Donna Read

Authors, teachers, social activists and feminists explore manifestations of contemporary women's spirituality in the Western world.

A documentary history of lesbianism in North American and Europe, with historic references, archival material, film clips, interviews with many women - famous and not-famous witnesses and players - who clearly remember a difficult, painful, and often downright dangerous past.

A documentary film about the Candomblé spiritual culture in Bahia, Brazil. Grounded in strong community and Earth-based wisdom, this vibrant tradition evolved from the ways of enslaved Africans. The film explores Candomblé's history, social challenges and triumphs through the voices of extraordinary women leaders.

Intercut with illustrative stock footage, Adam's World present a short lecture by Elizabeth Dodson Gray, a feminist theologian, environmentalist, and futurist. She speaks to us about the severity of our global environmental crisis, and analyzes the root cause of this crisis as lying in the perceptions, beliefs, and assumptions of the patriarchal system we have inherited.

This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

In a farmhouse on Cape Breton Island where Shawn Peter Dwyer, age 10, lives with his mother and nine brothers and sisters, children's pockets are usually empty and their lives well filled.

This documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin introduces us to Randy Horne, a high steel worker from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, near Montreal. As a defender of his people's culture and traditions, he was known as "Spudwrench" during the 1990 Oka crisis. Offering a unique look behind the barricades at one man's impassioned defence of sacred territory, the film is both a portrait of Horne and the generations of daring Mohawk construction workers that have preceded him.

Goddess Remembered is a salute to 35,000 years of "pre-history," to the values of ancestors only recently remembered and to the goddess-worshipping religions of the ancient past. This documentary features Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Luisah Teish, Starhawk, Charlene Spretnak and Jean Bolen, who link the loss of goddess-centered societies with today's environmental crisis.

Weaving together interviews, archival footage, photographs, animation, and narration, "Signs Out Of Time" is an incredible journey that delves into the life and work of UCLA Archaeologist Dr. Marija Gimbutas. Gimbutas' work focused on revealing the linguistic and mythological origins of European cultures in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and how they were matriarchal in nature, including Earth-based spirituality and Goddess worship. The film explores how her notions of European prehistory challenged many traditional assumptions about the beginnings of European civilization. The film features interviews with both her supporters and critics, and explores her studies, excavations and publications, her extensive scholarship, and the controversy surrounding her theories.

The history of nuns mirrors the history of all women -- in what we are taught about the past, women are almost invisible. Although today's one million nuns outnumber priests two to one, they must struggle to be heard by the all-male Roman Catholic hierarchy from which they are excluded. Behind the Veil: Nuns is the first film ever to record from a global perspective the turbulent history and remarkable achievements of women in religion, from pre-Christian Celtic communities to the radical sisters of the 1980s. Contemporary nuns of strength, dignity and commitment speak of their lives and of their predecessors.