DOCUMENTARY FILMS
SPEAKING THE MAMMA TONGUE
This album is a collection of stirring rhythms and haunting melodies performed by world-class musicians.
WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY IRIS BROOKS & JON H. DAVIS
NARRATED BY WILLIAM HURT
FEATURING MUSIC BY JOHN McDOWELL & MAMMA TONGUE
Every two weeks, somewhere on our planet, a language dies.
Language is key for sharing ideas and expressing emotions in a living heritage of people from all over the world. One’s mother tongue is a means of transmitting cultural history ranging from stories and songs, to philosophy, proverbs, and poems.
This is a short documentary film bringing awareness to endangered languages, preserving aspects of history, and highlighting the whistled language of Silbo Gomero in the Canary Islands (a region of Spain located off the northwest coast of Africa).
While languages around the world are dying at an alarming rate, the small island of La Gomera–filled with rugged mountain peaks and ancient laurel forests–has preserved its precious whistled language. Silbo Gomero, which was on the verge of disappearing, remains an important means of communication across the island’s dramatic mountains and deep ravines, working in places where cell phones fail. This language was awarded the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status. For more information on UNESCO,
http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php...
If your language is lost, what will you say?
QUOTES:
“Sound is as intimate as smell. Language is the expression of identity, called literally, one’s tongue, it is how we each express our being. From our first cry at birth to our last sigh, it is the essence of expression, our calling to our deity and each other, the primary communicative brushstroke of each human. Inherent in it, our identity: its history, intentions, biology; it is our taste of life from our own breath in our own sound.
The Brooks and Davis documentary, LANGUAGES LOST AND FOUND: SPEAKING & WHISTLING THE MAMMA TONGUE, is right on the mark, an astute and essential project well worthy of support.”
-William Hurt
"Languages Lost and Found brings the world’s voices together with stunning visual imagery to tell the story of linguistic diversity and language endangerment. Whether in Palauan, Inuktitut, Kichwa or the birdlike whistles of Silbo Gomero, the melody of this cultural collage is soul-piercing: if we lose our mother tongue, we may lose the essence of who we are.
The CUNY Endangered Language Initiative was delighted to screen Languages Lost and Found to a full house in the Segal Theater at the recent CUNY Endangered Language Phonology Conference. This film provides a wonderfully colorful, accurate, and culturally sensitive introduction to today’s endangered language crisis, and the role of the mother tongue in sustaining cultural diversity."
-Juliette Blevins
Director, Endangered Language Initiative
CUNY Graduate Center, New York City
“UNESCO thanks you for the privilege of this collaboration. The film, Languages Lost and Found is really quite stunning and inspiring.”
-Suzanne Bilello, Senior Public Information and Liaison Officer
UNESCO, New York
La Gomera, Canary Islands E. Darrius demonstrates El Silbo
LANGUAGES LOST AND FOUND:
SPEAKING & WHISTLING THE MAMMA TONGUE
A BROOKS & DAVIS DOCUMENTARY FILM
CLICK ABOVE TO PLAY LANGUAGES LOST AND FOUND TRAILER
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE
FOR INQUIRIES OR SCREENINGS, CONTACT: NLScreativemedia@gmail.com
AWAKENING LANGUAGES:
A Personal Exploration, Sharing, and Questioning
A NORTHERN LIGHTS STUDIO PRODUCTION, © 2012
A new, educational DVD
program designed for group interactions and classroom presentations.
A perfect companion to the Languages Lost and Found documentary.
FOR INQUIRIES, ORDERS, & SCREENINGS, CONTACT:
A SAMPLING FROM THE AWAKENING LANGUAGES DVD.
LANGUAGES LOST AND FOUND, A COMPANION FILM TO
THE AWAKENING LANGUAGES DVD.
LANGUAGE DOCUMENTARIES
LANGUAGES LOST AND FOUND:
Speaking & Whistling the Mama Tongue
A NORTHERN LIGHTS STUDIO PRODUCTION, © 2011
MUSIC DOCUMENTARIES
BORNEO & BEYOND: The Rainforest World Music Festival
A NORTHERN LIGHTS STUDIO PRODUCTION, © 2013
CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO PLAY THE TRAILER or STREAM FULL VIDEO
ON-DEMAND ON VIMEO, WITH AN OPTION TO PURCHASE.
Now Available Worldwide for Downloading. Duration - 48 minutes
TO WATCH THE SHORT ICE MUSIC FILM, CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW.
A Film By Iris Brooks and Jon H. Davis
A NORTHERN LIGHTS STUDIO PRODUCTION
© 2014
Filmed at The Ice Music Festival in Geilo, Norway.
Ice Music has been featured in Islands magazine and
licensed by National Geographic/Cengage.
The founder of the Ice Music Festival has researched the sound of ice, traveling to Antarctica, the North Pole, Sweden, and Siberia. But he is partial to the lake ice around the Holmevatnet Islands in his native Norway, for great sounding ice instruments: cellos, horns, harps, and percussion performed at the annual winter festival in Geilo, Norway. Yes, the fabulous, frozen, ice instruments really do work. Just look and listen!
"Wherever you look, there is only one color,
the color of ice."
ICE MUSIC
