Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.
In 1825, English peer Lord John Morgan is cast adrift in the American West. Captured by Sioux Indians, Morgan is at first targeted for quick extinction, but the tribesmen sense that he is worthy of survival. He eventually passes the many necessary tests that will permit him to become a member of the tribe.
Lord John Morgan has returned to civilized life in England, but finds he has nothing but disdain for that life. Yearning to embrace the simplicity of the American West-and the Yellow Hands Sioux tribe he left behind, Morgan returns to the tribe's land only to discover that they've been decimated by ruthless, government-backed fur traders. Led by Horse, they fight to repossess their land.
Eastern Cape, South Africa. A lonely factory worker, Xolani, takes time off his job to assist during an annual Xhosa circumcision initiation into manhood. In a remote mountain camp that is off limits to women, young men, painted in white ochre, recuperate as they learn the masculine codes of their culture. In this environment of machismo and aggression, Xolani cares for a defiant initiate from Johannesburg, Kwanda, who quickly learns Xolani's best kept secret, that he is in love with another man.
A father and his two sons go on holiday together hoping to reconcile some of their differences, but when the arrival of two escaped convicts interrupts their vacation, the three men must cooperate in order to survive.
A bizarre rite of passage at the local deli determines the fate of a generation of teenagers, leading some to escape their suburban town and dooming others to remain…
On the cusp of womanhood, 12-year-old Florence goes on her first deer hunt, a traditional rite-of- passage in her matriarchal family.
Searching for his lost father, a boy will have to be strong to survive.
On completing his training in a secret elite army unit, Eitan is taken out by mates from the unit to celebrate. During a night of drinking in Tel Aviv he learns things about the unit and about himself that shake his world. An encounter with Shahar, who lives the way Eitan never dared, gives him a chance for a new beginning. But when he tries to go with the change, he discovers the ultimate price of his previous choices.
When the rain ends, life sprouts from the earth. A fruit grows and becomes the apple that gives life to the cider. Then comes the time of harvest, toasting and celebrating love. A story about the cycle of life and death, of the struggle for survival. Where the passage of time is marked by the course of nature, music and dance.
Based upon Paul Gallico's delicate novel, Patrick Garland's Golden Globe winning The Snow Goose is a stark and hauntingly beautiful drama set amongst the striking scenery of the Essex salt marshes during the early years of WWII. A bearded Richard Harris leads the modest cast with his sensitive portrayal of tormented soul Philip Rhayader, a lonely misshapen man shunned by society but with a great love of life; Harris isnt overly bitter of his treatment and expresses his compassion through his paintings and love of the waterfowl that surround him. Harris is ably supported by the waiflike Jenny Agutter as Frith, who radiates the requisite amount of youthful innocence and naivety, and won a best supporting actress Emmy Award for her performance.
Catalina submits to the tradition of her people to demonstrate her purity and worth as a woman to her beloved, but her body betrays her and she fails to demonstrate her chastity.
Made with a message of hope, Rites of Passage is a raw, uncensored and honest film inspired by the life experiences of the young people involved in the making of this powerful feature-length drama. Six interwoven stories show these teenagers negotiating the dangers and discoveries of their age and because the cast were also the crew what emerges is a self portrait of resilient kids responding to the challenges surrounding them. They might live in public housing and come from families that have seen disadvantage and hardship. But with frankness and courage, these young people have dipped below the surface of their often tough exteriors to reveal what’s going on inside their lives.
A Seminole boy spending the summer alone in the Everglades as a rite of passage helps a lost panther cub survive, but the village does not welcome him when he follows the boy home. The boy has to steal an airboat to take the panther deep into the swamp.
This documentary follows two Mohawk girls on their journey to become Mohawk women. Friends since childhood, Kaienkwinehtha and Kasennakohe are members of the traditional community of Akwesasne on the U.S./Canada border. Together, they undertake a four-year rite of passage for adolescents, called Oheró:kon, or "under the husk." The ceremony had been nearly extinct, a casualty of colonialism and intergenerational trauma; revived in the past decade by two traditional leaders, it has since flourished. Filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox has served as a mentor, or "auntie," to many youth going through the passage rites.
An identity picture and the memory of Contla village through its Día de Muertos festivity. Celebration where the making of traditional bread, an offering colocation, and the embellishment of their family get mixed with mysticism and the yearning of the people community, preserving a tradition that interweaves for moments as a remembering in the México's heart.
Dujung, an elementary school student, goes to a farm in the suburbs with his parents. While his parents believe the expensive and rare specialty from the farm will strengthen their son's body, Dujung suffers side effects.
Little María has been left in the care of her grandmother Matilde. The relationship between them is not very good. While María spends her time creating, her grandmother, who has become ill, has the urge to teach her the little trades that can help her fend for herself when she is gone. Their relationship becomes more tense, until her grandmother remembers a secret that she has kept since childhood...
Wives and Daughters is a 1999 four part BBC serial adapted from the novel Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story by Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell. It focuses on Molly Gibson (Justine Waddell), the daughter of the town doctor, and the changes that occur in her life after her widowed father chooses to remarry. The union brings into her once-quiet life an ever-proper stepmother (Francesca Annis) and flirtatious stepsister, Cynthia (Keeley Hawes), while a friendship with the local squire brings about an unexpected romance.
Grayson Perry explores the landmark events in all of our lives—Birth, Coming of Age, Marriage and Death. He works alongside people who are going through those universal experiences with the aim to try and reinvent these rites of passage so he can mark and celebrate them for modern secular Britain.
Adventurer and filmmaker Tim Noonan embarks on a solo journey of self-discovery to worlds beyond his imagination to try and unlock the mysteries of some of the most ancient tribes and to discover what it means to be the ultimate man.
