A Library of Video Resources

Ani Rigsang has chosen a nomadic lifestyle in the land of white clouds. The Buddhist nun felt confined in Lhasa, and so today she has taken to the road to reconnect with her country’s spiritual traditions, which are now threatened by rapid modernisation and the reinforcement of Chinese control over the region.

From snowy mountains to green valleys, from monastery to monastery, this documentary accompanies Ani as she makes her way through Tibet. A moving testimony that brings together age-old traditions and legends, this film takes us through stunning landscapes, revealing to us a contrasting Tibet, jostled by modernisation and the upheavals of its holy geography.

Investigative journalist Anthony Baxter travels between the US Presidential race and the Scottish countryside to chronicle the troubling confrontation between Donald Trump and a feisty 92-year-old widow, Molly Forbes, as she refuses to make way for his golf course. This shocking insight to a David and goliath battle is a remarkable document of the disconnect between political rhetoric and the lives of ordinary people.

Being possessed, it turns out, is exhausting work. Just ask Mambo Edeline St. Armand. While popular culture portrays Vodou as full of curses and sticking pins into little dolls, the religion has in fact played a central role in Haitian cultural identity since the country's birth, a result of the New World's first and only successful slave rebellion.

Even today, on the Louisiana bayous, alligator grease relieves asthma, a buried potato cures warts, and "smoking a baby" eases the pains of colic. Enter this distinctive tradition of faith healing, herbal remedy, and ritual magic as this documentary follows respected "traiteurs" to gather wild teas, brew homemade cough syrup, invoke the saints at home altars, and most of all, heal the sick.

"Signs, Cures, & Witchery" provides a fascinating glimpse of some little-known Appalachian beliefs and practices among descendants of early German pioneers. This hour-long documentary traces Germanic belief systems from Europe to West Virginia, from the fifteenth century to present-day practitioners. "Signs, Cures, & Witchery" opens a window into our ancient past, revealing the courage and resourcefulness of people whose survival depended on their ability to "read signs," cure their own ills, and find explanations for life's mysteries. Local community practices in West Virginia such as witch doctoring, "belsnickling," "shanghai," and folk healing are connected to their medieval counterparts in woodcuts and other works of art. In tracing immigration to remote mountain communities, we learn how expressions of folk art and occult belief survive. This work specifically examines aspects of Appalachian oral tradition and folklore that draw from German culture. This informative, entertaining film is an invaluable aid to all who have interest in religion, psychology, folklore, metaphysical, regional, gender, and ethnic studies.

Jamali spends time with hate preacher Ruben Israel and his fundamentalist disciples as they attempt to disrupt the New Orleans "Southern Decadence" festival.

Tulum is experiencing an explosion of people taking Bufo Alvarius. Also called “speed-toading,” it involves smoking the milked poison of the Sonoran Desert toad in a glass pipe and is considered to be the most powerful hallucinogen in the world. Now, growing numbers of psychedelic tourists are traveling to Tulum where Bufo ceremonies are legal, in search of a life-changing experience. However, there are many reports of profoundly negative experiences, lasting psychosis and allegations of sexual assault during ceremonies.

Gay saunas are places where gay men meet strangers to have sex. With exclusive access to one Nottingham business, this documentary enters the notorious, secretive world of the gay sauna for the very first time.

Traditional Indian dance forms have been used for centuries as medium for storytelling and instruction. Today, they take on yet another unique facet – that of inflight safety instructions. Air India’s new safety video features eight classical and folk Indian dance forms wherein each mudra or dance gesture corresponds to a different instruction.

She’s often depicted as the patron saint of murderers and narco-traffickers, and the Catholic Church condemns devotion to her as blasphemy. But Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, is a Mexican folk saint with a growing following across North America, particularly among the marginalized – transsexuals, immigrants, the poor. A community of Santa Muerte devotees in Queens, New York, shows the life inherent in the worship of Saint Death as they prepare for their annual fiesta in her honor.

The remote community of the Tiwi Islands, located 80km north of the Australian mainland, has a thriving gay and trans community known as the Sistagals. More than 5 percent of the Tiwi population identify as a Sistagal with most of them living publicly as women and observing local Indigenous traditions.

Li Ermao was born a boy, but has lived for many years now as a “ladyboy.” She performs in clubs, but yearns for true love and acceptance. The film follows her life for 17 years, in which she displays resilience and vulnerability in equal measure, and repeatedly encounters prejudice and even aggression.

She and her boyfriend move to the countryside. There, they try to build a new life in harsh conditions on a plot of land inherited from her family, but she is once again met with rejection. She returns to the city, where it looks like she might very well collapse under the pressure of life as a transgender person in China.

As the years progress, filmmaker Jia Yuchuan increasingly drifts from his position as neutral observer. He gradually becomes part of the story, like an older brother to his protagonist. In voice-over he shares his concerns, and when Ermao hits troubled waters, he’s there to help. This subjective style only adds to the story’s impact.

India’s got the world’s second-largest workforce. But trans people are still struggling.

Sunny is a trans person living in Pakistan. She begs in order to survive. Others get by as sex workers or dancers. As an expert for transgender issues at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Reem Sharif found a way to support her community.

Trans people in Pakistan are frequently cast out by their families and live in poverty. They can find safe spaces and a new family in special centers. Here, they do not have to hide and discover that they are not alone in their fight for survival and recognition in Pakistan’s conservative society.

Only around 10 thousand people of Pakistan’s population of 220 million are officially counted as members of the “third gender,” yet it’s estimated that the true figure may be as high as 300 thousand.

Some parents in India practice the Devadasi tradition, selling their daughters into a life of prostitution, often around the age of 10.