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Yasha Aginsky

Yasha Aginsky

Editing

Biography

Documentary filmmaker and film teacher, Yasha Aginsky lives and works in San Francisco. During his career as a director and editor, his work has twice been nominated for Academy Awards (1986, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and 1991, Forever Activists) and the films he has produced with his wife, Carrie D'Inzillo Aginsky, have won awards in many festivals including Cine International, American Film Festival, National Educational Media Network, Silver Images in the USA and at the Bilan de film ethnographique, Paris. Since 1997, Yasha and Carrie have made Full Circle; Bratsch at Work (Rendez-Vous avec Bratsch); Wine From the Heart (Les Raisins du Coeur); Wine From the Rhone (Vins du Rhone), and Yasha has made Always Been a Rambler (produced by The Arhoolie Foundation). He was also the editor of Outsider, The Life and Art of Judith Scott (Betsy Bayha) and of Granny D Goes to Washington (Alidra Solday).

Known For

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4.4

Max can't face his yuppie future. Graduation's only weeks away and he's having second thoughts. Inspired by the campus radio station, he decides to get a little crazy.

A Matter of Degrees

1991
Diesel
5.1

A prostitute, released from prison, tries to change her life, but a murderous slave organization, the Consortium, is determined to bring her back to the fold or kill her, which forces her to seek help from Liberty, an anti-Consortium group.

Diesel

1985
Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey
N/A

This award-winning PBS documentary sweeps viewers into a seafaring adventure with a community of Polynesians, as they build traditional sailing canoes, learn how to follow the stars across the open ocean, and embark upon a 2,000-mile voyage in the wake of their ancestors.

Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey

1999
Our Nazi
8.7

In Our Nazi, we are plunged into a situation we barely, and only slowly, understand: the filming of Thomas Harlan’s experimental feature Wundkanal (1984), in which true-life ex-SS officer Alfred Filbert, now very old, is ‘put on trial’ for the camera, without him suspecting what is to come or why he is really there. Kramer’s confronting film is an essay about the sticky complicity of everyone present at this event, each bringing their own history, their own political ideology, their own desires to take revenge, to seek redemption or compassion, or just to put their heads down and ‘get the job done’ professionally, or (in the case of Filbert) to be a star, a part of the magnificent, magical, seductive world of cinema, even if it kills him.

Our Nazi

1984
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
6.3

1985 Argentine documentary film directed by Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

1985
Always Been a Rambler
N/A

A film by Yasha Aginsky This hour-long documentary celebrates fifty years of the New Lost City Ramblers (Mike Seeger, John Cohen, Tracy Schwarz and Tom Paley.) Among the first urban musicians to seriously pursue the old-time music traditions of the American South, the New Lost City Ramblers became stars of the 1960s folk revival, appearing at Newport Folk Festival and touring widely in the U.S. and Europe. They inspired generations of younger musicians to explore America’s traditional music, from elder statesman Bob Dylan to banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck to the contemporary African-American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, all of whom participated in the film. ALWAYS BEEN A RAMBLER reveals the Ramblers as musicologists as well as expert musicians, showing them side-by-side with traditional musicians including Dock Boggs, Maybelle Carter, and Doc Watson.

Always Been a Rambler

2020
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8.0

An overview of waldorf education from the Sacramento Waldorf School.

Educating For Life

1988
Banjo Tales
N/A

In 2009, filmmaker Yasha Aginsky accompanied the great old-time musician Mike Seeger and his wife Alexia on recording trips through the Southeastern United States, documented by Yasha and his assistant, Slava Basovich. A tireless collector, performer and advocate of old-time music and musicians, Mike was on a mission to record a survey of contemporary traditional-style banjo playing.

Banjo Tales

2012
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N/A

A history of rural southeastern traditional American music, as told and played by Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard. Mike and Alice recount their own involvement with this music, and briefly trace its history as we meet their mentors: the late Tommy Jarrell, Lily May Ledford, Roscoe Holcomb, Elizabeth Cotton and many other musicians. Filmed in 1978 and 1979 in the states of Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Washington and California, the film follows Mike and Alice home, and to folk music festivals where a new generation of musicians are picking up and passing on American traditional music. The filmmaker grew up with this rich and beautiful music and wanted to share it with younger generations who might not be aware of it and its role in American cultural history.

Homemade American Music

1980
Cowboy Poets
10.0

American cowboys have been writing poetry for over a century. This little-known literary tradition both belies the macho image of the Western heroes and serves as an imaginative form of oral history. Cowboy Poets travels to the big sky country of Nevada, Montana, and Arizona to explore the tradition and to introduce three working cowboys, and the poetry they write about the lifestyle and land they love: Waddie Mitchell, Slim Kite, and Wally McRae.

Cowboy Poets

1988
Spirit of the Land: Hawai'i: Continuing Traditions
N/A

The Hawaiian people have a rich historical and cultural tradition. Their values, art, music, gods and legends reach back thousands of years to ancient Polynesia, where they lived before sailing to the islands we know as Hawai‘'i. Recently, there have been efforts to revitalize these traditions and teach them to young Hawaiians. Hawai'i: Continuing Traditions looks at ways in which the “"spirit of the land" lives today, as we explore special places, where old ways are thriving in the modern world. Visit a working taro plantation in Maui and an isolated fishing village on the isalnd of Hawai‘'i. Discover how a small community in Kaua‘'i creates beautiful shell necklaces, and voyage back in time on an ancient Polynesian sailing canoe.

Spirit of the Land: Hawai'i: Continuing Traditions

1985
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N/A

Presents a glimpse of Waldorf principles through scenes filmed at the San Francisco Waldorf Kindergarten.

Our School

1981