This is not just one more film about the monuments of Angkor, their history or their architecture. This film is about the people who live there. An inside view, in the shadow of the temples and the great kapok trees, an inhabited shadow that the world’s tourists pass through unawares, wrapped up in contemplating the treasures of Khmer art. In
In the village of Vourbira, in the Lobi country, Burkina Faso, people celebrate the second funerals of Bindute Da. Outstanding cultural and historical event, the ceremony is, beside the unchanging rituals, the scene of a collective improvisation, final meeting between past and present. In order to welcome the deceased, each of his nineteen wives prepares sorghobeer in large jars because
In Malagasy, “Mahaleo” means free, independent.
In Jerusalem, three religions meet. They harmoniously coexist. While the guides lead us through the streets of Jerusalem, we can see people from different backgrounds and culture live in the same neighbourhood. The guides are the meessagers of time. They deliver the message that only time can solve all the disputes and trouble.
Even at night time, the Wana shamans from the Sulawesi see the “shadow” in each of us. For them, this “shadow” , which the sun defines on the ground during the day is a spiritually constitutive part of ourselves. It’s by observing the overall aspect of this “shadow” that the Wana shamans diagnose the sickness that is striking. The traditional
Journey to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in the footsteps of Claude Levi-Strauss. Sixty years after the renowned French anthropologist conducted his famous fieldwork among the Nambikwara, we return to find his memory alive and well among the tribesmen. Levi-Strauss’ experiences in the Amazon forever altered his understanding of society. He describes this life-changing journey in his seminal work,
Designed as a road movie, ‘Gnawa Music – Body and Soul’ is a musical and human odyssey in the heart of Gnawa music in Morroco. From Tanger to Essaouira passing by Tamesloht, Marrakech, Sale, the film takes us, body and soul, beyond the music to experience the splendor of a universal message which went through time to celebrate life.
In the wings of the opera “Maraina”, the film combines history and oral memory, to recount in music the Europeans’ first contacts with the natives of the Indian Ocean islands, made of violence and love stories. Between the XVIIth century and today, this historical road movie follows the cast’s fantastic journey to the place where it all began – Fort-Dauphin,
How do the Palestinian and Israeli (Arab and Jewish) education systems teach the history of their nations? The film follows several Israeli and Palestinian teachers over one academic year. Through observing their exchanges and confrontations with students, debates with the ministries curriculum and its restrictions, the viewers obtain an intimate glimpse into the profound and long lasting effect that the
“The Chinese make things, the Malagasy fix them.” Just for the time of a film, let’s have fun reversing roles… Let’s imagine it isn’t for the economists anymore to demonstrate their growth model, but for the farmers, artists, craftsmen, and streetwise sellers of all kind to showcase their skills. There are those who recycle tires into shoes, those who make
A consulting service is located in the Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny. It’s an outpost at the end of a corridor. A large, run-down room where sick men show up bearing physical scars, and whose pain seems closely linked to the suffering of exile. They keep coming back here because they still harbor hopes that this place will give them the means
Perma gold mine, Benin. Some dream to find something, others realized there was nothing to be found. Some dig relentlessly hoping to become rich, others died in the process. And a few of them say that here, nobody dies.
As a reachable form of a lost Eden within everyone’s grasp, everybody comes to the Bois de Vincennes to seek refuge in nature. People from all walks of life have the right to be here: rich, poor, French, foreign, gay, straight, alone or accompanied, old-school or hip. The woods are an island surrounded by the towns that encircle it: a
In a popular neighborhood of Brazzaville, Prince Dethmer, a famous Congolese dancer, has just died. His family organises his burial, inviting all of his artist friends to pay him their final tribute.
In the very waters where Melville’s Pequod gave chase to Moby Dick, Leviathan captures the collaborative clash of man, nature, and machine. Shot on a dozen cameras — tossed and tethered, passed from fisherman to filmmaker — it is a cosmic portrait of one of mankind’s oldest endeavors.
