Orem Library

Sons of Shiva is a sustained attempt to film a four-day ceremony concerned with the worship of Shiva. Devotees of the God Shiva are shown from the initial taking of the Sacred Thread through gradually intensifying action to a culmination in a variety of ascetic and self denying practices.

To the Land of Bliss is an intimate portrayal of the Chinese Pure Land Buddhist way of dying and living. In 1998, the filmmaker/anthropologist Wen-jie Qin returned to her home region in Sichuan Province in southwest China to research the post-Mao revival of Buddhism.

The Last Rites of the Honourable Mr. Rai is a film about the cremation of a longtime resident of the holy city of Varanasi. This film, made at the request of the Rai family, is possibly the most detailed and respectful study of the Hindu rites of cremation on the sacred banks of the river Ganga at the historic Harish Chandra Ghat. With no invasive narration but with inter-titles and subtitles the film enables the viewer to see, hear and experience...

The Women's Olamal follows the events that preceded a controversial ceremony in Loita, Kenya, to bless the women and to increase their ability to have children. This film, presented in observational style with limited commentary, depicts some of the tensions between men and women in Maasai society which, in this case, erupt in a violent row between them.

This documentary provides an excellent introduction to the art of thangka, sacred Tibetan Buddhist painting in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. Carefully filmed, it takes you through every step of the painting process of thangkas.

In the Portuguese village of Senhora Aparecida, an industrial area near Oporto, the annual festival that takes place every 15th of August is being prepared. The biers that reach fifteen meters high and which are carried by 70 men are being erected and decorated.

This film records a 12 day ritual performed by Mambudiri Brahmins in Kerala, southwest India, in April 1975. This event was possibly the last performance of the Agnicayana, a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back 3,000 years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual.

This documentary shows an ancient, sacred Apache ritual that has never before been filmed. The Sunrise Ceremony, which marks the passage from adolescence to adulthood for young Apache women, is disappearing under the pressures of cultural assimilation.

Filmed between 1991 and 1997, Taki Kudo, Shamanic Medium of Tsugaru documents the final years of the charismatic Ms. Taki Kudo, a medium, healer and fortune teller. Every year she comes to Japan's sacred Mt. Osorozan, home of the Akakura grand shrine, where the mediums draw chopsticks for the best places to set up their booths.

Cremation rites are the most elaborate rites of passage performed by Balinese householders. Poor families may wait years before accumulating enough resources to cremate their dead, who are buried in the meantime. In 1978 many more cremations than usual were carried out because of the great purification cermony, Eka Dasa Rudra, held at Bali's main temple, Besakih, in 1979. Religious officials recommended that all Balinese cleanse the island by cremating...