A group of people bows down as a ritual for religious ceremonies. This community shares a belief named Sapta Drama, one of the native religions in Indonesia that uses bowing down as a worshiping medium.
Social & External
The people behind it
This documentary started as part of a photography project about the indigenous Ainu population in northern Japan, portraying people from tightly knit communities. They feel deeply connected by their culture and tradition. With gorgeous pictures, the directors explore how different generations of Ainu reflect on their identity after centuries of oppression.
Thirty years ago, a rubber company enslaved a group of Asháninka people, manipulating them into tapping the trees in the lush borderland between Peru and Brazil. The company was expelled by a coalition of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, led by one mixed race couple. Now the adult children of this marriage combat political corruption and ongoing environmental disaster.
In this searing documentary, Indigenous people share heartbreaking stories that reveal the injustices inflicted by the Canadian child welfare system.
In 2019, some still consider homosexuality as a disease that needs to be cured. Focusing on movements with roots in the United States, which draw on both religion and psychiatry to justify so-called conversion therapies, an investigation into the devastating consequences of certain practices that seem to successfully avoid any control by European public authorities.
Ompung Putra Boru, a sixties indigenous Batak woman from Humbang Hasundutan, North Sumatra, retraces her life stories through photographs that interweave her past and present as a wife, mother, healer and indigenous land defender in two neighboring villages. Her multi-layered stories are juxtaposed with visual records of everyday life in the two villages, where people’s living space is still increasingly threatened by a giant pulp expansion.
The impact of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, on the lives of the Mayan women who joined as rebels to seek justice within their own culture.
The Shipibo-Konibo people of Peruvian Amazon decorate their pottery, jewelry, textiles, and body art with complex geometric patterns called kené. These patterns also have corresponding songs, called icaros, which are integral to the Shipibo way of life. This documentary explores these unique art forms, and one Shipibo family's efforts to safeguard the tradition.
The last true rebellion is death to the world. To be crucified to the world and the world to us.
In Polynesia, as humpback whales come to breed in the warm waters of the Pacific, Natoo immerses herself in a timeless experience.
Prajna is the Sanskrit word for radiant wisdom, and yatra is the word for pilgrimage or spiritual journey. This visually stunning documentary is a cinematic pilgrimage exploring the lost civilization of Angkor in Cambodia, including the largest temple in the world, the magnificent Angkor Wat. The journey continues to sacred sites of the natural world, Hindu Bali, jungles of Java, and discovering Buddhist Borobudur. A John Bush film.
This ground-breaking documentary compares similarities and differences in religious beliefs and practices that Islam has with Christianity and Judaism. It also examines how people of goodwill in the Abrahamic faith communities are coming to terms with historical conflicts that impact their lives today, the crisis of the fundamentalist approach to religious pluralism and tearing down barriers to understanding & respect. "A thought-provoking PBS documentary..." - The New York Times "A major work whose time has come...it will cause people to think in new ways..." - Bishop John Chane, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. "A truly accurate account of Islam's relationship with Judaism and Christianity..." - Daisy Kahn, Executive Director, American Society for Muslim Advancement SEEN ON PUBLIC TELEVISION STATIONS NATIONWIDE
Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the ancient Christian practice of preserving holy relics and the largely forgotten art form that went with it, the reliquary. Fragments of bone or fabric placed inside a bejewelled shrine, a sculpted golden head or even a life-sized silver hand were, and still are, objects of religious devotion believed to have the power to work miracles. The documentary features interviews with art historian Sister Wendy Beckett and Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum.
The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.
Greenland has become a major geopolitical issue between the United States, Europe, Russia, and China due to its geographical location and mineral resources. Its geopolitical destiny will have significant ecological consequences for the entire planet. What choice will the people of Greenland make? The largest island in the world, with its 2.2 million square kilometers covered 80% by ice, is also one of the least densely populated territories on Earth, with barely 57,000 inhabitants. Mainly living off fishing, tourism, and Danish subsidies, yet sitting on a potential treasure. We are talking about 25% of the world's hydrocarbon reserves, the third-largest uranium reserves, and 20% of rare earths. An icy Eldorado that today sparks all sorts of ambitions, one of the hotspots where the future of our multipolar world is being shaped. This is what the film will explore, addressing both its economic and commercial challenges, as well as its geo-ecological and military implications.
An intimate portrait, in his own words, of the Indian writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988), thirty years after the fatwa uttered by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini: his youth in multicultural Bombay, his life in England, his many years of forced hiding, his thoughts on President Trump's United States of America.
It’s spring in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Uyantza festival is underway with the community celebrating all that the forest has to offer. Meanwhile, news is breaking around the world that a novel virus is spreading and a state of emergency is declared across the country. As people test positive for COVID-19 in the community, some families decide to leave and head deeper into the jungle. Disconnected from school, friends, the internet, and work, one family learns to reconnect with life in the forest. The children begin to unlearn the national curriculum, and instead are taught Indigenous knowledge that mainstream schools normally pass over. As COVID-19 wreaks havoc around the planet, the family reconnect to their ancestral ways, but as news arrives that Ecuador’s lockdown will end soon, will the family choose to return?
Meet Vern Harper, Urban Elder, who walks the "Red Road" in a fast-paced, urban landscape. The camera follows Vern as he leads a sweat lodge purification ceremony, watches his 11-year-old daughter Cody at a classical ballet rehearsal, conducts a private healing ceremony, participates in a political march of 150,000 people, and counsels Indigenous prisoners at Warkworth Federal Prison.
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
A tribute to Chadwick Boseman, celebrating his life and legacy.
Generation Iron - examines the professional sport of bodybuilding today and gives the audience front row access to the lives of the top 7 bodybuilders in the sport as they train to compete in the world's most premiere bodybuilding stage - Mr. Olympia.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Explores the true story of the notorious Jesse James, how the myth developed during his lifetime, and how the legends have persisted over 100 years after his death at the hands of his former friend, Robert Ford.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.
Featuring never-before-seen footage, this documentary delivers a startling new look at the Peoples Temple, headed by preacher Jim Jones who, in 1978, led more than 900 members to Guyana, where he orchestrated a mass suicide via tainted punch.
A sexual wellness company gains fame and followers, then members come forward with shocking allegations.
Behind the scenes look at fight choreography and action training.
The feature documentary follows women of all walks of life, all ages and ethnic backgrounds, as they shed trauma, body image shame, sexual abuse and other issues locked in their bodies, and embark on a journey to reclaim themselves. The film also gives a rare window into the world of Pole artistry and expression.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
A look at the "Hell House" performed annually in October by the youth members of Trinity Church (Assemblies of God) in Cedar Hill, Texas (a Dallas suburb) — seen by over 10,000 visitors each year.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
This raucous journey into the heart of democracy captures an unusual rite of passage: 1,100 teenage boys from across Texas coming together to build a representative government from the ground up.