The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time
★ 7.8 · 1982 · 78m · Documentary · Music
Documentary about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers, and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.
More Like This
The Story of the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem
1983
At the forefront of the folk revival movement since the 1950's, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are a highly influential group of Irishmen. Popularizing the traditional music of their homeland, the Brothers brought Celtic music into America, and remain some of its most avid performers.
More info →
Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound
2009 · ★ 6.7
Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.
More info →
Fleisch ist mein Gemüse
2008 · ★ 5.5
Heinz Strunk, plagued by crater-like skin rashes, lives with his sick mother in Hamburg-Harburg in the 1980s. As a saxophonist, he tours the North German lowlands with the dance combo "Tiffanys". In this bizarre universe of Korn, Klaus & Klaus and Koteletts, bandleader Gurki teaches him how to deliver cheerful, upbeat music. To escape the vicious circle of shooting festivals and village weddings, Heinz wants to start a solo career and become a hit producer...
More info →
Folk Hibernia at the BBC
2007 · ★ 6.5
Celebrating the finest in Irish folk music with a compilation of performances taken from the BBC archives. Highlights include songs from The Clancy Brothers, The Chieftains, Christy Moore, The Pogues and Sharon Shannon.
More info →
Ole Paus – 70 Years
2017
Norwegian musician Ole Paus turns 70 years old and is celebrated by a long line of artist friends who sing his songs in the Oslo Opera House in Norway.
More info →Changing Landscapes
2022
Changing Landscapes meditates upon the care and carelessness humans brought to bear on the environment in Scotland. Rare archive combines with performances from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
More info →
American Folk
2018 · ★ 5.9
Two strangers, both folk musicians stranded in California, take a road trip to New York in the days after 9/11. A story about the kindness of strangers and the power of music.
More info →
Keyboard Fantasies
2021 · ★ 5
As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home-studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on, the musician – now Glenn Copeland – began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered.
More info →
Paul Robeson: 20th Century Renaissance Man, Entertainer & Activist
1994
Paul Robeson was a celebrated African-American Actor, Athlete, Singer, Writer, and Civil Rights Activist. Robeson's many achievements are chronicled in this program, ranging from playing with the NFL to graduating from Columbia Law School, performing on Broadway and in Hollywood films to founding the American Crusade against Lynching as well as Council on African Affairs. Robeson was one of the most talented performers of his time and a dedicated humanitarian who ultimately sacrificed fame and fortune for what he believed in. His association with Leftist Politics during the era of the Cold War, and frequent denouncing of American political parties led to his eventual blacklisting with other prominent writers and artists during the McCarthy Era. His talents in all areas are remarkable, and his dedication to attaining a peaceful coexistence between all the people of the world is truly admirable.
More info →
Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya
2004
Folk music of the Sahara is an intoxicating experience of sight and sound captured among the Tuareg and Libyan people of North Central Africa. Filmed from the perspective of actually being one of the performers, this mind-blowing IN YOUR FACE document captures the spirit of Libyan folklore and the essence of emotion armed with pounding rhythms and wailing vocal choruses. Both men and women are featured here equally as overseers of the hybrid forms of expression where central African traditions collide with the tones and colors of the Arab world creating one of the most unique overviews of Saharan folk music ensemble and dance the outside world has ever witnessed. The diversity of faces is extraordinary, every costume is stunning, and the women are among the most beautiful on earth.
More info →
Appalachian Journey
1991 · ★ 8.3
Appalachian Journey is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). It offers songs, dances, stories, and religious rituals of the Southern Appalachians. Preachers, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, moonshiners, cloggers, and square dancers recount the good times and the hard times of rural life there. Performers include Tommy Jarrell, Janette Carter, Ray and Stanley Hicks, Frank Proffitt Jr., Sheila Kay Adams, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, Raymond Fairchild, and others, with a bonus of a few African-Americans from the North Carolina Piedmont.
More info →