Cultural Studies

Weimar: A Modern Day Renaissance City is a celebration of the small town that has capped its triumphant comeback by being recognized as the Culture city of Europe in 1999. This video looks at Weimar's past and present.

This video examines the ancient Red Sea port of Jeddah, one of the oldest commercial waterways in the world, and renowned in the Middle East as "the Bride of the Sea."

Reveals the plight of landless peasants in Guatemala, where property ownership is restricted to a small percentage of the nation's most wealthy citizens.

Portrays the appalling socio-political realities of contemporary Guatemala, where the majority of the population--malnourished and illiterate--are exploited by wealthy landowners and businessmen and brutally repressed by the military.

This three-part video series examines different social aspects of the cultures of Mesoamerica (i.e., the nations of Mexico and Central America).

In 1985, Monica Frota, an independent Brazilian filmmaker, collaborated with the Kayapo people of the Brazilian rain forest to develop Mekaron Opoi D'joi (He Who Creates Images), the first Kayapo media project.

This video chronicles the history of the Mayans, the most sophisticated civilization among pre-Columbian societies.

This video chronicles the 1998 return to Cuba of an American college professor, Dr. Magaly Lavendenz, forced as a child to leave Cuba in 1962, and who grew up in the U.S., but with a distinct Cuban identity.

This four-part series examines changes in Cuban society during the post-Soviet economic crisis between 1994-98.

When photographer Elaine Briere visited Portuguese East Timor in 1974, she found a highly developed, centuries-old culture with a refined aesthetic and social sensibility. Her photos would become the last record of a people about to face virtual annihilation, because, when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, the world looked the other way.

Filmmaker Paul Lee explores the lives of four generations of Chinese women in his family, using their shoes-from the four-inch silk sandals made for his great- grandmother's bound feet during the Ching Dynasty to the Italian leather pumps of his career-minded sister-as a reference point for the cultural and social forces which have shaped their lives.

Explores the Indian community in Trinidad, outlining the events and accidents of history that constitute this example of the Indian diaspora, and interviewing various Trinidadian- Indians about the hybridity of their culture and their relationship, if not preoccupation, with India.

Examines the role of black resistance to apartheid in South Africa through a look at two of the nation's leading cultural activists and popular performers--poet Mzwakhe Mbuli and writer/ performer Gcina Mhlophe.

Examines the role of culture in the struggle for national liberation in South Africa by interspersing performances by the Amandla Cultural Ensemble with footage of the mass singing of resistance songs on the streets of South Africa and interviews with leading cultural workers of the African National Congress.

The storytelling tradition of the southern Appalachians comes to life through actress/writer Clarinda Ross's portrayal of four generations of her maternal ancestors.

Examines the Santa Fe Fiesta, America's oldest continuous community celebration, which commemorates the Spaniards' "bloodless reconquest" of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico in 1692.

Potlatch People looks at the culture of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest and the importance of the ceremonial potlatch feast in their culture.

Indian Country contrasts the past and present life of the five tribes--the Seminoles, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Cherokee--in the southeast U.S.

Pueblo Renaissance provides an authentic view of the sacred traditions, ancient religious and agricultural ceremonies of the Pueblo Indians.

The Six Nations looks at the Iroquois League of upstate New York--consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora tribes--which considers itself to be a sovereign, independent nation which rejects the American way of life in favor of a traditional Indian lifestyle.