The Yam Festival, known in the local Ewe dialect as “Te Za,” is a harvest festival in the Asogli State in the Volta Region of Ghana. The very colorful Yam Festival takes place in September of each year and is presided over by the paramount chief and president of the National House of Chiefs, King Togbe Afede XIV. This short documentary film looks at the music, dancing, feasting, and local crafts of the Festival, as well as the ways in which it celebrates family, farmers, culture, and unity.
Length: 5 mins.
Country: Ghana
Language: English
Director: James Dalrymple
Producer: Philippe Kradolfer
Distributor: Altius Films
“Our Vaka” is the first part of a two-part documentary called “We, the Voyagers: Lata’s Children.” In this film, Polynesian voyagers of Taumako, Solomon Islands, share their history, motivations, and skills through story-telling, canoe building and wayfinding. Using only the designs, materials and methods of Lata, the Polynesian culture-hero who built the first voyaging canoe and navigated across the Pacific, the voyagers recall their ancestors, who made the greatest of human migrations. “We the Voyagers” began in 1996 when Paramount Chief Kaveia, an experienced navigator, began training new generations to plant gardens, feed workers, make rope from plants, weave and sew sails, protect the island’s trees, adze parts for voyaging canoes, and lash them together. After years of filming, Lata’s children are ready to share their story, and the lessons Lata has taught them, with the world.
Length: 60 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Marianne "Mimi" George
Distributor: Pacific Traditions Society
As the Palace of Versailles undergoes unprecedented restoration work and an extensive digitalization campaign of the many maps relating to it (over 10,000 in all over the past 40 years), this film reveals the story of how the royal château evolved to reflect the Sun King’s growing ambitions and power over his 70-year reign. Viewers watch as Versailles is brought back to life though fiction and 3D imagery, from its initial conception to the architectural masterpiece we know today. The Sun King's most fanciful ideas—including a hedge maze, marble baths and the private royal art gallery—are brought back to life through computer generated imaging. Unique scanning technologies, new excavations in the gardens . . . all this and more will offer fresh insight into the world’s most visited palace and the life of the Sun King.
Length: 53 mins.
Country: France
Language: English
Director: Marc Jampolsky
Producer: Stéphane Milliére
Distributor: Terranoa
This documentary focuses on one of Iran’s most historic features: the 70-year-old Veresk Bridge. The bridge was constructed in 1937 by Reza Shah, the Shah of Iran, but it gained the nickname "Pol-e Piroozi” (meaning Bridge of Victory) during World War II as it was used by the Allies to deliver aid to the Soviets in their fight against Hitler. At one point, the demolition of the bridge was requested by Hitler himself, but the request was denied by the Shah. Today, the bridge is used approximately four times per day by trains connecting between Tehran and Gorgan or Sari. “Vars” picks up the story as the insurance policy for the bridge has expired and there is some speculation as to whether or not it is still usable for transit.
Length: 53 mins.
Country: Iran
Language: English subtitles
Director: Javad Vatani
Distributor: Documentary and Experimental Film Center
Mankind. As archaeologists have traced our history, the scales have overwhelmingly favored the masculine narrative. Even the word “mankind” seems to exclude the female portion of humankind. But “the times they are a-changing,” and in this time archaeologists are re-evaluating longstanding attitudes, perceptions and interpretations about gender roles in the human story. “Theirstory” introduces the archaeologists and anthropologists who looked at the narrative of prehistory and asked, “where was the other half of our species?” Through the lens of the feminine narrative, “Theirstory” highlights assumptions of gender and our understanding of ourselves in relation to human history.
Length: 23 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Sarah Cahlan
“Stout Hearted” tells the story of Iowa Native George Stout and his impact on the fields of Art Conservation and Monument Protection. During World War II, Stout led the Monuments Men through Europe on the greatest treasure hunt in history, protecting and recovering priceless art from the Nazis. Stout’s legacy with the Monuments Men continues presently with the US Committee of the Blue Shield, an organization that is protecting precious art from destruction in areas of global conflict. Stout’s innovative methods of art conservation, created some 90 years ago, are still used today in major museums around the world.
Length: 81 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Kevin Kelley
Producer: New Mile Media Arts
Thousands of historically significant remote structures are falling into disrepair across America. These include fire towers, mining buildings, log barns, rural schoolhouses, ranches, and cabins that all tell a vivid story of our past, and, if preserved, can teach us how to create our future. Narrated by Peter Coyote, “Saving Places” follows HistoriCorps as their intrepid staff and volunteer crews work to conserve threatened structures on public lands. From uncovering historic back stories and highlighting surrounding natural and social environments to featuring the challenging restoration work of over a dozen extraordinary projects, “Saving Places” is a genuine adventure into the past.
Length: 65 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Joseph Daniel
Distributor: Story Arts Media
In 1942, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita catapulted his seaplane off a submarine, flew over the Oregon coast, and became the only pilot to bomb the U.S. mainland during World War II. He never dreamed he would one day be invited back to the region, where he would begin a lifelong friendship with the people of a small Oregon town. “Samurai in the Oregon Sky,” created by director Ilana Sol of Portland, Oregon, chronicles how Mr. Fujita came to refer to his former target as his “second home.”
Length: 49 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English and Japanese with English Subtitles
Director: Ilana Sol
In the 17th century, the Swedish army invaded Poland, looting priceless sculptures and decorations from the royal palace in Warsaw and beyond. That there is hardly any 17th-century architecture left in Warsaw today can be credited to this “Swedish Deluge.” "River of Treasures" follows filmmakers and explorers Marcin Jamkowski and Konstanty Kulik as they tell the story of this cultural invasion and of the expedition launched in search of this lost patrimony. It begins with Dr. Hubert Kowalski and his discovery of 350-year-old letters between the King of Poland and the Mayor of Warsaw. The letters mention a ship laden with priceless marbles, lying somewhere deep underwater. The film takes viewers on the ten-year journey to locate these sunken treasures, from library archives and historic castles to the bottom of the Vistula River.
Length: 74 mins.
Country: Poland
Language: English and Polish with English Subtitles
Director: Marcin Jamkowski and Konstanty Kulik
Producer: Dorota Roszkowska
Distributor: Arkana Studio
Forty centuries ago, an ancient group of people left their mark on the landscape of coastal South Carolina. Today, archaeologists from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, a dozen universities and the National Park Service search for clues about our earliest-known coastal dwellers. Perhaps our best clue to who they were is the many rings of shell they left behind. Whether the shells were placed deliberately or merely discarded into a midden is unknown, but “The Ring People” visits these rings, along with other remote sites, as scientists strive to understand more about these people and their place in our story.
Length: 30 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Anthony Koelker
Distributor: Koelker & Associates
On April 10, 1968, SFC Samuel J. Padgett celebrated his 31st birthday before boarding a helicopter during the Vietnam War. The helicopter later lost power and crashed into the jungles of South Vietnam, where the rescue team was able to recover the remains of only three of the four crash victims; SFC Padgett was not one of them. Alongside nearly 2500 other American soldiers from Vietnam, Padgett’s status lists him as “Killed/Body Not Recovered,” but now a team of archaeologists and U.S. service members is committed to recovering his body. “Remains” brings SFC Samuel Padgett’s story to life as the team strives to bring his body home.
Length: 41 mins.
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Jose H. Rodriguez and Joe Day
Producer: Mark Phillips
Distributor: Joe Day