Hopi: Songs of the Fourth World

Yield to Total Elation explores the life and work of the enigmatic and visionary artist Achilles G. Rizzoli. A mundane architectural draftsman by day, the architectural transcriber of the divine by night, Rizzoli created elaborate Beaux-Arts influenced monuments which would never be built. Accompanied by his witty and poignant commentary, the drawings served as translations for the voices and the hallucinations that haunted him. By deftly weaving Rizzoli's words, archival footage, photos and evocative present day scenes of San Francisco's historic architecture, the film tells the story of Rizzoli's life and his work -- an exaltation of architecture as pleasure, as memorial, as redemption.

The film chronicles the lives of ordinary women as well as individuals such as Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Keckley, Frances Willard, and Abigail Scott Duniway through the great 19th century events: industrialization, abolition, the Civil War, westward movement, temperance, and suffrage. For nineteenth century women, quilts were the podium, the pulpit and the judges' gavel, which their society denied them. Their quilts speak the language of abolition, patriotism, politics, social justice, and westward expansion.

A series of first-person portraits of seven quilt makers, including a Mennonite, a Bulgarian immigrant, an African-American, and two midwestern sisters. They provide insights into the inspiration for their work and reveal their passion and love for an art form that reflects their values and philosophy of life.