New Releases - May 2009
When Medicine Got it Wrong color, 53 minutes
The groundbreaking story of loving parents who rocked the halls of psychiatry, changing how we understand schizophrenia. In the 1970s, a small group of parents rebelled against then-popular psychiatric theories blaming schizophrenia on bad parenting. Their activism helped revolutionize treatment forever and their stories reveal the origins of the tragic state of mental health care today.
Tubali: Hausa Architecture in Northern Nigeria color, 45 minutes
A film on Hausa architecture featuring various phases of construction from mud, as well as social, political, and religious aspects of these structures, whose history, aesthetics, and economics are explained by builders, architects, and a museum curator.
Owu: Chidi Joins the Okoroshi Secret Society color, 60 minutes
Filmed in an Igbo town of Southeastern Nigeria, Owu illustrates the connectedness of life, myth, religion and art evidenced in an annual festival and masquerade sponsored by a men’s secret society.
Mammy Water: In Search of the Water Spirits in Nigeria color, 60 minutes
Mammy Water is a Pidgin English name for local water deities in Southeastern Nigeria. The film documents their worship. The Water Goddess is believed to give wealth and children; She compensates for hardship and is sought in times of illness and need, especially by women, led predominantly by priestesses.
Skull Art in Papua New Guinea color, 30 minutes
Adam, an elderly man from Papua New Guinea, uses clay over a painted human skull, to remodel a traditional skull portrait. He supplements an ancient technique with some contemporary materials. A rare documentation of an art form that was formerly associated with commemorating the deceased, but also with head hunting among the Iatmul people of the East Sepik province.
Postcards from Tora Bora color, 87 minutes Armed only with rapidly fading memories, a young Afghan-American woman returns to her childhood home on a personal journey and recruits some unlikely and reluctant guides to put together the pieces of her past. On the road, she frequently finds herself at a strange intersection where cultures clash, identities are mistaken, and the past violently collides with the present.
Posted on May 21st, 2009 in New Releases |






