Rural Life Films

Henry Elijah "Lige" Langston was born in 1908 in the Great Basin outback on a homestead. He worked his entire life as a wrangler and rawhide braider in the region known as the…

Nick Spitzer film on African American dance-hall music in French-speaking southwest Louisiana, with Dolon Carriere, Armand Ardoin, and Alphonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin.

This film examines the thrilling regional phenomenon of Cajuns who wade in murky bayou waters to catch huge catfish and turtles by reaching into hollow logs and stumps with their…

The cowboy's job has always been dangerous, lonely, dusty, gory and low-paying. So why do cowboys make music, and why do they need to tell their story? Why the Cowboy Sings is a…

A rare 1975 film on a rural impoverished community in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. This remarkable film deals with stereotypes of improvised rural life, but unfolds into…

John Jackson, John Dee Holeman, Friz Holloway and others perform and reminisce about old-time houseparties in North Carolina and Virginia

A candid portrait of the Tennesse ballad singer, story-teller, and part-time moonshiner Hamper McBee.

A documentary about Finnish American history and folk art expressed through the lives and repertories of our folk artists living in the western Great Lakes Region.

This film documents the activities of the Bear Creek Ice Company in northeastern Pennsylvania through interviews with former employees, who describe working conditions and the…

This film documents sacred harp singing, a 200 year old tradition of religious singing which survives today in the rural South.

Mino-bimadiziwin: The Good Life is an engaging portrait of a community on the White Earth reservation in Minnesota where the peoples' lives revolve around the annual harvest of…

This journey in search of the story of Dundas Sheep Stew and its preparation is poignant as we learn how fragile the tradition is; and it is filled at every turn with good humor…

The Puddin’ Pot is the folk heritage traditional foodway served on the first Monday at the Indian Field Camp Meeting each September. Made in a large iron kettle, different parts…

Southpaw bassist and South Carolina native Mac Arnold was only ten years old when he and his brother built a guitar out of a gas can, a couple strips of wood, a handful of nails,…