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Until the Sun Dies

Wed, 8 Oct 2025 12:09:28 GMT

Set in Colombia’s “post-conflict” landscape, Until the Sun Dies centers on two social justice leaders whose lives illuminate the ongoing struggles for justice and self-determination among the country’s marginalized communities: human rights activist Luz Marina Bernal and Indigenous Nasa leader and environmental activist Albeiro Camayo.

Against the backdrop of Colombia’s fragile peace, the film interrogates the paradoxes of the so-called “post-conflict” condition, where structural and interpersonal violence endures beneath the official rhetoric of reconciliation. Following their parallel yet interconnected paths, Until the Sun Dies portrays how both leaders continually resist and reimagine life under the enduring shadow of conflict. Their stories articulate the persistent suffering, resilience, and pursuit of peace and dignity that define Colombia’s marginalized communities.

With Until the Sun Dies, filmmaker Jonas Brander offers a tribute to the victims—the thousands of lives lost in a war that was not theirs—and a meditation on territory, identity, pain, and community, and honors those whose pursuit of justice persists in the face of impunity. The title, drawn from an ancestral Nasa saying, evokes a vision of endurance and moral clarity: an uncompromising struggle for a world where life triumphs over death, equality over inequality, and the voice of the people prevails over imposed silence.

This independent production marks Jonas Brander’s debut feature film.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Direction & Jury Special Mention - Best Documentary, Festival Int'l de Málaga, Spain, 2024
Best Cinematography - Documentary, Achtung Berlin Film Festival, Germany, 2024
Best Documentary, Sole Luna DOC, Italy, 2024
Best Documentary, Würzburg International Film Weekend, Germany, 2024
Best Documentary, Seattle Latino Film Festival, USA, 2024
Salvador Allende Award, Festival de Libertés, Brussels, 2023

Gruvy Award, EWIP - European Work in Progress, 2022

Miradas Medellín - Film and Audiovisual Arts, Colombia 2024
Amazonia and Caribbean Int'l Documentary Film Festival (FIFAC), French Guiana, 2024
Monde en Vues Human Rights Film Festival, Guadalupe 2024
Social World Film Festival VICO EQUENSE, Italy, 2024
IMPACTE! Human Rights Film Festival of Catalonia, Spain, 2024
ACT Human Rights Film Festival, USA, 2024
Liberation Docfest Bangladesh, Bangladesh 2024
Festival Internacional de Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 2024
Festival Internacional de Cine de Engativá, Colombia, 2024
New York Human Rights Film Festival, USA, 2023
Ethos Film Awards International Film Festival, USA 2023
Cine sin limites, Cali International Film Festival, Colombia, 2023
Luleå International Film Festival, Sweden, 2023
CineFest Latino Boston Film Festival, USA, 2023
Awareness Film Festival, USA 2023
Vistas Latinas, Filmfest Osnabrück, Germany 2023
Berlin Indie Film Festival, Germany, 2023
Festival International de Cine de Cuenca, Ecuador, 2023
Visioni dal Mondo, Italy, 2023

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Unearthed

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:57:45 GMT

Unearthed
Buy Now: $295.00

Archaeology is generally seen as an innocuous, innocent, and objective academic pursuit in Western culture. Archaeologists, after all, excavate into the earth to unearth the remnants of past human activities and lives. In doing so, offering objective evidence for how the world was—so that we might better situate ourselves now and into our future.

But there is more to the story. Caught up with the colonial project in the Americas, Archaeology has propagated harmful narratives and played a major role in the erasure of Native people, their loss of sovereignty, and communal traumas. That is not to say the field of Archaeology does not hold great benefit for Native Communities—there is no doubt it does. The question becomes: who is the archaeological research for, how is it done, and for what ends?

In recent decades, Native-led research, Native scholars, Native archaeologists, and their associates have begun a revolution to decolonize archaeology and the future looks bright. Unearthed offers a look into this complexity as it is unfolding today, and a deeper view into the rich material culture excavated from Cache Cave. The materials shared here are shared with the collaboration and consent of the Tejon Indian Tribe.

"Visually captivating and with tremendous heart, Unearthed succeeds in portraying how Indigenous peoples’ struggles are ongoing and increasingly intersect in positive ways with archaeology and senses of place, both to reawaken and rejuvenate venerable cultural traditions." – Edward Jolie (Oglala Lakota/Hodulgee Muscogee), University of Arizona

Selected Screenings & Awards

Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival, UK, 2023

Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival, USA, 2022

Santa Barbara International Film Festival, USA, 2022

Poppy Jasper International Film Festival, USA, 2022

Durango Independent Film Festival, USA, 2022

Red National International Film Festival, USA, 2022

Ashland Independent Film Festival, USA, 2022

San Diego International Film Festival, USA, 2021

Mammoth Lakes International Film Festival (Premiere), USA, 2021

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Ujirei (Regeneration)

Wed, 10 May 2023 10:21:02 GMT

Ujirei (Regeneration)
Buy Now: $320.00

For Ayoreo peoples in the Gran Chaco of northern Paraguay, the future remains unclear. In this radical experimental film, Ayoreo leader Mateo Sobode Chiqueno visually explores the terms of present-day life on an evangelical mission. The filmmaker creates a visionary cinematic reflection on what it means to affirm Ayoreo life in the aftermath of colonial violence and social upheaval.

The filmmaker Sobode writes, “Ujirei refers to many things. We Ayoreo know that some plants can grow new versions of themselves after they have been damaged. A whole new tree can emerge from a severed stump or even a piece of wood. Ujirei is the word in our language for that kind of new growth. But it can also refer to something that emerges from a prior version. Everything in this film is a sort of ujirei. Maybe even the film itself is an ujirei too.

I made this film so that people in other countries can learn about my people. I want them to know about what happened to us Ayoreo in the past. I want them to think about what kind of futures we are creating from the present. I want people to watch this film and know that we should be respected as human beings.

Those who watch this film may have questions. They may ask: how does the film show the idea of ujirei? How do outsiders treat Ayoreo people in Paraguay? Why do outsiders not respect Ayoreo people? Why did the missionaries take Ayoreo people out of the forest? How are Ayoreo people creating new possibilities and what are they?”

“Ujirei is a further illustration of how the collaborative production of Indigenous cinema remains an effective technique for enacting a decolonizing, anti-essentialist, and anti-extractive anthropological praxis.”- Lucas Bessire & Bernard Belisario, Tipití –Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

"One of the most radical films of emerging Indigenous cinema.” - Vincent Carelli, founder of Video in the Villages

Selected Screenings & Awards

Merit in Film Award, Latin American Studies Association, Colombia, 2024

University of Zurich Ethnographic Museum, Switzerland, 2021

Cine Kurumun - Festival Internacional de Cinema Indígena, Brazil, 2021

Festival Internacional de Cine y las Artes Indígena de Wallmapu (FICWALLMAPU), Chile, 2018

Premio Internacional Anaconda, Paraguay, 2018

Festival Int'l de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas y Originarios, Guatemala, 2018

Anaconda Prize Indigenous Film Festival, Paraguay, 2018

Forumdoc Festival, Brazil, 2017

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(un)veiled

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

(un)veiled
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(un)veiled introduces the audience to ten Muslim women from various backgrounds who now live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Their discussion about hijab, the headscarf, revolves around a lecture on the same topic that was banned last minute but delivered anyway. In a time when Islam and especially Muslim women are represented as monolithic and beset by backwardness, the women in (un)veiled show the diverse, lively, argumentative debates in Muslim societies about the meanings of modernity, emancipation, and feminism.

Dubai, where the filmmaker lived for eight months, becomes a character in itself, showing the complex face of a contemporary Arab city.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Second Jury Prize, Black Maria Film Festival, 2008

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, 2008

MESA Film Festival, 2008

Women's International Film Festival, Miami, FL, 2009

Days of Ethnographic Film, Slovenia, 2009

University of British Columbia Ethnographic Film Festival, Canada, 2009

American Psychological Association Convention, Toronto, 2009

American Sociological Association Film & Video Festival, San Francisco, CA 2009

Open Frame 2009, New Delhi, India

Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, MA, 2009

Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival, CO, 2009

International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia, 2009

3rd Women's Film Festival, Chennai, India, 2010

Luminato - Toronto Festival of Arts & Creativity, Canada, 2010

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The Uprising of '34

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

The Uprising of '34
Buy Now: $320.00

The Uprising of '34 is a startling documentary which tells the story of the General Strike of 1934, a massive but little-known strike by hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers during the Great Depression.

The mill workers' defiant stance — and the remarkable grassroots organizing that led up to it — challenged a system of mill owner control that had shaped life in cotton mill communities for decades. Sixty years after the government brutally suppressed the strike, a dark cloud still hangs over this event, spoken of only in whispers, if at all.

Through the voices of those on all sides, The Uprising of '34 paints a rare portrait of the dynamics of life in mill communities, offering a penetrating look at class, race, and power in working communities throughout America and inviting the viewer to consider how those issues affect us today. The film raises important questions about the critical role of history in making democracy work today. A thoughtful exploration of the paternalistic relationship between mill management and its employees, the relationship between black and white workers, and the impact of the New Deal on the lives of working people, The Uprising of '34 is “meant to challenge the myths that Southern workers can't be organized, that they will work for nothing, and that they hate unions,” says Stoney.

More than a social document, the film is intended to spark discussion on class, race, economics, and power — issues as vital today as they were decades ago. “This is more than a story about a strike; it's a story about community. We went out of our way to make sure that we didn't make a 'which side are you on' film,” says Helfand. “The thrust of this film is to give the workers their chance to speak,” adds Rostock. “We're very proud of the fact that here's a film in which they speak for themselves [with no narrator].”

“This film brings home . . . the anguish, terror, and courage displayed by working people in a crisis that deserves to be remembered and understood.” – C. Vann Woodward, Professor of History, Yale University

“An inspired portrayal ... shows the intimate relationship between people's lives, social movements, social change and the law.” – June Starr, Associate Professor, Indiana University School of Law

“[Uprising] breathes new life into history, ethnography, and documentary ... a model for the future of American social history and engaged documentary work." – Faye Ginsburg, Professor of Anthropology, New York University

“Captivating. [Uprising] emerges as an effective, sensitive look at a tragic event in U.S. labor history.” – Booklist

“A stirring account of the general textile strike, perhaps the largest labor protest in the United States. ...Remarkable.” – The Journal of American History

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Umiaq Skin Boat

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

Umiaq Skin Boat
Buy Now: $295.00

Umiaq Skin Boat is a beautiful and poetic 30-minute film about a group of Inuit elders in Inukjuak, Quebec who decide one summer to build the first traditional seal skin boat their community has seen in over 50 years. Once an essential vessel for travel and for hunting large prey like bowhead whales, the umiaq has been replaced in modern times by canoes powered with outboard motors.

Over the course of working together on the boat, the elders recount astonishing stories of survival while navigating volatile and unforgiving Arctic waters, and of dangers both natural and man-made. Shot against the magnificent backdrop of the northern landscape, Umiaq Skin Boat bears witness to the resilience of the Inuit spirit in changing times.

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Uncle Poison

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

Uncle Poison
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A healer on healing, medicine & religion...Filmed in the modern city of Caracas, capital of Venezuela, Uncle Poison is an intimate portrait of a traditional faith healer, set against the backdrop of his community's Easter celebrations.

Every day, Benito Reyes receives people at his house looking for all sorts of cures. Through his own testimony, this documentary looks at the healer's role as mediator between the social, natural and spiritual worlds. Curing someone or harvesting medicinal leaves, he must first seek permission from the plants he uses and from a variety of Saints.

Like some plants and spirits, Benito has the power to extract the sickness and spells from his patients. A conjunction of sacred and profane, celebrating and mourning, Easter provides a rare opportunity to look at traditional faith healing in a wider social and religious context. The film suggests an underlying cultural rationale behind a broad spectrum of apparently contradictory health-related practices, where man and the environment are inextricably linked.

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Undala & Undala Conversations

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

Undala & Undala Conversations
Buy Now: $295.00

Undala (color, 28 min, 1967)

Undala was filmed in 1964 in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan just before the emergence of the technology required for the field recording of synchronous sound. Dust hangs over the land, diffusing the light, muting shadow, and adding a patina of gold to each scene. As an intense and purely observational experience, it could be seen as a precursor to what is being referred to today as "sensory ethnography."

The village Gangwa is presented as first encountered by a team of filmmakers and anthropologists. A musical score by Harold Schram, a student of Indian classical music, accents the movement and rhythm of a medley of visual impressions of daily work activities: a potter opens a flawless clay vessel on his potter's wheel spinning on a spike of wood, a carpenter planes a sliver from a plank held without tool or vise and men lift 340 pounds of water from a shaft well in the skin of a flayed bovine. The tactility of grit and dust, of sweat and heat, of abrasive winds and squinting eyes, and of water flushing from a leather bag, infuses the viewing with the sensate — an embodied world of the craftsmen that no longer exists.

The Selection Board of the IX Festival dei Popoli awarded Undala special mention: “For the accuracy with which significant aspects of everyday work in a third world country are revealed and for the quality of the image.” (March 4, 1968, Florence). The film received the Cine Golden Eagle, with screenings at the Brussels Film Festival and the International Festival of Short Films, Krakow, Poland, in 1968.

Undala Conversations (color, 30 min, 2011, 16:9)

In 2009, the ethnographer Thomas Rosin, who studied Gangwa across a span of forty years, and the producer Allison Jablonko meet to discuss the early work. In Undala Conversations, they watch the original film and explore its evidence of a feudal architecture and settlement plan, the virtuosity of craft production, and the causes of the single example of ineptitude filmed among working men. They review how the first impressions of fluid movement, concealed faces, and the deft coordination of craftsmen, captured by Undala's cinematographer, Marek Jablonko, led to puzzles and questions, opening numerous avenues to research that the anthropologist pursued in subsequent years.

A discussion of farming practices reveals a sophisticated regime involving partnerships in irrigated farming, rainwater harvesting and aquifer recharge coordinated with husbandry that made the Thar of Rajasthan one of the most densely populated deserts in the world.

"Suitable for college courses in cultural anthropology, economic anthropology, ethnographic film, and Indian/South Asian studies, as well as general audiences." -- Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database

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Unity Through Culture

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

Unity Through Culture
Buy Now: $320.00

Soanin Kilangit is determined to unite the people and attract international tourism through the revival of culture on Baluan Island in the South Pacific. He organizes the largest cultural festival ever held on the island, but some traditional leaders argue that Baluan never had culture and that culture comes from the white man and is now destroying their old tradition.

Others, however, take the festival as a welcome opportunity to revolt against '70 years of cultural oppression' by Christianity. A struggle to define the past, present and future of Baluan culture erupts to the sound of thundering log drum rhythms.

"...the various disputes that come forth during the film will provide an excellent teaching tool and springboard for myriad discussions associated with issues involving kastom, tradition, change, authenticity, performance, identity, cultural politics, exchange, and the impact of the West on traditional societies." -- Karen Stevenson, American Anthropologist, September 2012

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