California's Golden Beginning

A description and enactment of the discovery of gold by James Marshall, and the role played by John Sutter. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

Sankara

Ouaga Girls

A group of young women from Ouagadougou study at a girl school to become auto mechanics. The classmates become their port of safety, joy and sisterhood, all while they are going through the life changing transition into becoming adults in a country boiling with political changes. In a country with youth unemployment at 52 percent, jobs are a hot issue. The young girls at a mechanics school in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou are right in the middle of a crucial point in life when their dreams, hopes and courage are confronted with opinions, fears and society’s expectations of what a woman should be. Using interesting narrative solutions, Theresa Traore Dahlberg depicts their last school years and at the same time succeeds in showing the country’s violent past and present. This is a feature-film debut and coming-of-age film with much warmth, laughs, heartbreak and depth.

The Klondike Gold Rush

Renowned as the richest gold strike in North American mining history, the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) set off a stampede of over 100,000 people on a colossal journey from Alaska to the gold fields of Canada's Yukon Territory. Filled with the frontier spirit, prospectors came and gave rise to what was one of the largest cities in Canada at that time - Dawson City. The boomtown, which became known as "the Paris of the North", earned the reputation as a place where lives could be revolutionized. Brought to life with excerpts from the celebrated book The Klondike Stampede - published in 1900 by Harper's Weekly correspondent Tappan Adney - and featuring interviews with award-winning author Charlotte Gray, and historians Terrence Cole and Michael Gates, The Klondike Gold Rush is an incredible story of determination, luck, fortune, and loss. In the end, it isn't all about the gold, but rather the journey to the Klondike itself.

Kristina från Duvemåla - en konsertresa till Minnesota

Documents the highlights of a concert version of the musical written by former ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, performed in Minnesota. Based on a series of novels detailing a family's poverty-driven migration from Sweden to America in the mid-19th century, we also meet some of the descendants to the emigrants.

The Man of the Trees

The life story of Daniel Balimá, a horticulturist with a disability in Burkina Faso.

City of Gold

This classic short film depicts the Klondike gold rush at its peak, when would-be prospectors struggled through harsh conditions to reach the fabled gold fields over 3000 km north of civilization. Using a collection of still photographs, the film juxtaposes the Dawson City at the height of the gold rush with its bustling taverns and dance halls with the more tranquil Dawson City of the present.

The last Balafon Master

Tales of Sand and Snow

In a quest to rediscover the spiritual values of his own people, an African filmmaker from the Gourmantche tribe of Burkina Faso visits an Aboriginal band, the Atikamekw of northern Quebec. The resulting documentary is a dialogue between those who divine the future in the sand with those who use snow-encased sweat lodges to reconnect with the spiritual world.

Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man

Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso, was known as "the African Che", and became famous in Africa due to his innovative ideas, his devastating humor, his spirit and his altruism. More than a classic biography, this film sheds light on the impact that this man and his politic made on Burkina Faso and Africa in general.

Mémoire entre deux rives

This documentary follows the traces of the French colonization of the country Lobi. In this region of southwestern Burkina Faso, there is not a village, not a family that does not remember the suffering brought by the colonizers. Confronted with the archival documents of the administrators, the oral tradition, through its numerous testimonies, allows us to trace back nearly a century of history, from the arrival of the first Whites until today. This word also testifies to the individual, social or religious consequences of this often painful history. Between the past and the present, between the living words and the writings of the colonists, "Mémoire entre deux rives" is as much a quest for Lobi identity as a reflection on "civilising" France.

Land of Upright People

October 2014. Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, is the scene of an unarmed uprising that ousts the dictator in power since 1987 and later staves off an attempted coup. In 2015, the country votes freely for the first time in its history, yet real change remains allusive, especially regarding ongoing economic exploitation by foreign companies. In one year of struggle and resistance, the film follows the daily life of four Burkinabes: a musician and leader of the revolution, a local political candidate, a miner engaged in the labor movement, and an impoverished mother, all sharing hopes that the elections will change the country’s path.

Pack Train at Chilkoot Pass

During the Alaska gold rush, one way to reach the Klondike was over the Chilkoot Pass. A stationary camera is placed to see a ways down the curving trail. A pack train comes into view and passes in front of us, led by a man on horseback. Eight loaded mules follow, then another cowboy on horseback and a man walking, then eight more laden mules, another cowboy, then nine more mules, a cowboy, and still the pack train stretches as far as the eye can see. A solitary man watches from atop a hillock.

Concerning Violence

Based on powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, this documentary is accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

Others' Gold

The arrival of the mining company Osisko creates a lot of excitement in Malartic, a small community of 3600 souls in Quebec, Canada. Faced with the implacable Mining Act, which prioritizes the right to exploit subsoil resources rather than the right to property, many families and seniors need to write off certain elements of their heritage plus a part of their lifestyle to make room for the largest open-pit gold mine in Canada. The characters in Others' Gold experience in their own way this major change that will affect their lives and urban environment.

Sahel: Pátria ou Morte

Sankara's Orphans

Thomas Sankara came to power in Burkina Faso in 1983, with the promise of a revolutionary government that would transform the West African country. To help build the revolution, he sent 600 children — many orphans from rural areas — to be educated in Cuba. But after Sankara’s assassination, the children were stranded. The last would only return to Burkina Faso in 2005. SANKARA’S ORPHANS tells their stories through interviews with some of the 600, along with archival footage of their lives on Cuba’s Isle of Youth — where both Sankara and Fidel Castro came to visit. Along with their education, the children worked in the fields and received weapons training. This, combined with their idealism, frightened the new Burkina Faso regime, which worried they might return and take up arms.

Afrikki

North to Alaska

After striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his fiancée up from Seattle. When Sam finds that she has already married, he returns instead with Angel, a dancer originally from France.

Shark

A gunrunner loses his cargo near a small coastal Sudanese town so he's stuck there. When a woman hires him to raid a sunken ship in the shark-infested waters, he sees a chance to compensate for his losses. He's not the only one.