Les Blank Movies

Conjoined fables are told, one Japanese, the other African, a ghost story colliding with farcical folklore.

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

Les Blank's poetic documentation of 1967's Los Angeles Easter Sunday Love-In. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2002.

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

Oakland bluesman Sonny Rhodes sings “Cigarette Blues”: a musical warning that compares cigarette smoking with playing with a loaded gun.

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

The definitive film on the history of the toe-tapping, foot-stomping music of French Southwest Louisiana. Includes many Cajun and Zydeco greats,...

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

Les Blank's first documentary cinematography job shooting Drag Racers in Long Beach, CA, driving everything from hopped up "Mercs" to Supercharged...

During the 1990s, David Lee Hoffman searched throughout China for the finest teas. He's a California importer who, as a youth, lived in Asia for...

When you think of Latin percussion, think of Francisco Aguabella. Perhaps the finest Afro-Cuban master percussionist still living, he has become...

A lyrical recreation of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ decision at age eight to stop chopping cotton and start singing for a living. Preserved by...

In the year 2000, Les Blank, along with co-filmmaker Gina Leibrecht, visited Richard Leacock (1921-2011) at his farm in Normandy, France and recorded...

A warmly amusing look at a bus-full of American tourists on a whirlwind tour of Europe. The eclectic soundtrack includes Mozart, Bob Dylan, Sandy...

Legendary filmmaker Les Blank's toe-tapping film treats us to a portrait of a musical Louisiana couple committed to celebrating and preserving Cajun...

The Ways of Water was made with the Earth Science Curriculum Project and the Environmental Studies Project of the American Geological Institute. A...

Les Blank's first student film, made while at USC, starring Gail Blank, Pieter Van Deusen and Les himself. This short pays homage to Ingmar Bergman's...

Huey Lewis And The News: BEFORE! follows one of the world’s top rock-and-roll bands of the 80’s and a crew of fifty technicians to the...

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

One of Les Blank's student films: a horror film following a young couple.