Movies: Traditional culture

After years of absence, Ciro returns home to his mother's bedside. In the Colombian desert of Tatacoa, he meets those he fled and confronts the last guardians of a territory as fragile as it is enchanting....

This short documentary chronicles a four-month period between 1979 and 1980 when residents of Hawaii's Sand Island "squatter" community attempted to resist eviction from the Honolulu shoreline - resulting in displacement, arrests, and the destruction...

Does Europe also have its own animistic heritage, like Pachamama in South America and Shinto in Japan? If so, which one? In the Misty Lands, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, a sacred fire is lit on the winter solstice to celebrate the return of th...

For thirty years in the late-twentieth century, the people of Tahiti survived dozens of offshore nuclear tests by the French government. Since the country was colonized in 1880, the blasts left Tahitians picking through the remnants of their islands ...

"Monday's Girls" explores the conflict between modern individualism and traditional communities in today's Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from the Niger delta. Although both come from leading families in the same large island to...

Live action documentary footage of a concert by the Kodo drummers of Japan at the Acropolis, Greece, in 1995, with commentary by members of the drum group concerning the concert and the drum troupe...

This documentary film depicts brave Virgin Islands fishermen with a love and commitment to the sea. Watch as they give their accounts of adventure and terror....

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An overview of the people, lifestyle, and traditions of Samoa, as well tourism and other economic changes on the Samoan islands....

Through the unrelenting winter in the north of Japan, a small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2,000-year-old tradition known as sake. A cinematic documentary, The Birth of Sake is a visually immersive experie...

At an altitude of 4500 meters, on the highest plateaus of Karnak in the Himalayan région of Ladakh, in a lunar setting where the sky blends with the mineral immensity, director Marianne Chaud filmed the movements of these last nomads. Immersed for mo...

Celebrates 30 years of televised specials by The National Geographic Society....

In the summer of 1961, a group of young Italian anthropologists made a clandestine journey through Spain, in order to record popular songs that supported anti-Franco resistance. As a result of their work, they were prosecuted and their recordings wer...

During the Cultural Revolution in China in the late 20th century, ethnic Manchu people were persecuted and forced to give up such cultural traditions as the shaman dance (tiao tchin, meaning "spirit-jumping" or "god's dance"). However, on Changbai Mo...

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A 15-year-old boy goes on a hiking trip with his estranged grandfather, and overcomes the grief of losing his parents on a mountain above the clouds....

Darên bitenê is a fascinating documentary exploring the “dengbej” musical heritage of the singers, poets and storytellers from Northern Syria’s region. Featuring a stunning scenery of poetic landscapes, the film is interlaced with stories of Kurdish ...

A girl celebrates her 16th birthday with a Umhlonyane....

On Yonaguni Island, the westernmost island of Japan, there is a language in danger of disappearing. How far can we take the language, culture and history that are being quietly forgotten at the edge of Japan? A semi-documentary fantasy full of life f...

Buddhist monk and photographer Matthieu Picard as he returns to the Asian country in the Himalayas where he spent a decade after seven years away, revisiting breathtaking landscapes and experiencing local traditions....