HAIYU: Rebel Singer Mariem Hassan and the Struggle for a Free Western Sahara

HAIYU interweaves Mariem Hassan’s music and her personal quest for her country’s independence with larger historical events dating back to the region’s Spanish colonisation, and subsequent occupation by Morocco.

2024-06-14 | ar

Appalachian Journey

Appalachian Journey is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). It offers songs, dances, stories, and religious rituals of the Southern Appalachians. Preachers, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, moonshiners, cloggers, and square dancers recount the good times and the hard times of rural life there. Performers include Tommy Jarrell, Janette Carter, Ray and Stanley Hicks, Frank Proffitt Jr., Sheila Kay Adams, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, Raymond Fairchild, and others, with a bonus of a few African-Americans from the North Carolina Piedmont.

1991-07-19 | en

To Hear Your Banjo Play

A short film about Pete Seeger and the birth of banjo music throughout the Southern United States.

1947-01-01 | en

Sprout Wings and Fly

Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.

1983-10-01 | en

Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound

Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.

2009-10-14 | en

Harmonium in California

Through concerts and interviews, folk-progressive group Harmonium takes Quebec culture to California. This documentary full of colour and sound, filmed in California in 1978, recounts the ups and downs of the journey of the Quebec musical group Harmonium, who came to feel the pulse of Americans and see if culture, their culture, can succeed in crossing borders.

1980-01-01 | fr

How the Fiddle Flows

How the Fiddle Flows follows Canada's great rivers west along the fur-trading route of the early Europeans. The newcomers introduced the fiddle to the Aboriginal people they intermarried with along the way. A generation later, their mixed-blood offspring would blend European folk tunes with First Nations rhythms to create a rich and distinct musical tradition. From the Gaspé Peninsula, north to Hudson Bay and to the Prairies, How the Fiddle Flows reveals how a distinctive Metis identity and culture were shaped over time. Featuring soaring performances by some of Canada's best known fiddlers and step dancers and narrated by award-winning actress Tantoo Cardinal.

2002-04-26 | en

Nat Pwe: Burma's Carnival of Spirit Soul

In Burma, many people believe in ghost spirits called NATs. They are said to possess the power to assist or devastate the lives of those who recognize them. A PWE is a ceremony held to appease a Nat. Pwes are arranged daily throughout Burma for many purposes including the achievement of success in business, a happy marriage, or improving one's health. A Nat is summoned through a Kadaw; the flamboyant and charismatic master of the Pwe dressed in elegant costume. The Kadaw is a spirit medium, dancer, storyteller, and magician who exposes the crowd to a living incarnation of the Nat brought forth through opening ritual and careful observance of tradition.

2004-01-01 | en

John Fahey: Live at Audimax Hamburg

"Shot live for TV by the legendary German music show “Rockpalast” this DVD represents the earliest example of a complete Fahey concert performance. The multi-camera filming features detailed close-ups of Fahey’s playing style giving fans a rare insight into what Pete Townsend has called the William Burroughs of the guitar. Fahey’s 1978 visit to Europe saw him in fine wild form performing an 11 track set and as an incredibly rare bonus a short interview with the maverick iconoclast.

1978-03-17 | en

Wirklich alles?!

2002-11-30 | en

Changes in the Ocean, Changes in the Sea

A lyrical documentary about writer and street musician Roger Parham-Brown.

2019-12-21 | en

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

In March 2005, Neil Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Four days before he was scheduled for a lifesaving operation, he headed to Nashville, where he wrote and recorded the country folk album Prairie Wind with old friends and family members. After the successful operation and recovery period, he returned to Nashville that August to play at the famed Ryman Auditorium, once again gathering together friends and family for this special performance.

2006-02-17 | en

The River in Me

Traversing 700,000 square kilometers over 700 days, the filmmakers bring the stories of five people who crisscross the Yellow River to perform their art. At the center of the web is Su Yang, a contemporary artist and musician and his exchange with traditional practitioners of Qin Opera, Shadow Puppetry, Hua’er, and Shaanbei Storytelling.​

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Music Inn

During a decade rife with paranoia, in the middle of the McCarthy era, Music Inn was a bold experiment. Halfway between the Second World War and The Civil Rights Movement, Phil and Stephanie Barber created an oasis in the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts where aspiring musicians came to learn from the very best. Students and faculty, young and old, rich and poor, white, black, and brown convened together and learned from each other. Defying the surrounding environment, Music Inn harbored a racial and cultural harmony where music was all that mattered.

2007-05-03 | en

Al compás

A portrait of the Arab musicians Bahaa al Jomaa and Yazan Ibrahim.

2023-07-27 | ar

Mountain Born: The Jean Ritchie Story

Chronicles the 50-year career of singer/songwriter Jean Ritchie, from Viper, Kentucky to the New York stage. Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and her family and friends in Eastern Kentucky are among those interviewed. A 1996 KET production.

1996-09-26 | en

The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time

Documentary about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers, and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.

1982-03-07 | en

Tales From a Golden Age: Bob Dylan 1941-1966

Documentary - Tracing his career up to the point of his 1966 motorcycle accident and subsequent disappearance from the spotlight, this unauthorized documentary uncovers a side of Bob Dylan never revealed before. Includes extensive interviews and rare footage. - Mickey Jones

2004-01-01 | en

Neil Young: Don't Be Denied

This television special is a first for the reclusive singer with the BBC documentary gaining new interviews with Young, nine months apart in New York and California. The documentary also looks back over the singer's archives, with some never-seen-before material.

2009-06-10 | en

The Paper Kites: At The Roadhouse

The 'At The Roadhouse' concert film follows intimate performances and sequences by The Paper Kites, where in July 2022, the band arrived in the small regional Victoria town of Campbells Creek (140km north-east of Melbourne, Australia) to transform an empty heritage building into an American-style roadhouse. Over one month, the band performed a free, unannounced residency at 'The Roadhouse' to locals and passersby on Friday and Saturday evenings, while spending weekdays working on their new record in a barn on the same property. Captured by cinematographer Keiren Watson-Bonnic and edited by lead singer and songwriter Sam Bentley, the feature-length film will take audiences on an intimate journey reminiscent of their time at The Roadhouse, along with the landscape and beauty of Campbells Creek.

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