Aline Morales is one of the main broadcasters of Maracatu in Toronto. From a meeting with members of Recife's Maracatu Estrela Brilhante Nação, she and her traveling companions reflect deeply on the different aspects of this genre, beyond music.
Social & External
Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti performs at the 1984 Glastonbury Festival. Originally produced for Arena.
Travel with Major Lazer to Ghana and Nigeria to make the world smaller by making the party bigger. They are collaborating with cutting-edge Afrobeats artists including Mr.Eazi, Efya, Teni, Sarkodie and Amaarae as they explore the culture and history of Africa. Chasing the Sound: Major Lazer, watch now only on YouTube.
Musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti recorded more than 60 albums to promote the magic of Afrobeat but never lost his political voice as an outspoken critic against widespread government corruption in Nigeria. This documentary examines the role that Fela, dubbed "Black President," played in shedding light on atrocities in his homeland and in promoting the ascent of African music worldwide.
A huge influence on world music, Nigerian artist Fela Kuti played many instruments, pioneered afrobeat music and served as a prominent activist for human rights in Africa. This 1984 documentary examines the life and music of the remarkable man. Using his music to raise awareness, Kuti embraced social justice themes. He died in 1997 of complications from AIDS. Footage from his legendary show in Glastonbury, England, is included.
In September of 2017, 77 year old Nigerian drummer Tony Allen was invited to record the album 'What Goes Up' with American band, Chicago Afrobeat Project. During their time together, Allen recounts how he and partner, late music legend, Fela Kuti, created the Afrobeat genre in Lagos, Nigeria. This hybrid live-action/animated film is a snapshot illustrating Tony Allen's story.
No measure of hellfire preaching can quell the boisterous and bawdy passions of Maracatu, an Afro-Brazilian burlesque carnival tradition with roots in slavery that takes place in the northeast state of Pernambuco. As the Falstaffian character Tiao, Valmir do Coco leads a nonprofessional cast of authentic Maracatu practitioners in a tale told through dance, music, and the supernatural, set in the sugarcane fields outside Recife.
Lisa, a plus-sized African American woman, concludes that her boyfriend broke up with her because of her weight. Now on quarantine lock down and alone, she will now use the next 40 days to try to lose the weight, in hopes of winning him back.
Afrobeat emerged in Lagos, Nigeria in the 1970s. The film follows an Afrobeat tube broadcast, from its early morning studio recording, to selling vinyl records and cassette tapes in town, into the evening where people dance feverishly to the music.
Catch the spark after dark at Disneyland Park. And say farewell to one of the Magic Kingdom's most celebrated traditions - The Main Street Electrical Parade. Where else, but in The Main Street Electrical Parade, could you see an illuminated 40-foot-long fire-breathing dragon? And hear the energy of its legendary melody one last time? It's unforgettable after-dark magic that will glow in your heart long after the last float has disappeared.
Broadway style songs are used to tell this interesting story of an ingenious orphan who gets involved in matchmaking and striving for inter-racial understanding in 1956 Alabama.
Every year, especially in August, thousands of emigrants return to their villages from France, Germany and other countries of immigration. In 1975 these migrants are faced with popular festivities that are celebrated but, now, also with the political turmoil of the post 25 April. Before the revolution, coming back was only limited to those who left the country legally ...
Celluloid and Marble is based on Rohmer's own articles published in "Cahiers du cinéma", discussing film in relation to the other arts, maintaining that, in an age of cultural self-consciousness, cinema was “the last refuge of poetry” - the only contemporary art form from which metaphor could still spring naturally and spontaneously.
Documentary about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers, and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.
Hidden deep in the south of France, practically untouched by the modern age, is a place known by many as 'the Zone'. In this space, the supernatural is an everyday reality of life. Magic is everywhere. It is reason. It is currency. It is unquestionable fact. Prepare yourself for a journey into life on the other side of the mirror.
“AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2” includes footage of the 1968 Democratic Convention protest and riot, a critique of events by working class African-Americans in Chicago, and attempts by the Black Panther Party to organize poor, southern white youths.
The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.
Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.
A documentary on the life and work of Brazilian rapper Cláudio Márcio de Sousa Santos, aka Speedfreak$.
Best friends Ruth and Megan run a vintage shop in North London. One day, their lives are forever turned upside down when an abandoned time machine appears outside their shop. Mixing reality with fantasy, we explore the strange and outlandish world of The Unreason, as the girls traverse space and time sourcing items to sell.
Moira Brooker and Philip Bretherton (Judith and Alastair from As Time Goes By (1992)) host this behind-the-scenes look at the work of the writers behind many of our favorite "Britcoms" (British situation comedies), revealing how their ideas make it to the screen.
Coming from a conservative family, Rajnandini moves to a city for higher studies and falls in love with Vivaan. However, he must win the heart of Rajnandini's strict father Ravimohan to take things further.
On a seemingly normal evening, a young girl has the misfortune of encountering the wrong people. For her, this turns into a nightmare in which she is not even sure if she will survive the night...
Father and mother Andersen and their four children live in a closed down farmside storehouse in the outskirts of Oslo. They enjoy life here, but the many neibours surrounding them are less enthusiastic about the family's lack of respect towards the supposed social order and decency they live by.
An American gets killed by a Filipino. Early version of the later feature film.
After witnessing a murder, musicians Dev (Rishi Kapoor) and Salim (Paintal) dress as women and flee with a girl band to avoid the killers' wrath. Soon, Dev falls for fellow bandmate Reetu (Neetu Singh), but his disguise makes it impossible for him to reveal his feelings. When he discovers that Reetu desires a rich man, Dev devises a second disguise, as the wealthy Esso. Madan Puri and Anwar Hussain co-star in this Indian take on Some Like It Hot.
Catastrophic war, destroyed ecosystem, brink of extinction. War for the most valuable treasure of the time: water.
The narrator tells of the three sides of health represented by a triangle with the physical side at the bottom, the mental side on the left, and the social side-the subject of this film-on the right.
Story about the search for identity. With the lead character being adopted and trying to find the missing puzzle piece of where she comes from. With the help of modern technology and DNA testing she is able to make a connection with a biological relative, who invites her and her friends down to Louisiana. However with this new connection comes an old family secret, one that was suppose to stay hidden from her.
The Pink Panther is forced by a criminal to deliver a package to the Slobvanian Embassy, but must first get past the guard dog.
‘An animal simply is,’ nature photographer and writer Heikki Willamo says as dazzling black-and-white images segue from a forest bear to a seagull gliding over the sea. The animal images are themselves captivating, without any need to ask what is happening next. Directed and shot by Perttu Saksa, a well-known photographer, Animal Image borrows its form and speech from the reputed existence of animals: there is only here and now.
When Su-san invites his late friend's daughter to come along on a fishing trip, she falls in love with Hama-chan's fishing protégé.
Virtuoso Afro-Cuban-born brothers—violinist Ilmar and pianist Aldo—live on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm a half-century wide. Tracking their parallel lives in New York and Havana, their poignant reunion, and their momentous first performances together, Los Hermanos/The Brothers suggests what is possible when walls come down, and borders are crossed. A nuanced, intensely moving view of nations long estranged, through the lens of music and family. Featuring an electrifying, genre-bending score composed by Cuban Aldo López-Gavilán, performed with his American brother, Ilmar, with a guest appearance by violin maestro Joshua Bell and the Harlem Quartet.
Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and repulsion. It manifests itself in humiliation and abuse (such Pentimento), but also in cool eroticism or natural physicality. Zwartjes’ goal is not to explain or designate this relationship. Rather it is the subject that Zwartjes uses to describe his world. In an article on Zwartjes, filmmaker and student George Schouten compares Zwartjes to the Italian writer Alberto Moravia. For both, sex is their way of dealing with reality. It is the subject by which they define their world. And for Zwartjes, it is also the subject with which he can display and develop his cinematic talent. (eyefilm.nl)
Old Mother Riley gets involved in a plot to steal an invention