The film follows the life of Gusti Ayu Suartini, a young Balinese woman with Tourette’s Syndrome, as she struggles to create a life for herself while coping with a society who doesn’t understand her disease, doctors with no cures, and a family that rejects her. Gusti has spent many years struggling to overcome the stigma and suffering that has resulted…
The second youngest of eight children born to an upper-class family living in the rural region of Gunung Kidul in Cental Java, Estu has been ‘different’ ever since he was a young boy. Estu’s actions, and their disorienting power, cannot be understood outside of the cultural and social context within which they have taken shape nor can they be considered…
February 2010, the National Concert Hall staged the multimedia musical production, On The Road. It tells the story of the internationally renowned conductor, Chien Wen-Pin, searching for his childhood aboriginal nanny. One of the play’s organisers, Taiwan Colors Music (TCM), defined this work as “the first original, aboriginal musical in Taiwanese music history”. Adding new material, the director’s cut of…
Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival is a very important event for rock n’ roll bands in Taiwan. Starting from 2000, Taipei county organizes the contest annually, providing young gifted musicians an opportunity to demonstrate their talents. The fourth festival was held in the summer of 2003. During the three-day festival, the Indie Music Awards was the most interesting activity that attracted most…
Golden Scars presents an intimate portrait of the realities facing young musicians in Cuba, offering an exclusive look into the unique stories of two young rappers born in Santiago de Cuba. They are neither blood brothers, nor the best friends in the world. What they have in common is a passion for an expressive urban culture that gives voice to…
Is it possible to be a mother in the distance? Is it possible to educate from a booth? Women who travel thousands of miles to give a better future to their children, tell us how they live through the reality of being mothers across a telephone or a computer, making the booth their second home and transforming their voices into…
This is the story of Mbambu, a 16-year-old girl from the village of Kilembe, at the foot of the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda, who wants to be the first in her family to complete secondary school. Mbambu is also a faithful member of the local amateur drama group, which uses art and thematic performances (such as a performance on the…
Designed as a road movie, ‘Gnawa Music – Body and Soul’ is a musical and human odyssey in the heart of Gnawa music in Morroco. From Tanger to Essaouira passing by Tamesloht, Marrakech, Sale, the film takes us, body and soul, beyond the music to experience the splendor of a universal message which went through time to celebrate life.…
Dahna Abourahme is a Palestinian filmmaker who grew up in Abu Dhabi and Amman. She received her MA in Media Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York where she worked as a filmmaker and youth media educator. She is currently living in Beirut teaching at the Lebanese American University and involved in community media. In 2004,…
‘Promise and Unrest’ chronicles a migration story of maternal sacrifice and love labour. Separated from her daughter Gracelle at 7 months, Noemi Barredo left the Philippines for work in Malaysia to support her parents and extended family before arriving in Ireland in 2001. Filmed over a five-year period Promise and Unrest is an ethnographic portrayal of a migrant woman performing…
Journey to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in the footsteps of Claude Lévi-Strauss. Sixty years after the renowned French anthropologist conducted his famous fieldwork among the Nambikwara, we return to find his memory alive and well among the tribesmen. Lévi-Strauss’ experiences in the Amazon forever altered his understanding of society. He describes this life-changing journey in his seminal work,…
Journey with Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in search of the indigenous children she photographed fifteen years ago. Children of the Amazon invites you to see through the eyes of these inspiring, remarkably resilient people whose lives are transformed by a road carved through their forest home by an outside world. From Chief Amir…
Travelogue and ethnography meet in this comedic ghost story about a Canadian Jew wandering through an African culture where “the dead are not dead.” Embarking on a road trip across Cameroon’s most joyous funeral celebrations, the foreigner befriends his guides and becomes increasingly haunted by memories of his own ancestors.
Nico is a young graphic designer who lives in Bagheria, the more populated town in the province of Palermo. Nico is also a boy strongly tied to his land. Here he learns that to discover them and to tear them to the oblivion it has been a Palermitan man, born in 1841 and died in 1916: Giuseppe Pitrè. Nico is…
“Voices in the Clouds” is an intimate exploration of Tony Coolidge’s quest to understand his heritage. At the heart of the film lies the celebration of family and cultural preservation. Through his amazing journey, the film hopes to encourage viewers to carve their own path toward self-discovery. With his mother gone, Tony reunites with his relatives in Taiwan, only to…
The Mei-hua family of seven from Taitung came to the San-ying Village under the SanxiaYingge Bridge 20 years ago. They built their home with wood, nails and their own bare hands. The house they were living in was torn to the ground by Taipei County Government for violating building laws. The Mei-hua family of eight moved into Sanxia City. However,…
An original portrayal of a small Czech village where – as the locals put it – an UFO has landed in the form of a kilometre-long silverish factory: a Korean Hyundai automobile plant. The village, hitherto famous mostly for its sauerkraut and the “Radegast” beer was thus turned into an industrial zone – the largest greenfield investment project in the…
“Hidden Battles,” a feature length documentary, is a dramatic and deeply intimate film about the psychological impact of killing on the lives of five soldiers. How does killing change the person who pulls the trigger? “Hidden Battles” weaves together moments of reflection and realization from people who struggle with what it means to kill in all of it’s complexity. The…
Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! is set in a ghetto in Western India. It’s about Budhan Theatre, a group of young Chhara Tribals who are considered “born criminals.” In 2003 Dakxin, a director and playwright, was arrested on false charges. We were concerned because the Chharas face are regularly brutalized by the Police. The documentary evolved from that initiative. Dakxin…
The documentary films not only let us travel through time but also present Kavalan and Ketagalan culturals, recording phonograph records and 16 centimeters movies which were scattered to different collection organizations in different countries and collected by the westerners and Japanese hundred years ago. The films have both recorded the images of people and tribes in detail and retraced the…
The field of anthropology goes under the magnifying glass in this fiery investigation of the seminal research on Yanomamö Indians. In the 1960s and ’70s, a steady stream of anthropologists filed into the Amazon Basin to observe this “virgin” society untouched by modern life. Thirty years later, the events surrounding this infiltration have become a scandalous tale of academic ethics…
The director himself is a veteran news cameraman who put aside a year in the filming of this documentary. He delves into the life and work of four TV news cameramen, giving us a unique perspective on the media world, capturing the rarely seen story of human struggle in an industry where humanity has all but vanished. The documentary reveals…
Bitter Roots: The Ends of a Kalahari Myth is set in Nyae-Nyae, a region of Namibia located in southern Africa’s Kalahari desert, traditional home of the Ju/’hoansi. It updates the ethnographic film record begun in the 1950s by John Marshall, whose films documented 50 years of change, and who together with Claire Ritchie, established a grass-roots development foundation, which Adrian…
A long time ago, there is a story about a flood among the Tsou people. At that time, a wise crab stood out and resolved the blood caused by a weird eel. Then after thousand years, the blood happens again and is caused by a mutated eel. At this time, the eel is caused by the industry civilization and the…
During the 88 flooding disaster, Taiwan received a donation from its ally in the Southern Pacific, a nation called Tuvalu. This defenseless nation of 26 square kilometers will be the first island nation to be submerged by the oceans once the sea level rises due to global warming. The director Huang Hsinyao left his hometown after the 88 flooding disaster…
What if your community had to decide whether to leave their homeland forever and there was no help available? This is the reality for the culturally unique Polynesian community of Takuu, a tiny low-lying atoll in the South Western Pacific. As a terrifying tidal flood rips through their already damaged home, the Takuu community experiences the devastating effects of climate…
Dakanuwa is at the most upstream part of the Nanzuxien Stream and it is one of the farthest tribes in the remote mountain. After leaving the highway and crossing a bridge which was washed away easily, we should spend two or three hours to get there. This is Arbuwu’s hometown. Before she was ten, there was no electricity, She said…
Film records about life of Ashiq, the Uighur bard live in southern border area of Takla Makan Desert, in all its aspect. “Ashiq” means the zealot. Unlike traditional life of Sufi in Islam society, Ashiq who live in southern border area of Takla Makan Desert do different jobs for living except people go into seclusion to cultivate religious sense at…
Drugs sending which was based on the idea of paying after using was originated from the third year of Genroku (Japanese year). During the domination of Japan, due to the lack of medical resources and the inconvenient transportation in rural areas of Taiwan, almost every family hanged a medical kit called Yao Pao Tsai on the wall for the people…
The film paints a vivid picture of Feliciano’s life, of the conflict between his love of the land and the work he has learned from his father, and the desire to see his son living what he sees as a better life in the city. Interwoven with Feliciano’s story is the complex history of his people. In his often poetic…
Buraunse is a remote Himalayan village in Humla Districts of Nepal. As in some the himayan districts that share border with tibet, the institution of polyandary is still practiced by trh Lama community there. Adhering to the age-old Tibetan Buddhist tradition, brothers marry a common wife. Over the recent years, however younger generation exposed to modern reluctant to follow the…
De’Ang Minority genesis mythology think “the thor” and “excess”Created the heaven earth and people.
Water drum is Ancient echoes.
With the society’s huge change,
More people to pursue economic rich,
National culture only to the old man,
Water drum old man lee la doppler, seventy-nine years of age,
DeAng people in the village,
…
Since Taiwan became a member of WTO in 2002, the tobacco industry has been on the downgrade year by year. Uncle A-Li, who is 70 years old, begins to plant tobacco every autumn. His greatest achievement of labor in his entire life was being able to bring up his little son, who grew up to be a doctor. However, God…
On the plateau below zero 40℃, yak dung is the fuel without pollution and it can warm up the herdsmen’s houses and make offerings to gods. It is used as lights, walls, natural manure, medicine and toys. The artists can make a Buddhist statue with yak dung. Through yak dung, people not only judge whether the grassland is good or…