Joanna Head, Jean Lydall. 1994. 58 minutes.
This film, part three of the Hamar Trilogy, revisits Sago and Duka, a young married Hamar couple in the remote southwest of Ethiopia. Candid discussions with Sago and Duka about their relationship and the rolls of husband and wife in a Hamar marriage reveal conflicts and controversies, centering on Duka's dissatisfaction with her husband's sometimes violent treatment of her. This complex, sensitive portrayal is deepened by the filmmakers' close, long-term relationship with the films participants.
Tom Zubrycki. 1993. 75 min.
The political and personal intersect in this dramatic and soulful story about two refugees from El Salvador. Eight years ago, Maria and Carlos Robles escaped to a new world in Australia where they struggle to maintain their culture and sense of family.Yasuhiro Omori. 1994. 94 minutes.
In northern Japan, famous shaman Kamisama (woman of spiritual being) summons spirits through a pair of puppets and other mediums.
Andy Jillings, Jacques Lizot. 1993. 50 minutes.
The Yanomami of Venezuela invite their enemies to settle old scores and feast. When sickness and sudden death threaten the preparations shamans call upon healing powers from the spirit world, but their traditional defense offers no protection against new diseases carried by gold prospectors.
Barry Dornfeld and Maggie Holtzberg. 1994. 30 min.
A film focusing on the expressive culture of eight retired African-American railroad-track laborers. Their collective story is one of laboring in the segregated South before civil rights, organized labor, and occupational safety standards. The film centers around the gandy dancers' singing of railroad calls, which survive as artistic expressions of religious faith, working conditions, and sexually explicit poetry.
Brita Landoff. 1993. 58 minutes.
In gender-segregated Algeria, women musicians known as "meddahatts" perform for raucous all-female gatherings, where, away from the view of men, they remove their veils and dance. The "meddahatts" are often widowed or divorced and, having fallen on hard times, must work as musicians to support themselves and their children. This film focuses on one such orchestra, which paradoxically includes two gay men who are somehow accepted in an all-female world.
Trevor Graham. 1993. 56 min.
Kev Carmody Arboriginal musician and songwriter was touted by Rolling Stone in 1989 as having produced the best album ever released by an Aborigine and the best protest album ever made in Australia. This video produced for the Blood Brothers series in Australia (the Aboriginal perspective on the changing face of Aboriginal society) looks at his important role as a voice of protest for black Australia.
Mei-Juin Chen. 1994. 53 min.
In a Hollywood Hotel a young Taiwanese filmmaker explores the lives, dreams, and aspirations of a group of tenants at the Hastings Hotel, a resident hotel located on Hollywood Boulevard's historic Walk of Fame. From the eccentric Kali, to the unconventional O'Brien family, to a mysterious Hollywood screenwriter, the documentary presents intimate portraits of these people in a playful montage of filmic genres and textures that links the residents' desires and illusions with the filmmaker's own quest for "exotic" America.
Boris Stout. 1993. 36 minutes.
A powerful observational film by a British filmmaker about an African American community leader, Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood - the pastor of St. Paul Community Baptist church in East Brooklyn, New York. He is a proponent of African - American segregation as a way to empower the community.
Beate Engelbrecht and Manfred Kruger. 1989-1993. 50 minutes.
A beautifully crafted film about the art of copperwork in this region where it has existed since pre-Spanish times. Craftsmen comment about how the world-wide recession has affected their art form.
Herve Cohen, Renaud Cohen. 1993. 26 minutes.
Deep in the province of Sichuan, a woman and two men travel around the countryside climbing forbidding terrain to present outdoor film shows. New technologies and economic changes now threaten this road-show entertainment.
Sandra Johnson Osawa. 1994. 41 min.
An Ojibway prophecy indicates that Native Americans are living in the age of the "7th fire" - a time when traditional ways are strengthened. This is a profile of the Ojibwas of Northern Wisconsin who have continued to reaffirm their traditions in the face of racism and the politics of spear-fishing.
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