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Featured Film
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Bodhidharma's Shoe |
| Folkstreams highly recommends STORYCORPS. "You must know someone's stories in order to truly love someone" -- Louise Anderson When My Work Is Over. |
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| The Angel That Stands By Me: Minnie Evans' Paintings |
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Appalachian Journey
Alan Lomax travels through the Southern Appalachians investigating the songs, dances, and religious rituals of the descendents of the Scotch-Irish frontiers people who have made the mountains their home for centuries.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Dance, Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Religion, Aging / Appalachia / 1991
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Being A Joines: A Life in the Brushy Mountains
John E. "Frail" Joines was a master tale teller from Wilkes County, N. C., on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His hunting tales, stories from World War II, and religious narratives, and the life stories of Frail Joines and his wife Blanche mirror changes that swept away much of the traditional culture of his Appalachian rural community in a single generation and show the character and values with which his family met these circumstances.
Narrative & Verbal Arts, Religion, Women, Work, Agriculture, Family, Rural Life, Sports/Hunting / Appalachia / 1981
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| Black Delta Religion |
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| Bodhidharma's Shoe |
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Fannie Bell Chapman: Gospel Singer
Film of the singer/faith healer and folk artist Fannie Bell Chapman from Centreville, Mississippi. Footage includes Chapman and her family singing and praying during church services and at home, a healing service at the Chapman home, and Chapman "speaking in tongues" after
healing.
Healing & Medicine, Religion, Women, African American Culture / South / 1975
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Joy Unspeakable
Joy Unspeakable examines the question, what does it mean to be Pentecostal, through the documentation of three types of Oneness Pentecostal services in Southern Indiana: a gospel-rock concert, a regular Sunday service, and a camp meeting. Religious behavior, doctrine, and social values are discussed by several Oneness Pentecostal church members and ministers in interviews interspersed with footage of the various services. A film by John Winninger and folklorists Elaine Lawless and Betsy Peterson.
Religion, Women / Midwest / 1981
59 minutes | Read More
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The Men Who Dance the Giglio
A documentary on the Brooklyn St. Paulinus Festival. This film explores ethnicity, cultural traditions, and religious devotion as the performers, participants, and community members explain the significance of the festival.
Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Festivals/Customs, Urban Life / Northeast / 1995
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The Music District
The Music District is a one-hour documentary profiling four African American traditional music groups practicing and performing for fans and congregants in the neighborhood churches and nightclubs of Washington, D.C. The film features the Orioles (r&b quartet); Junk Yard Band (go-go); The Kings of Harmony (United House of Prayer shout band); and The Four Echoes (jubilee quartet). A film by Susan Levitas from California Newsreel.
Drama, Music, Religion, Urban Life, African American Culture / Middle Atlantic / 1996
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My Town: Mio Paese
Shot on location in Palermiti and the Boston area of Massachusetts, MY TOWN/MIO PAESE shows the family, cultural and religious ties between immigrants and their paesani in Southern Italy. The documentary features La Festa della Madonna della Luce (the feast of the Madonna of Light) in both countries and the story of the patron saint’s legendary miracles as told by three generations of Italians and Italian-Americans.
Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Religion, Festivals/Customs, Urban Life / Northeast / 1986
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Old Believers
Hixon's film documents a real-life wedding in the Old Believer settlements of Marion County, Oregon, in the years 1979 and 1980. The film briefly touches on a wealth of traditional arts (embroidery, clothing construction, weaving, vernacular architecture, folk song and foodways) and beautifully presents a whole series of rituals -- the "devichnik" (engagement party), "selling" the bride and her braid, the wedding feast, the bargaining over the dowry, and the ceremony of bestowing gifts and advice to the newlyweds. In English and Russian with subtitles or voice-over translations.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Religion, Women, Costume/Dress, Family, Festivals/Customs / West / 1981
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Powerhouse for God
Powerhouse for God is a portrait of an old-fashioned Baptist preacher, his family, and their church in Virginia's northern Blue Ridge Mountains. Audiences who were born and raised among old-time southern Baptists say this film captures the fierce preaching, determined singing, autobiographical witnessing, and stern doctrine that characterizes these religious communities.
Religion / Appalachia / 1989
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Rebuilding the Temple: Cambodians in America
After fleeing their country and the Khmer Rouge, this one hour documentary examines the Cambodian refugees' efforts to adjust to Western life and the significant role played by the Buddhist culture in this difficult process
Customs, Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Religion / Any / 1991
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Remembering Emmanuel Church
An oral history of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Fauquier County, Virginia. The storytellers are masters-all of them members of the congregation from the old farming community tradition of Fauquier County. The stories, funny, sad, and scandalous, are memories of friends and family who are dead and buried in the churchyard.
Narrative & Verbal Arts, Religion, Rural Life / Middle Atlantic / 2000
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| The Shakers |
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A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle
The story of a gifted African American family from the rural South. With interviews and stories, and scenes from daily life, reunions, gospel concerts, and church services, the film traces the history of the Landis family of Granville County, North Carolina, over the lifetime of its oldest surviving member, 86-year-old Mrs. Bertha M. Landis.
Music, Religion, Women, Family, Aging, African American Culture, Social Justice/Protest / South / 1986
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Sweet Is the Day: A Sacred Harp Family Portrait
The story of the Woottens of Sand Mountain, Alabama, one of the key singing families who have helped Sacred Harp music survive and flourish for more than 150 years. The video explores how Sacred Harp singing is about more than just music - it is a life-shaping force, reflected by tradition, deep spiritual belief, and the community that embraces it.
Music, Religion, Family / South / 2001
59 minutes | Read More
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| Two Homes, One Heart: Sacramento Sikh Women and their Songs & Dances |
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