
May Day! is a feature-length documentary which follows Oxford's thousand-year old tradition of May Morning, the largest celebration of its kind, regularly attracting over 15,000 people each year. It is a collage-like portrait of the tradition, attempting to find out how the celebration has survived the separation between the land and its people, what the pagan festival means thousands of years after its inception, and how it shapes and contributes to our nation's sense of self.
2026

Two young men relate stories about mystic and historic locations of the Carabobo state in Venezuela. They question the beliefs that revolve around the prevailing figures, while they ponder about the meaning of faith and symbols.
2025

AWAKE is a short experimental documentary about a liminal moment in the calendar - midwinter - observed by the inhabitants of a small rural village in England. A time outside time, magic is everywhere and anything is possible. Bearing witness to this turning point, the inhabitants gather for a wassail - a centuries old thanksgiving ritual in which folk gather to honour the slow return of the sun and bless the apple trees whose fruit are essential to the village ecosystem, not least the crumbles, juice and cider that sustains them throughout the year.
2023

8mm experimental film directed by Minoru Shinojima. Shot and edited by Kenji Onishi. For 40 years, Minoru Shinojima has been opposed to mining Mt. Buko and is striving to protect the natural environment and cultural ground that inhabit the local area. Idomu’s will / last request. Spiritual journey with Mt.Buko folklore and mountain Gods (Kami-sama). An important message that the director saw after surviving a near-death experience and depression. ...Why don’t the flowers grow in the right places? Where have all the cute children gone?...
2021

8mm experimental film directed by Minoru Shinojima. Shot and edited by Kenji Onishi. For 40 years, Minoru Shinojima has been opposed to mining Mt. Buko and is striving to protect the natural environment and cultural ground that inhabit the local area. Idomu’s Testament - Sequel or IDOMU II. In Saitama prefecture Chichibu city there’s a mountain which was most loved by Tokugawa Ieyasu (founder of Tokugawa shogunate). It is Mount Buko, which rose 2 hundred million years ago when the pacific plate moved the underwater volcanoes around Hawaii. It is like the giant turtle shell where Myouken bodhisattva stood. A gentle mountain which heals people’s hearts and gives them the blessings of green and water.
2020

A lighthouse keeper prepares his earthly funeral while trying to reconnect with his inner elf. Hulda and Trausti have shared a roof on the Icelandic coast for over seventy years. Her love of books is matched by his love of stones. When he tells her he wants to change his name to Elf she warns him that the family will reject him. Now, as his one hundredth birthday nears and Trausti senses the hand of death upon him, he is searching for an elf’s coffin…
2020
2020

In the frigid waters off of Russia’s Bering Strait, Inuit and Chukchi hunters today still seek out the giant sea mammals that have provided their people with food since time immemorial. It is known, that the whale hunting today is controversial and subject to international criticism and regulations. But the Inuit and Chukchi hunt is permitted by international law because of the whaling is the foundation of their culture and their life. The contemporary story of elders Aleksandr and Aleksei blends seamlessly with that of “the woman who gave birth to a whale” and other ancient myths, told here in vivid animation, in this ongoing struggle for survival and preservation of a traditional lifestyle in one of the most remote places on earth.
2018

"If it Won’t Hold Water, it Surely Won’t Hold a Goat" is an intimate meditation on the subversive nature of goats and their effect on the people who spend time with them. Centered on the story of the legendary Goat Man - a nomadic figure who spent most of his life walking the roads of Georgia with a wagon pulled by a herd of goats - this experimental documentary weaves together an interview with a goat farmer, footage of the daily rituals Johnson enacted with her own herd, and a poem about the Goat Man’s experimental and spectacular life.
2014

This exhaustive documentary attempts to tell the history of Bram Stoker's influential novel Dracula, explaining both the historical antecedents to the story, as well as offering look at Stoker's life in order to help illuminate this enduring horror tale, and exposing some of the myths surrounding vampires that have long been accepted as fact.
2011
2008

A documentary filmed in the mountainous region of Agrafa, Eurytania, in Greece.
2006

Walker takes us on a personal journey into a world of myth and imagination that he learned from his grandmother. He travels from the Moors of Devon and the Highlands of Scotland to the brooding Celtic landscapes of Ireland and the intimate hills of Cape Breton, in his search of this potent “otherworld” of the imagination.
2000

In Africa there is a fable that explains the creation of the tides. When a hyaena challenged a mudskipper to a drinking contest to decide who should own the shore, the god Mungu tilted the earth so the sea flowed inland, and neither could win.
1998

Since ancient times, the Green Man has been one of the most mysterious and menacing of mythical characters. He also has a familiar face as Robin Hood, Jack in the Green and on numerous pub signs. Across the arts from comic strips to classical opera, the Green Man is now making a comeback. Where is he taking us? Writer Sir Kingsley Amis, film director John Boorman, composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle and other leading artists offer their interpretations of the mystery in this Omnibus documentary film from 16th November, 1990.
1990

Documentary about the ancient rites still practiced in rural Latvia.
1983

A folk festival in the city of Teresina in Piauí, is portrayed with all the elegance in the lens of photographer Pedrinho de Moraes and filmmaker Paulo Cezar Saraceni. A dance of colors, folklore and the beautiful nature of the region.
1976

In a remote mountainous village elderly people no longer deemed productive are stoned to death.
1972
1963
The Matica slovenská (a mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic, and archival institution) employed Karol Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President’s Office in 1928 to produce an hour-long documentary about village life, Through Mountains and Valleys (Po horách, po dolách). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932.
1930