Folkstreams documentary films

Resources

Folkstreams documentary films

Folkstreams: The Best of American Folklore Films provides documentaries in free streaming video.This "national preserve of documentary films about American roots cultures" includes several films about traditional culture in North Carolina, including those listed here.

Click links below to be taken directly to the films on the Folkstreams website.

• The Angel that Stands By Me - Minnie Evans, a visionary painter from Wilmington.

• The Cameraman Has Visited Our Town - photographer H. Lee Waters and his films and photographs of everyday life in Lexington.

• Free Show Tonight - oral histories with old-time medicine show performers.

• A Singing Stream - the life and music of Granville County's Landis Family, African American gospel singers.

• Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance - Buck, Flatfoot, and Tap -- the roots of clogging, as exemplified by 24 traditional dancers from North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky.

• When My Work is Over: The Life and Stories of Miss Louise Anderson, 1921 - 1994 -- Jacksonville storyteller and her family discuss rural African American life in the twentieth century.

• Appalachian Journey -- Alan Lomax's exploration of Appalachian traditions, featuring many musicians, dancers, and craftspeople from the North Carolina mountains.

• The Ballad of Frankie Silver - an 1833 murder in Morganton, well-remembered in folklore, discussed by storyteller Bobby McMillon.

• Being a Joines: A Life in the Brushy Mountains - the life and stories of Wilkesboro storyteller John "Frail" Joines.

• The Madison County Project: Documenting the Sound - Madison County's centuries-old ballad tradition, carried on today by Sheila Kay Adams, Denise Norton O'Sullivan, Donna Ray Norton, Dee Dee Buckner, and other young singers.

• Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old - Alan Lomax documentary about elderly musicians and storytellers, including Tommy Jarrell of Toast, Surry County.

Several of the above films can be purchased on DVD in our online store.