Movies Similar to Guard of the Tree Spirit

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives(2010)

Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave—the birthplace of his first life.

Doi Boy(2023)

Sorn, an ethnic Shan sex worker, tries to build a future in Chiang Mai, Thailand, as a refugee far from home, but he is drawn into a complex relationship with one client, an investigator probing a political activist.

A Letter to Momo(2012)

A shy 11-year-old's life takes a strange turn when she discovers three hungry goblins living in the attic of her new house. She misses her old life. She misses her father so very much. Until she makes some new ghoulish friends.

Crocodile Dreaming(2006)

Crocodile Dreaming is a modern day supernatural myth about two estranged brothers, played by iconic Indigenous actors David Gulpill and Tom E. Lewis. Separated at birth, they have different fathers. One is readily accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe and is looked on to fulfill the duties of jungaiy, an important ceremonial role which obliges him to be caretaker for his mother's dreaming, the crocodile totem. The other, whose father was white, is younger and has had to struggle to fit into the tribe who see him only as a yella fella.

Mountain People(1979)

Customs of the mountain people has always been strict and respectful to themselves. Doing something wrong will be considered as being disrespect to the spirits. Marrying someone from a different tribe is also wrong. Giving birth to twins, she and her husband together with the kids will have to leave the tribe.

Sami Blood(2016)

Elle Marja, 14, is a reindeer-breeding Sami girl. Exposed to the racism of the 1930s and phrenological examinations at her boarding school, she starts dreaming of another life. To achieve this other life she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture.

The Rubber Tappers(2024)

In Ratanakiri, a province in the northeast of Cambodia, Khlek, an 11-year-old boy, lives on the rubber plantation where his parents work. Coming from the Kreung ethnic minority, they are tappers.

Els dies que no oblidarem(2020)

STEFAN [ʃteføn](2024)

Stefan is an Ikea chair belonging to a young couple who lost their dog last year. During yet another altercation, it decides to get involved.

Dragonfly

Nohemí and Mary are two women resisting structural violence in Ciudad Juárez. United by pain and hope, both mothers find inspiration to move their families forward. The dragonfly, a symbol they share, embodies their resilience and capacity for change.

The Children of Leningradsky(2005)

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home. They spend winter nights trying to stay warm by huddling together on hot water pipes and most of their days are spent begging. Andrej has found himself here because of disagreements with his family. Kristina was driven into this way of life by the hatred of her stepmother and twelve-year-old Roma by the regular beatings he received from his constantly drunk father. "When it is worst, we try to make money for food by prostitution," admits ...

Big Brother: A World Under Surveillance(2020)

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism or crime, the major powers have embarked on a dangerous race for surveillance technologies. Facial recognition cameras, emotion detectors, citizen rating systems, autonomous drones… A security obsession that in some countries is giving rise to a new form of political regime: numerical totalitarianism. Orwell's nightmare.

The Garbage Helicopter(2015)

Somewhere in Sweden, a gigantic dumpster breaks free from a heavy chain suspended underneath a big helicopter. The dumpster hits the ground with a formidable crash and the garbage spouts out into the surroundings. Meanwhile, an aging Roma woman wakes up in her house with an extremely strong desire to get her old wall clock back.

China: The Uighur Tragedy(2022)

A relentless chronicle of the tragedy of the Uighurs, an ethnic minority of some eleven million people who live in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, speak a Turkic language and practice the Muslim religion. The Uighurs suffer brutal cultural and political oppression by Xin Jinping's tyrannical government: torture, disappearances, forced labor, re-education of children and adults, mass sterilizations, extensive surveillance and destruction of historical heritage.

Ta'ang(2016)

The Ta'ang or Palaung people, an ethnic minority living in the mountainous area between Myanmar's Kokang region and China's Yunnan province, have historically suffered many forced migrations due to war. When their survival is threatened again in 2015, thousands of them flee across the border. Filmmaker Wang Bing accompanies them and becomes a privileged witness to a human story that is both a modern reportage and a mythical epic.

Living Art(2024)

The thousand-year-old tradition of pottery in the Indian subcontinent is now under threat. With the market being flooded with plastic in the evolution of civilization, today this Pal community is becoming displaced.

The Seer and the Unseen(2019)

A magic realist fable about invisible elves, financial collapse and the surprising power of belief, told through the story of an Icelandic woman - a real life Lorax who speaks on behalf of nature under threat.

Young Masters: Shibi(2021)

Young Masters is an original series commissioned by NOWNESS China focusing on traditional Chinese cultures, and how they continue to be defined by a new generation of the country's youth. High above the clouds in a village in Mao County in Sichuan Prefecture, a post-90’s generation of young cultural guardians work to uphold the values and traditions of ancient Qiang culture. These cultural guardians, known as a ‘Shibi’, remain especially vital for a culture whose knowledge and language exist merely through practice and in sound, and without script. The role of a Shibi involves that of a priest, alongside folk rap, singing, and dance performances, amongst others. As a result, Qiang people have endowed them with a sacred status, believing that they possess a psychic power.

In the Steps of Forgotten Peoples(2021)

Unustatud rahvad (1970 - 1989) by Estonian composer Veljo Tormas is based upon six Balto-Finnic peoples traditions. Collegium Musicale choir brought the songs to different sides of Baltic coasts to liven current citizens connections for fleeting past and strengthen their identity.

Stolen Ground(1993)

In US society, people of East Asian heritage are often perceived through an obscuring lens of ethnic and cultural stereotypes. In STOLEN GROUND, six Asian-American men talk about their experience of the highly racialized United States, and consider how racism has affected their lives and those of their family members.