Banjo Tales

American cowboys have been writing poetry for over a century. This little-known literary tradition both belies the macho image of the Western heroes and serves as an imaginative form of oral history. Cowboy Poets travels to the big sky country of Nevada, Montana, and Arizona to explore the tradition and to introduce three working cowboys, and the poetry they write about the lifestyle and land they love: Waddie Mitchell, Slim Kite, and Wally McRae.

In Our Nazi, we are plunged into a situation we barely, and only slowly, understand: the filming of Thomas Harlan’s experimental feature Wundkanal (1984), in which true-life ex-SS officer Alfred Filbert, now very old, is ‘put on trial’ for the camera, without him suspecting what is to come or why he is really there. Kramer’s confronting film is an essay about the sticky complicity of everyone present at this event, each bringing their own history, their own political ideology, their own desires to take revenge, to seek redemption or compassion, or just to put their heads down and ‘get the job done’ professionally, or (in the case of Filbert) to be a star, a part of the magnificent, magical, seductive world of cinema, even if it kills him.

1985 Argentine documentary film directed by Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

A prostitute, released from prison, tries to change her life, but a murderous slave organization, the Consortium, is determined to bring her back to the fold or kill her, which forces her to seek help from Liberty, an anti-Consortium group.

A film by Yasha Aginsky This hour-long documentary celebrates fifty years of the New Lost City Ramblers (Mike Seeger, John Cohen, Tracy Schwarz and Tom Paley.) Among the first urban musicians to seriously pursue the old-time music traditions of the American South, the New Lost City Ramblers became stars of the 1960s folk revival, appearing at Newport Folk Festival and touring widely in the U.S. and Europe. They inspired generations of younger musicians to explore America’s traditional music, from elder statesman Bob Dylan to banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck to the contemporary African-American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, all of whom participated in the film. ALWAYS BEEN A RAMBLER reveals the Ramblers as musicologists as well as expert musicians, showing them side-by-side with traditional musicians including Dock Boggs, Maybelle Carter, and Doc Watson.

This award-winning PBS documentary sweeps viewers into a seafaring adventure with a community of Polynesians, as they build traditional sailing canoes, learn how to follow the stars across the open ocean, and embark upon a 2,000-mile voyage in the wake of their ancestors.

The Hawaiian people have a rich historical and cultural tradition. Their values, art, music, gods and legends reach back thousands of years to ancient Polynesia, where they lived before sailing to the islands we know as Hawai‘'i. Recently, there have been efforts to revitalize these traditions and teach them to young Hawaiians. Hawai'i: Continuing Traditions looks at ways in which the “"spirit of the land" lives today, as we explore special places, where old ways are thriving in the modern world. Visit a working taro plantation in Maui and an isolated fishing village on the isalnd of Hawai‘'i. Discover how a small community in Kaua‘'i creates beautiful shell necklaces, and voyage back in time on an ancient Polynesian sailing canoe.