In Haiti, many poor families are forced to give away their children. The children then go to live and work for other families as unpaid servants. This film follows the children throughout their day as they do all the housework and also interviews them where they speak freely for the first time on camera. The film also interviews the “aunts”…
Saltspring Island: close to a city, but full of magical, almost untouched places. A small town with a Saturday market. And in the middle of the island… trees, lots of trees. When chainsaws begin ripping through the early morning silence of Saltspring, residents confront logging trucks and face the threat of prison terms to stop land developers from logging this…
Elmer Dyrøy lives in Oslo, but when January arrives, he becomes restless. He takes his backpack and travels to the island on the west coast where he grew up－and island without other people, without roads or a wharf. A portrait of a person with a different lifestyle.
The traditional dance that accompany the batuque music of Cape Verde, dominated by frenetic hip movements, has led an uneasy coexisetence with the Christianity brought to the area by missionaries. Condemned by the church for inspiring what it considers sexually provocative behavior, batuque nevertheless lives on. Once forbidden, batuque is increasingly embraced as a valuable symbol of Cape Verdean culture.
Today, the traditional “Lucha Canaria” or Canarian Wrestling is both a modern sport and a significant marker of cultural identity in the Canary Islands of Spain (situated off the coast of Africa). This sport and its relevance for the people’s identity as Canarios and inhabitants of their different islands and regions is shown in this documentary shot on Tenerife, Gran…
In Madagascar, country of oral tradition, the history is told in poetry. And here also, the word is left to the storytellers so that they say the origin and the history of the island and his inhabitants, such as they were transmitted by the tales, the myths and the legends. Images of everyday life, habits family or traditional festivals illustrate…
A Potrait of Ibrahim Kadir, one of Gayo old “Ceh” (poets), a person who leads and acts as the lead singer of didong (one of Gayo People Oral Traditions). This oral tradition is a combination of literature, music, and dance. The documentary focus on Ibrahim daily lives, singing his ballads, dancing, and performing/commenting didong competition in his beautiful Linge Homeland…
Joe Leahy is the half-caste son of one of the first explorers of the Papua New Guinea highland interior. His relations with the local Ganiga tribe who work his coffee plantation on their land are difficult at times. However he has successfully managed to get them to agree to open a second plantation in partnership with him. Things are looking…
Paradise Bent is one of the world’s first studies of the Samoan fa’afafines: boys who are raised as girls and play an important domestic role in Samoan culture. The anthropological spotlight has shone on Samoa many times this century. But there has been no mention of fa’afafines－is it possible the anthropologists just didn’t notice them? According to the Samoans, fa’afafines…