factory. The factory, which had been founded on their land, based its production on the exploitation of local natural resources. After

Like that of many other Indian groups in South America, the culture of the Panare Indians of Venezuela is threatened by their almost daily contact with neighbouring creoles, Spanish-speaking

Villagers from remote hamlets high in the Andes join together with people from the roadside village of Ocongate for the Peruvian Independence Day celebration. Festivities require that a wild condor

Like self-fulfilling prophecies, scientific reports have hitherto depicted the Emerillon of French Guiana as cultureless and doomed to disappear. With this film, an anthropologist proposes to defy

The men of the Afro-Caribbean population of Cuyagua enact a ritual that occurs 60 days after Easter. The film is a portrait of two men who direct the devil dancing. They tell the history of the

The film centres on the predominantly female celebration of the feast of Saint John. The women sing the songs associated with the Feast, describe their beliefs and how they organise the feast.

In the Bolivian highlands an English doctor is setting up a network of health care for remote mountain villages. While teaching the inhabitants the essentials of Western medicine the doctor is

This film explores the dreams and frustrations of camp squatters in Rio de Janeiro State, as, supported by the MST (Landless People's Movement), they wait for permission to settle on unused land close by.

The way of life of the 10,000 Embera Indians who live in the Choco region of Colombia, South American, is threatened by the encroachments of Negro Libres (descendants of freed slaves) and by the

John Palmer arrived in a Wichí community, located in Argentina, thirty years ago as an anthropologist - today he has married a Wichí woman with whom he has five sons in the last 5 years, who babble

This documentary explores many of the conflicts and tensions that arise at the point of contact between highland migrants and lowland indigenous peoples, focusing particularly on the system of debt

During the day, Isnar is a community paramedic who works in the local clinic and runs an arts and drugs rehabilitation centre for young people in Fortaleza on the coast of Northeast Brazil. But by

In a violent, marginalized and discriminated environment such as the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, women create a time and a space to construct their identities and their beauty. Marcella, Thuany and

The 1982 war between Britain and Argentina brought the Falkland or Malwinas Islands into the news headlines. This film is less spectacular: It shows the way of life of one inhabitant of this

Between 1960 and 1992, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Brian Moser made four films concerning indigenous peoples of northwest Amazonia: "Piraparana" (1960), "War of the Gods"

Cali in Colombia is celebrated for salsa music and beautiful women and is also the base of the Internet Bride agency, 'Latin Best' with 900 women on its files. Accompanying the British and American

This film focuses on the conflicts and determination of a group of people trying to survive and maintain their ethnic identity in the face of almost overpowering odds. The film contrasts the

Early in 1989 the Kayapo rallied other Brazilian Indians to attend a reunification of the tribes at Altamira«the proposed site of a massive hydro-electric dam, that will flood large parts of the

The film focuses on recent changes in the culture and society of the Cuiva, hunters and gatherers in a remote forest region of south-eastern Colombia, brought about through contact with Colombian

Antonio Lorenzano was an acclaimed musician, shamanic healer and craftsman, and the leader of the Warao community of Morichito on the Winikina River, in the lower Orinoco Delta, Venezuela. The film

The Mehinacu live near the head-waters of the River Xingu in Central Brazil, in a single village within the protective confines of the Xingu National Park. Although the film concentrates upon the

During the celebration of the Feast of San Juan Bautista in the village of Chuao, on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, an image of Jesus appeared on a drinks tray. The community is trying to find out

This film is set in a community of peasant agriculturalists 2 1/4 miles above sea level in the southern Peruvian Andes. Concentrating on a single family, the film explores aspects of religious and

National governments, itinerant gold-miners, and indigenous inhabitants compete for control of an area of the South American rainforest. The film shows the potential conflict between the interests

Growing up on the streets of Bogotá, where drugs and violence dominate, it seemed as though José might never escape this cycle. It is the job of Orlando and those at the Institution for the

With the Shining Path guerilla movement in decline, the government in Peru set up a Commission for Peace and Reconciliation to hear the testimonies of those who had suffered in the war. Framed by the

Shuar traditions and land are intimately tied to another. This film explores how the traditions and relationships change when foreign mining companies enter their territory.

Unaware of the written word until the 1950s, the Waura tribe who live in the headwaters of the Xingu river in Brazil still practise the art of storytelling. Tribal storyteller Aruta recounts one of

There is a small community in Ghana who identify as Brazilians. Their name is the Tabom. They are the descendants of former enslaved Africans and creoles who resettled from Bahia to Ghana during the

In a village inside the world’s fifth largest and tough city, São Paulo, a young Guaraní created a children’s choir to raise money for his community. Filled with beautiful sounds, the film is a

Transfiction explores 'ethnofiction' - an experimental ethnographic documentary film style in which the participants collaborate with the filmmaker to act out their own and others' life experiences

Umbanda is a syncretic religious movement, combining elements from orthodox Catholicism with submerged African and indigenous Indian spiritual beliefs. In spite of past attempts to suppress it,

Filmed in the city of Caracas, capital of Venezuela, Uncle Poison is an intimate portrait of a traditional faith healer, set against the backdrop of his community’s Easter celebrations. Every day,

Chicha music evokes the experiences of the many Peruvians who migrate from the high Andes down to the cities. This film tells the story of Aurora Ramos, a cobbler and market saleswoman, and the role

While relying on a polemical stance directed against the cultural genocide wrought by missionaries, 'War of the Gods' also contains a wealth of information and detail about Amazonian Indian

Marie-Claude Muller is a linguist who has worked for many years with the Panare, an Amerindian people of Venezuelan Amazonia. She has now been commissioned by the government literacy programme to

The Yanomami Indians are one of the last large relatively unacculturated indigenous groups remaining in the world. In November 2000 filmmakers Orloff and Shalygin documented the lives of a small