Every year, in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, the "sorrowful way" of Good Friday is recreated by a path of colored sawdust and flower petals. Along this road several hundred people take turns carrying a ponderous mahoganybier. Indians from the surrounding countryside come to observe the spectacle of townspeople garbed in Biblical and Roman military uniforms.

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...

For centuries, rice farmers on the island of Bali have taken great care not to offend Dewi Danu, the water goddess who dwells in the crater lake near the peak of Batur volcano. Toward the end of each rainy season, the farmers send representatives to Ulun Danu Batur, the temple at the top of the mountain, to offer ducks, pigs, coins and coconuts in thanks for the water that sustains their terraced fields.

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.

Four young men take part in traditional coming-of-age Eboshi-Gi rites in Shizuhara, a village in Japan's Kyoto province. The Shinto cermony of Samurai origin marks the young men's passage into adulthood and initiates them into the local youth association.

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.

Serpent Mother is about devotion to the Goddess of Snakes and the importance of divine female power in West Bengal Indian life. The film's focus is the Jhapan Festival, the great celebration of snakes.

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...

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.