Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Europe / West / Portugal / All Films

Festa

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament is a four-day extravaganza that attracts crowds of up to 200,000 to the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. This documentary film takes viewers on a journey from the excitement of the modern feast to the very roots of the Catholic celebration on the beautiful Portuguese island of Madeira. Along the way, Festa examines the surprising differences between the "old world" and "new world" feasts as well as the challenges that organizers on both sides of the Atlantic face in the midst of a rapidly modernizing world and changing cultural values. In the end, this is a simple story about the power of tradition, the bonds of family, and the contributions of immigrant communities to both their new home and to the land that they left behind.

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Juliette of the Herbs

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

Juliette of the Herbs
Buy Now: $320.00

Juliette of the Herbs is a beautifully filmed lyrical portrait of the life and work of Juliette de Bairacli Levy: world renowned herbalist, author, breeder of Afghan hounds, friend of the Roma, traveller in search of herbal wisdom and the pioneer of holistic veterinary medicine.

For more than 60 years Juliette lived with the Roma, nomads and peasants of the world, learning the healing arts from these peoples who live close to nature. Juliette's well-loved and now classic herbals for animals and for children have been a vital inspiration for the present day herbal renaissance and holistic animal care community. Juliette's extraordinary life story is as colourful and as exciting as her tremendous wealth of herbal knowledge.

Filmed on location with Juliette and her Afghan hound in Greece, Spain, France, Portugal, Switzerland, England and America, and interwoven with Juliette's vast collection of archival photographs, together with scenes of Roma people dancing and Bedouins with their herds, Juliette of the Herbs is an inspiring portrait of a remarkable healer.

“This video lifted my heart and made me grateful for all that Juliette has done to help the animals.”
— Helen McKinnon, author, It's For The Animals

“[Juliette of the Herbs] made me look at how my life is now, still close to the earth, but not close enough... I'm happy to have seen a glimpse into her life. It encourages me to live as radically as I want. Tish's film is a grand one.”
— Janisse Ray, author, The Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

“This film is magnificient. It was fascinating to watch our six year old daughter Lillian's responses as well. She said, “Daddy this is so beautiful I think I could cry a little bit.”
— Jim Schley, editor-in-chief, Chelsea Green Publishing

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Feature Award Nominee, International Documentary Association, 1998

Best Documentary, Seattle Intn'l Film Festival - Women in Cinema, 1999

Merit Award for Storytelling, International Wildlife Film Festival, 1999

Honorable Mention, Green Extreme Film Festival, 1999

Artist's Award, Laguna Beach Film Festival, 1999

Winner, EarthVision Film Festival, 1999

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On Edge

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

On Edge
Buy Now: $320.00

The film focuses on daily life in a poor housing estate in Porto and, in particular, on a group of children aged between 8 and 14. It follows their life outdoors - always inventing new games. Parents are seldom home and children have space and freedom to create their own rules and games of power, many times copying the models they know from home. Sometimes things get really tough, other times there is a feeling of harmony and melancholy in the neighbourhood.

This is a special summer: people are expecting that the European Football Cup and the possible victory of the Portuguese team will raise the morale of a country in full recession. Kids and adults are hypersensitive, feelings go over the top. TVs are put outdoors and the games of the European cup are followed by children and adults as an almost religious ritual.

Rui, one of the characters, is a 13 year old boy who, unlike all the other kids of his age, doesn't like football and fighting. He prefers to take refuge in a dream like world surrounded by dinosaurs and other animals from the forest.

"The European Football championship in 2004 is the framework for this extraordinary film which is really about the universe of a group of 8-14 year-olds living in a poor neighbourhood of Porto. With a sure touch, the camera sensitively captures a string of episodic pearls in the children's daily lives, which convey much about what is essential to them: friendships, the opposite sex, families and uncertain future. The way the scenes unfold in an artful framing of shots and the close relation to the kids makes it a pleasure to watch." — Ulla Jacobsen, DOX magazine (DOX #62 January 2006)

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

NAFA film Festival Copenhagen, May 2005 (work-in-progress)

Tartu World Film Festival, March 2006

Indie Lisboa International Film Festival, 2006

Gottingen International Film Festival, 2006

1er rencontres internationales cinZma et sport de Montréal, 2006

Doc's Kingdom, International Documentary Seminar, Portugal, 2006

Sixth Festival of Visual Culture, Viscult. Joensuu, Finland 2006

3rd Moscow International Visual Anthropology Festival and Conference, Russia, 2006

Best Film in the International Competition, forumdoc.bh.2006. Belo Horizonte, Brazil

International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia, 2007

European Association of Social Anthropologists' Film, Video & New Media Festival, Slovenia, 2008

Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival, Italy, 2008

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Senhora Aparecida

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Senhora Aparecida
Buy Now: $320.00

In the Portuguese village of Senhora Aparecida, an industrial area near Oporto, the annual festival that takes place every 15th of August is being prepared. The biers that reach fifteen meters high and which are carried by 70 men are being erected and decorated. The penitents order the coffins that will carry them, in a procession, to the chapel as is the secular tradition. The Portuguese film crew arrives with the intention of filming this spectacular festival. However, another dramatic story is about to unfold and the filmmakers are there to document events as they happen.

A new, young priest arrives to take over their parish and he has his own ideas about how religion should be practiced in the town. He is "modern" (in one scene we can see his desk top computer in the background). He wants to put an end to the coffins procession. Conflict is inevitable. Strikingly filmed with a sense of tension which captured the drama inherent in the situation, Senhora Aparecida has been singled out for attention at many international film festivals.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Prize European Massimo Troisi: Best Film in Culture and Tradition from Portugal, 2000

Honorable Mention, Festival Internacional de Documentário, Loures, Portugal, 1995

Cinéma du Réel, Paris, Centro George Pompidou 1995

Gottingen International Film Festival, Germany 1996

5th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, University of Kent, 1996

First Prize, VII Rassegna Internazionale di Documentari Etnografici, em Nuoro, Italy, 1996

American Museum of Natural History's Margaret Mead Film Festival, NY 1996

Award of Excellency, Society for Visual Anthropology/American Antropological Association Film Festival, San Francisco, 1996

University of California Film Festival, 1997

3ª Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnográfico, Museu de Folclore, Rio de Janeiro

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Saudade

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:45:00 GMT

Saudade
Buy Now: $320.00

Saudade (Nostalgia) provides a sensitive and perceptive portrait of the human dimension of immigration. Placed against a background of local history, this video highlights how Portuguese immigrants have recreated their homeland's past in their everyday life in New Bedford, Massachusetts during much of this century.

This is one of the first full-length videos to document the experience and culture of the Portuguese in the United States. The story-line of Saudade is based on the personal reminiscences of seven Portuguese women and men in New Bedford: six immigrants from the Azores, Madeira, and the mainland and one second generation Portuguese-American. The unfolding of memories, songs, and visual representations of the past is juxtaposed with contemporary ways of life; reconstruction of the homeland's past provides continuity of immigrants' lives in the context of their specific experiences in an American industrial city.

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