Recent videos of interest

Language, Culture, Religion

• Bombay calling
  DVD only. Filmmakers Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal dive into the bustling world of late nights, long hours and hard partying. The result is a compelling insider's look at youth culture in India, and a growing number of young people who choose to follow the American dream...Indian style.
• Covered [Snakegirl Productions]
  Explores the world of heavily tattooed women and female tattoo artists in the United States. Takes a larger, sociological perspective on what it means to be a heavily tattooed woman in today's society -- from the perspectives of the women themselves. Features dozens of tattoo artists.
• Cry Rock
  “Less than fifteen Nuxalk language speakers and storytellers remain in Bella Coola, British Columbia, today. One of these elders is the director Banchi Hanuse's 80-year-old grandmother. In a technologically obsessed century, it would seem easier to record Nuxalk stories for future generations, but Hanuse resists...”
• Cultural anthropology: our diverse world
  DVD only. A 17-part cultural anthropology 'course' on DVD.] Takes a cross-cultural approach to diverse subject areas, including subsistence patterns, political organization, the family, social organization, economics, kinship, language, the arts, and religion.
• Fambul tok: a film about forgiveness
  Explores a culture that believes true justice lies in redemption and healing for individuals, and that forgiveness is the surest path to restoring dignity and building strong communities. Victims and perpetrators of Sierra Leone's brutal civil war come together for the first time in tradition-based truth-telling and forgiveness ceremonies. By reviving their ancient practice of fambul tok (family talk) Sierra Leoneans are building sustainable peace at the grassroots level
• Flesh and blood
  What's the Ukrainian word for sex? Filmmaker Marusya Bociurkiw explores this question in the humorous and provocative Flesh and Blood. A queer bar in Kyiv reveals drag queens in traditional Ukrainian costume; a trip to the suburbs introduces us to transsexual Lena and bisexual Oksana, who live with Oksana's two husbands and her grandmother in what they call a poly-family.
• Fortunate son
  Autobiographical documentary by the son of Greek immigrants living in Canada. After overcoming a severe drug problem, and motivated by a search for happiness with his new fiancee, filmmaker Tony Asimakopoulos turns his gaze on his complicated, painful relationship with his overbearing mother and ailing father, and the patterns of dysfunction they share. A film about faith, despair, renewal, and the different kinds of love in a family. Follows the filmmaker from his childhood home in Montreal, to the Greek villages ...
• In the name of the family: honour killings in North America
  DVD only. Award-winning director Shelley Saywell brings her consummate documentary skills and passion for human rights to challenge the traditions that lie behind the heartbreaking tragedies committed against young girls caught between two cultures in North America.
• KZ
  DVD only. Tourists, tour guides and locals at a former concentration camp in Austria. “Through its unflinching depiction of daily modern life in the small Austrian town of Mauthausen, KZ reveals the lasting legacy and impact of the Holocaust on individuals of all generations, nationalities and religions.”
• Liberty, equality, accommodation
  DVD only. The Herouxville Code of Conduct informed newcomers that women were not to be excised, stoned or burned alive. A storm of voices and opinions greeted that announcement and generated a unique expression of direct democracy. The film is about this unprecedented collective experience.
• Lost boys of Sudan
  DVD only. “The journey of two teenage Sudanese boys, orphaned by their war torn country, who traveled to America looking for a safer environment and learning to cope with the unfamiliar complexities of contemporary American society.”
• Made in India: a film about surrogacy
  DVD only. The human experiences behind the phenomena of 'outsourcing' surrogate mothers to India. Shows the journey of an infertile American couple, an Indian surrogate and the reproductive outsourcing business that brings them together. Weaving together these personal stories within the context of a growing international industry, MADE IN INDIA explores a complicated clash of families in crisis, reproductive technology, and choice from a global perspective.
• Moolaade
  Motion Picture. It is the time for the young girls of a village to be purified by ritual circumcision. Colle has kept her daughter from being circumcised, and several of the girls go to her for refuge. Colle agrees to help them, and she invokes moolaade, a form of sanctuary.
• Professor Norman Cornett: 'since when do we divorce the right answer from an honest answer?'
  Alanis Obomsawin pays tribute to Dr. Norman Cornett, a popular Religious Studies professor dismissed by McGill University in 2007. Addressing subjects as varied as palliative care and First Nations issues, Cornett won the respect of students with his unconventional approach.
• Questions nationales : National matters
  Brings new perspective to the Quebec sovereignty issue. In particular, it addresses the question of why Quebec has yet to achieve independence forty years after the movement began, when so many other countries have succeeded in achieving this goal during the same period. To answer this question, the film considers the cases of the Scots (UK) and the Catalans (Spain), who, like the Québécois, have had to think hard about the advantages or risks of independence over autonomy and to grapple with the 'unknowns' ...
• Reconquering the conquest
  Originally produced in 1993. French-speaking Canadians battle for a unilingual French-speaking Quebec. At the same time, the Cree people battle the Quebec government over territory in the north. Can a single federal state survive if it contains a couple of nations and two major language groups? Part of the Nationalism: Blood and Belonging series.
• Tales of sand and snow
  DVD only. In a quest to understand his own cultural identity and rediscover the spiritual values of his own people, Canadian emigré Hyacinthe Combary, an African native, turns to another indigenous culture, from the snows of North America. ... [A] cinematic dialogue between the Gourmantché of Burkina Faso, who read their people's future in the sand-patterns of the desert, and the Atikamekw of Québec, who connect with the spirits through snow-encased sweat lodges. Both cultures have been victims of colonization, ...
• Talking Canadian eh?
  'Talking Canadian is not so much a history lesson as an often-amusing look at our accent, intonation and vocabulary, how Canadians speak today, and how we will talk in the future.'
• The Blood records
  A haunting tale of disease and loss set in a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1944 in the heart of the Canadian prairies. Explores the world of a young girl, ill with tuberculosis. Struggling to escape her diseased body, her spirit roams freely throughout the long days and nights, reminiscing about her family, fearful of the fate of a beloved older brother who is fighting in The War, missing her native language (French) which is now foreign to her tongue after two years in the English hospital....
• The M word
  DVD only. A history and critique of multiculturalism in Canada. “The M Word records the history of various immigrant groups who are not officially recognized in the history books. It also interviews a number of prominent Canadians to take the pulse of multiculturalism today, including Haroon Siddiqui, Allan Gregg, Candy Palmater, Jack Jedwab, and Uzma Shakir.”
• The split horn: the life of a Hmong Shaman in America
  DVD only. Shows the life and culture of the Thao family, Hmong Americans in Appleton, Wisconsin, and a shaman's struggle to maintain his ancient traditions.
• They think I'm Chinese / On me prend pour une chinoise!
  DVD only. A journey into the inner world of five adopted teenage girls. Girls who were in the first wave of Chinese children adopted in Quebec in the 1990s are now in their teens. Nicole Giguère focused her lens on five of them and accompanied them throughout their emotionally charged transition to adulthood. In their quest for identity, how do these young Quebeckers experience their differences? Includes original French version and French version with subtitles.
• Unveiled Views: Muslim women artists speak out
  DVD only. In this revealing documentary five extraordinary women talk about their occupations, aspirations, and the rights and status of women in their Muslim countries.
• Vine of the Soul: Encounters with Ayahuasca
  Explores the mystery of ayahuasca shamanism, offering insights into the nature of spirituality, mystical experience and self-healing through a heightened state of consciousness.
• Why quilts matter : history, art and politics
  A nine-part television series on the history, significance, and culture of quilts. Episode 1. Quilts 101 : antique and contemporary quilts (26:30) -- Episode 2. Quilts bring history alive (26:47) -- Episode 3. The quilt marketplace (26:47) -- Episode 4. What is art ?(25:50) -- Episode 5. Gee's Bend: the most famous quilts in America? (26:35) -- Episode 6. How quilts have been viewed and collected (25:50) -- Episode 7. Empowering women one quilt at a time (26:04) -- Episode 8. Quilt nation : 20,000,000 and counting ...
• Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I love you, mommy)
  DVD only. An intimate and honest film about an eight-year old Chinese adoptee's journey from Guangzhou, China to Long Island, New York. Fang Sui Yong, aka Faith Sadowsky, was abandoned at age 2, lived in an orphanage, and then was taken in by a loving Chinese foster family. Sui Yong's life is suddenly upended when she is adopted by the Sadowskys, a Jewish family in New York. Over the next 17 months, we witness Sui Yong's struggle to adapt to her new life in America and watch her slowly lose ties to everything ...