Broken Token (2024)

2024-10-1912m

A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her ‘dark-eyed sailor’ to return from war, bearing the other half of their token, a gimmel ring. Three veterans pass on the road as she waits, and she asks them: “When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?” In reply the veterans relate their recollections. The garden images in the accompanying film represent ‘home’, but also stand for a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return at any time, disguised and changed, to renew the present: “Each moment of time is a garden gate,” the song goes, “Through it my love may walk.”

Related Movies

461639-thumbnail

The Fallen (2008)

A powerful and poignant film in which families and friends of those who have died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq talk openly about their loved ones and their grief. Epic in scale and spanning seven years of war, this landmark three-hour film gives a rare insight into the personal impact and legacy of this loss.

462165-thumbnail

Neil Young: Don't Be Denied (2009)

This television special is a first for the reclusive singer with the BBC documentary gaining new interviews with Young, nine months apart in New York and California. The documentary also looks back over the singer's archives, with some never-seen-before material.

475513-thumbnail

Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home (2006)

Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.

15675-thumbnail

Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)

In March 2005, Neil Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Four days before he was scheduled for a lifesaving operation, he headed to Nashville, where he wrote and recorded the country folk album Prairie Wind with old friends and family members. After the successful operation and recovery period, he returned to Nashville that August to play at the famed Ryman Auditorium, once again gathering together friends and family for this special performance.

1060656-thumbnail

Strudel Sisters (2016)

Two elderly sisters share the delicate art of making traditional Hungarian strudel and reveal a deeply personal family story about their mother, who taught them everything they know.

1463836-thumbnail

Bravo November (2012)

Mike Brewer sets off on a journey of discovery to find out the story of one of the most remarkable aircraft in the British Armed Forces: a Chinook helicopter code named Bravo November. By doing so he examines the invaluable contribution that these helicopters have made to campaigns from the Falklands War to modern day British Military service over the past thirty years.

285026-thumbnail

The Last Season (2014)

In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.

1478932-thumbnail

Resilience: The Kim LeBel Story (2024)

"Resilience: The Kim LeBel Story" follows the remarkable journey of a woman who overcame a violent, abusive upbringing in Alabama and Georgia to serve honorably in the U.S. Navy. After defending herself from a traumatic family life, Kim joined the military, only to face new challenges—gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and the brutal realities of combat in Afghanistan. Despite being shot and witnessing the horrors of war, Kim's indomitable spirit and courage shine through. Her story is a powerful testament to the resilience of women in the military, offering an intimate portrayal of survival, strength, and triumph against the odds.

39312-thumbnail

Restrepo (2010)

Directors Hetherington and Junger spend a year with the 2nd Battalion of the United States Army located in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous valleys. The documentary provides insight and empathy on how to win the battle through hard work, deadly gunfights and mutual friendships while the unit must push back the Taliban.

498094-thumbnail

No Roads In (2017)

An abandoned homestead, twelve songs and five days to cut an album. A journey into how the power of music transforms our life.

494905-thumbnail

Here We Come A-Wassailing (1977)

A documentary on the surviving syncretic pagan midwinter customs of the British Isles, focusing on nine ritual celebrations ranging from the Moray Firth in the north, the Somerset Levels in the south, Humberside in the east, and County Kerry in the west. Featuring music by the Albion Band and narration by John Tams.

1068035-thumbnail

The Albion Band (1979)

A rare 1979 BBC Arena documentary on the Albion Band, Ashley Hutchings and the development of English folk rock up to that time.

1079808-thumbnail

Who Will Burry The Dead? (2016)

This documentary offers a deep, candid, and historical look at the Christian experience of America's largest and best-known tribes: the Dakota and Lakota. Its exploration into Native American history also takes a hard and detailed look at President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace Policy of 1873, which was, in effect, a "convert to Episcopalianism or starve" edict put forth by the American government in direct violation of its Constitution. The devastation it had on the values of the people affected were dramatic and extremely long-lasting. Grant's policy was finally ended over 100 years later by the Freedom of American Indian Religions Act in 1978. Interlaced with extraordinarily candid interviews, this documentary presents an insider's perspective of how the Dakota and Lakota were estranged from their religious beliefs and their long-standing traditions.

34981-thumbnail

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (2007)

A unique documentary about troops' experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on writings by soldiers, Marines, and air men.

883863-thumbnail

Afghanistan : vivre en pays taliban (2021)

By immersing themselves in a Taliban village, and after gaining very rare access to major institutions, the directors shed a disturbing light on today's Taliban society, and on the workings of this ultra-conservative parallel state. whose leaders have just symbolically moved into the presidential palace, to assert a stranglehold that foreshadows the Afghanistan of tomorrow.

489714-thumbnail

The Pilgrims (2015)

Arguably one of the most fateful and resonant events of the last half millennium, the Pilgrims journey west across the Atlantic in the early 17th century is a seminal, if often misunderstood episode of American and world history. The Pilgrims explores the forces, circumstances, personalities and events that converged to exile the English group in Holland and eventually propel their crossing to the New World; a story universally familiar in broad outline, but almost entirely unfamiliar to a general audience in its rich and compelling historical actuality. Includes the real history of the "first thanksgiving".

2175-thumbnail

Wirklich alles?! (2002)

272977-thumbnail

Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound (2009)

Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.

483826-thumbnail

No Greater Love (2017)

No Greater Love explores a combat deployment through the eyes of an Army chaplain, as he and his men fight their way through a hellish tour in one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan and then as they struggle to reintegrate home.

290404-thumbnail

Seems Like Only Yesterday (1971)

Interviews with a dozen California centenarians against a montage of present day media reportage.