Les Blank Movies

A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued...

Directed by Terry Nowak. This early film about the Southern California Renaissance Fair, with Les Blank as cameraman, is shot in sensuous detail on a...

A joyous romp through the dance, food, music, friendship, and even religion of the Polka. The explosive energy and high spirits of the polka...

A widow upholds feudal virtue by suppressing her love for a cavalry captain in favor of her daughter.

Featuring the stories and music of seminal Cajun musicians "Bois Sec" Ardoin and Canray Fontenot, Dry Wood is a short, vibrant documentary portrait...

This film, photographed and edited by Les Blank, produced and directed by Pieter Van Deusen, documents a spontaneously improvised concert by musician...

A charming valentine to women born with a space between their teeth, ranging from lighthearted whimsy to a deeper look at issues like self-esteem and...

80-year-old Julie Lyon, sister of Old Time fiddler Tommy Jarrell, lights up this gem of a film as she spins tales of her Appalachian childhood in...

What happens when a dedicated husband and father quits his job, adopts the persona of a Western-Movie Singing Cowboy, takes on the entire art...

One of Les Blank's industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms "broiler" chicken from factory incubation to the county fair barbecue pit. A...

In 1964, Les Blank filmed 45 minutes of motorcycles for a documentary film that was never completed. Before his death in 2013, he asked his son...

A self-portrait documentary of Dusan Makavejev who travels to former Yugoslavia, and charts the changes of the society which parallels to his own...

Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky,...

A complex, insightful look at the Chicano experience as mirrored in the lives and music of the most acclaimed Norteño musicians of the...

An intense insider's portrait of New Orleans' street celebrations and unique cultural gumbo: Second-line parades, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest. Features...

A musical portrait of Zydeco King Clifton Chenier, who combines the pulsating rhythms of Cajun dance music and black R&B with African overtones,...

A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music tradition. Performers...

This aloha-filled portrait of Auntie Irmgard Farden Aluli, one of Hawaii's best loved composers, gently focuses on Hawai'ian women's contributions to...

This creative educational film by Pieter Van Deusen features a variety of string instruments performed by noted musicians such as Shamim Ahmed Kahn....

A film created by Les Blank and Maureen Gosling from footage that was cut from the documentary "Always for Pleasure" (1978) about Mardi Gras in New...