Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Europe / North / United Kingdom / All Films

King for a Day

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 15:11:45 GMT

King for a Day immerses viewers in the past and present of the ‘Obby ‘Oss tradition, celebrated in Padstow, UK to welcome the arrival of summer. Filmed over nine years, and drawing on archival materials reaching back 150 years, the film explores the rite in the context of dramatic cultural and economic changes. The festival emerges as a form of Cornish identity and community defiance for one marginalized British community. King for a Day asks whether this will be the last generation to practice this ancient springtime rite.

King for a Day is a companion piece to Barbara Santi's written thesis. The study examines Padstow's visual past to explore transformative ways of representing Cornish culture and identity. Intangible cultural heritage provides a lens to consider if documentary film can support protection of local communities and their customs.

Selected Screenings & Awards

Doc Rowe Prize, The Folklore Society, UK 2025

Celtic Media Festival, Ireland, 2023

St. Just, Cornwall, UK, 2023

Tate Gallery, St. Ives, 2023

Heritales International Heritage Festival, Portugal, 2022

Berlin International Film Festival, Germany, 2022

Wales International Film Festival, UK, 2022

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Flatland

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Flatland
Buy Now: $275.00

In 1962 John Hubley came to Harvard University as the first teacher of animation in the new Visual Arts Center. It was his idea to make a film based on Edwin Abbott’s famous novel about life in a two-dimensional world, Flatland. The story is told by the voices of Dudley Moore and other actors belonging to the British theatrical comedy group, "Beyond the Fringe." Aside from mathematicians and philosophers of science, the film has entertained and delighted audiences of many kinds since it first appeared.

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Imagine a School... Summerhill

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 12:44:00 GMT

Imagine a School... Summerhill
Buy Now: $320.00

In 1997, Tony Blair's new Labor Government took steps to improve standards in education. Ironically, this would threaten the existence of an unusual little school in Suffolk called Summerhill...

So begins an extraordinary documentary about an exemplary school in England, in which the students, the staff and a few formidable barristers take on OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) and Tony Blair's Labor Government to fight for its existence and the lifeblood of alternative education throughout the world. It was a fight that not only saved the prestigious institution, but proved the very educational principals on which the school was founded. In the process, some remarkable young people were given a chance to see how they had grown within Summerhill's unique democratic system and an up close lesson in modern government.

Summerhill, the famous coed alternative boarding school, was threatened with closure by the British Labor Government because it refused to compromise its educational and social philosophy. Attendance in classes is voluntary, and children can play all day if they feel like it. The school runs as a free and completely democratic society. Rules are developed and adopted in weekly meetings, in which every member of the school community, from a five-year old child to the headmistress, has an equal vote. At Summerhill, the emotional development of children comes first, lessons second.

Imagine a documentary...

The filmmakers hand three camcorders, to be shared amongst the community, over to 11-year-old students with the instructions: here are the cameras - now shoot. At first the students don't even know how to work the equipment. Over time they are documenting their daily lives, capturing the life of Summerhill from an unfiltered and authentic child's point of view. Over the next six years, the filmmakers film and interview students, staff and alumni and chronicle the chain of circumstances that end in a most unexpected turn of events.

The film follows a number of students from the ages of eleven to sixteen as they grow up and make important decisions about life and their education at the same time that they become involved in the legal and political fight to save their school. We watch them work and play and see them develop as they take on the increased responsibilities that come with age and experience in a self-governing community. The film follows the same children who sneak out of their dorms at night and dance to The Spice Girls at the end of term party as they go on to help run the democratic processes of their school, give a press conference at the Houses of Parliament and, finally and triumphantly, turn the high court into an unprecedented and historical Summerhill general meeting to decide whether or not to accept the terms of the British government.

"Imagine a School... Summerhill is a film that challenges one's thinking on education and government's role in regulating it. This film illuminates alternatives as well as hope for the future. ”
— Erik Sean McGiven, Film News and Views

“A must see for anybody interested in education, progressive, alternative, and humanist ideas.”
— Personalised Education Now

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

11th Astra Film Festival, Romania, 2011
Jersey Shore Film Festival, 2009
Nomination, Kids First! Best Award in the category of documentary for 13-18 year olds, Kids First! Film Festival, 2009
Santa Fe Film Festival, 2009

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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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Lessons from Gulam

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:41:00 GMT

Lessons from Gulam
Buy Now: $320.00

Bradford is a mill town in the north of England with a population of around 60,000 Muslims from South Asia. Muslim values are strongly maintained. This film studies Asian music within the community and contrasts music education in the schools with the very different kind of music enculturation in the family.

Gulam Musa is from Gujerat (India), from a Muslim sub-caste whose members are traditionally barbers and musicians. He specializes in singing qawwali, a genre of Muslim devotional music found in India and Pakistan. He runs his own qawwali group and takes part in Asian music workshops in the Bradford schools.

This film is more ethnomusicological than AMIR, examining in greater detail the music itself and what people have to say about it. The film is of special interest to music educators involved with the multi-cultural school curriculum.

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One Man In A Boat

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

One Man In A Boat
Buy Now: $320.00

With whimsy and insight, Robert Perkins canoes from London to Scotland on the canals and rivers of Great Britain to deliver a letter to the head of his ancestral clan, Lord Nigel Forbes. The film is a moving portrait of a land and its people.

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OSS Tales

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:51:00 GMT

OSS Tales
Buy Now: $320.00

Padstow, a town on the north coast of Cornwall, celebrates May Day with a unique custom: two hobby horses, or osses, dance through the town streets, accompanied by drums and accordians. All Padstownians participate in this exciting event, which has now become a tourist attraction, drawing over 30,000 visitors the first of May to this fishing town of 3000.

Folklorists Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy visited Padstow in 1951, producing a film called Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953). In 2004, filmmaker John Bishop and folklorist Sabina Magliocco (with Jaynie Ali Aydin and Noah Bishop) returned to Padstow to see how the custom was faring fifty years later.

This DVD has four films:

Oss Tales (2007) 25 min

Re-engages the Padstow May Day in 2004. The film includes footage from Oss Oss Wee Oss and commentary by Peter Kennedy and Ronald Hutton, and people of Padstow.

Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953) 18 min

The complete film by George Pickow, Peter Kennedy and Alan Lomax in a new digital transfer.

Oss Oss Wee Oss Redux: Beltane in Berkeley (2004) 14 min

A portrait of a contemporary pagan group in Berkeley, California that yearly re-enacts the custom of the hobby horse as part of its May Day revelries.

About the Oss Films (2007) 11 min

George Pickow and Peter Kennedy talk about making the 1953 film and John Bishop and Sabina Magliocco speak about making this DVD.

A study guide is included on the DVD in PDF format.

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Richard Leacock & Valerie Lalonde: The Paris Years 1989-2009

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Richard Leacock & Valerie Lalonde: The Paris Years 1989-2009
Buy Now: $675.00

Richard Leacock was one of the few genuine pioneers in the field of documentary filmmaking and one of its greatest innovators — along with Al Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker and Robert Drew, he helped to create the shining interval that came to be known as cinema-verité. He made his first movie at the age of 14, and he never stopped filming until his death in 2011 at the age of 89. In Leacock's hands, the camera became an astonishingly sensitive instrument. A lot has been made of his work as a cameraman on Robert Flaherty's Louisiana Story, but his greatest influence was the ceaselessly changing world itself and the equipment he used to record and interpret certain of its events.

The films in this DVD collection were made after Leacock retired from teaching at MIT and moved to Paris, where he met his great love and creative collaborator Valerie Lalonde. The then-new Video-8 cameras delivered them from the enormous costs of shooting on film, and with unlimited time, the energizing power of love and the new lightweight equipment allowed them a freedom to film what had always interested them most — life itself, in all its beauty, charm and poignancy. This freedom is felt in every frame of every title in this collection, which spans the final period in Leacock's creative life. — Kent Jones

This 5-DVD set includes 11 films:

Les Oeufs à la Coque de Richard Leacock (91 min, 1991)

Inspired by both new love and Gulliver's Travels, Les Oeufs à la Coque (aka Richard Leacock's Soft-Boiled Eggs), is a ravishingly beautiful, important film about nothing in particular, a love song dedicated to France, French women in general and one Frenchwoman in particular, and a montage portrait of quotidian life in a country at peace.

A Musical Adventure in Siberia with Sarah Caldwell (56 min 2003)

In 1996, the First Lady of opera, Sarah Caldwell, invited her old friend and collaborator Richard Leacock to join her in Yektarinaberg, a previously closed Siberian industrial city, where she was preparing for the first-ever performance of a symphonic drama by Sergei Prokofiev of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.

Mambo Madness (32 min, 1995)

The legendary 1960s supermodel Veruschka, aka Vera von Lehndorff, sets in motion a search for a long-lost all-female Communist Mambo band led by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed East German in this literally fabulous fantasy documentary conceived by Hans-Peter Litscher, the Swiss playwright, historian and polymath, and filmed by Leacock and Lalonde in Austria, Russia, France and Cuba.

Gott Sei Dank: A Visit with Helga Feddersen (30 min, 1993)

Years after the great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner introduced Leacock to Feddersen, the German comic actress and theatrical impresario, he and Lalonde visited her home in Hamburg while she was recuperating from a cancer surgery and filmed her talking about her life and times, her illness, and the beauty of forgiveness.

Kren - Parking (3 min, 1992)

A very short portrait of a work of art called Parking by the award-winning Slovak artist Matej Kren. Parking is made of mobile mirrors that reflect and invite reflection with confounding yet hypnotic visuals.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Leacock (20 min, 1992)

A lighthearted, charming visual diary of a cross-country road trip Leacock and Lalonde took across America, Les Vacances was made as a series of vignettes in places as diverse as Monument Valley, the ghostly mountaintop mining town Climax, Colorado, and Los Angeles.

A Celebration of St. Silas (25 min, 1993)

An offshoot of a separate collaboration about vicars for the BBC, this film follows the Anglican vicar who most delighted Leacock and Lalonde, as he prepares for and celebrates the heavenly birthday Mass of St. Silas, who brought the news that circumcision was not a prerequisite for entry to Heaven.

The Killings of Cariola (35 min, 1992)

Fascinated with process of rehearsal, Leacock and Lalonde watched and filmed as London's Cherub Company prepared a production of The Duchess of Malfi by Shakespeare's contemporary, John Webster.

Hooray! We're 50! (30 min, 1993)

A moving snapshot of Leacock's 50th reunion with the Harvard class of 1943, shot primarily by Lalonde and edited by Leacock (who majored in physics there), Hooray! We're 50! is a joyful look at the return from both war and life of an accomplished cast of graduates.

A Hole in the Sea (Le Trou dans la Mer) (30 min, 1994)

Shortly before the opening of the "Chunnel" linking England and France, Leacock and Lalonde were commissioned to film at both ends of the underwater project. They produced a light-hearted portrait of the effects of the massive project on life and the local landscapes, both physical and psychological.

Au Revoir, Marie Laure: Portrait of a Gallery at Work (42 min, 2006)

When she died in 1970, Marie Laure de Noailles left behind a legacy as a patron of the arts, muse of the surrealists and one of the great salonistes of Paris. Marie Laure's antiquaire Pierre Passebon invited her old friend Lalonde to film in the Galerie du Passage in Paris during the last week of an exhibition of Marie Laure's artworks and other possessions. The result was this sensitive meditation on art, friendship, permanence and transience.

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Born Into Struggle

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Born Into Struggle
Buy Now: $320.00

Filmmaker Rehad Desai takes us on an intimate journey mapped out by the scars etched into his family's life from having a father who was intensely involved in politics. Barney Desai was a political hero during South Africa's struggle for freedom, yet as a father he was damagingly absent emotionally. Rehad spent most of his young life in exile and became politically active himself. On this intensely personal journey into his past, Rehad realizes he is following in his fathers footsteps as he reviews his relationship with his own estranged teenage son.

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Breaking the Cycle

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Breaking the Cycle
Buy Now: $320.00

In 1996, the state-funded Woodlands Country Primary School in Gillingham, Kent, UK was situated in one of the most socio-economically deprived areas outside the inner cities. Pupil places were under-subscribed: 160 out of a possible 240 capacity. Subjected to years of neglect through Council underinvestment, its underachieving students aged 4 - 11 years were destined to be filtered through into similarly poor secondary schools and a life of mediocrity.

There was no magic wand. It took open minds to see the vision of new head Nic Fiddaman "to get it": commitment from staff, governors and parents, and guts to put children's emotional well-being above government targets and league tables. It also took years of chasing grants, subsidies and outside sponsorship to expand the school and its facilities, for which there were many more disappointments than successes. Every negative response became a springboard to seek another way. Failure was not acceptable, not when the children come first.

Today Woodlands is unrecognisable - consistently listed as one of the best schools in the country and expanded to provide nursery care for pre-school children as well as after-school programs for students. As its renown has grown, so have student numbers, in an area where pupil numbers have been steadily decreasing due to a drop in the birth rate.

The school now supports its pupils and community through subsidised sports facilities and a programme of arts, drama, dance and music - also providing free music lessons, a fully functional theatre and professional football fields.

Breaking the Cycle is not a blueprint for change, nor a manual on how to turn around a failing primary school in Britain, but it can be a tool for inspiring those considering or implementing change in their own school communities.

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