People from different ethnic backgrounds with "difficult" names by Western standards share their experience with moving through the world with an identity that challenges others to simply just say their name. A short social docu-film by Mariam Meliksetyan, “Say My Name” is a meditation on identity, otherness, assimilation, community, and ancestral roots.
Young African-Brazilian Miguel drives across the country in search of a long-lost relative to find out about his ancestry. However, a deeper understanding emerges through his encounters along the way.
Maria suffers from the strangest illness; it resembles cancer but with one distinct difference: it somehow connects Maria to the fate of a 15th century woman named Donna Maria. Maria begins to time travel, gradually discovering the absolute brutality of history. She learns that Donna Maria was a Hungarian princess taken to a Bursa harem as a concubine of Ottoman's Sultan.
A short animated documentary featuring archival recordings of the filmmaker's Volga-German Great-Great-Grandmother, Mary Frank Lind, in which she recalls key memories of childhood—her father's windmill, warm rains, wolf sightings, bone trading, and her passion for carpentry, which broke gender norms but was supported by her father.
Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.
after years abroad due to his brother's murder, a renowned journalist returns to his family's home to take care of his mother, who suffers from an unknown illness. late at night, he is visited by two strangers. as new events unfold leading him to suspect that something ominous and deeply disturbing has struck his mother, a new tragedy rises.
Mariana, a young black woman is recovering from a heavy depression. she just wants to be happy, but hasn’t found her way yet.
A sock puppet explores a family history told from the perspective of a mother and father.
Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
Allt för Sverige is a Swedish reality show based on the original Norwegian format Culture Shock:Norway. The first season of Allt för Sverige premiered on Sveriges Television SVT1 on October 30, 2011, and the last episode aired on December 18, 2011. The series is about Swedish Americans who return to their Swedish roots. In the program, they give the participants more about their families but in each episode one in the group must leave the show and therefore know less about their ancestry.
A British genealogy documentary series in which celebrities trace their ancestry, discovering secrets and surprises from their past.
From roots in the Deep South to the slums of New Jersey, "Who Do You Think You Are?" follows the journeys of some of the most well-known names in American popular culture. Watch as celebrities discover unknown details about themselves and their families while researching their ancestry with the help of historians and genealogical experts.
Australian celebrities play detective as they go in search of their family history, revealing secrets from the past. Along the way there will be scandal, adultery, pioneers, bushrangers, artists and royalty. Join the trail of discovery to uncover where these celebrities came from as they find out just who they think they are.
Americans of Norwegian descent, but who have never visited Norway, compete in various tasks while traveling the country, aiming to win $50,000 and meet their Norwegian relatives.
Public figures take a trip to the place where their most quaint and colourful ancestors lived. They meet historians, genealogists, archivists, museum conservationists and other guardians of history who help them relive their remarkable ancestors.
Popular Irish personalities trace their roots, and this journey through generations of ordinary lives reveals extraordinary stories.
Well known Canadians set out to discover their family roots.
Celebrities investigate their Welsh heritage.
