Joyeuse année du lapin d’eau !

Le Nouvel an chinois est à la fois une grande réunion de famille à laquelle sont associés les ancêtres, un hommage aux dieux du ciel et un exorcisme au cours duquel on chasse l'ancien pour accueillir le nouveau. Patrice Fava, qui vit en Chine depuis plus de vingt ans, nous fait partager les rites domestiques célébrés dans sa famille chinoise selon les coutumes du pays de Confucius, puis la ferveur des habitants de Pékin qui vont rendre un culte aux divinités taoïstes du Monastère des…

Stellar cults are still very much alive in Taoism, in particular the one dedicated to Doumu, which is the personification of the most important celestial constellations: Ursa Major. Its cult developed during the Tang dynasty in the 9th century, and it occupies nowadays a central place in the liturgy of the monks from the “Absolute Perfection Order”.

Protected by the topography, mountain valleys have always been diverse places for plants, animals, and even languages. In the foothills of the Himalayas lies the Yongning Plain, known locally as the "Central Plain": home of the Na culture. Alexis Michaud, a linguist at the CNRS, has been studying the Na language for over 10 years. Year after year, he has been welcomed by numerous family members of Tashi, an anthropologist and linguist specialising in the Na culture. …

Portrait de Pauline Sebillaud, lauréate de la Médaille de Bronze 2020 du CNRS, chercheuse en archéologie au Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l'Asie orientale, spécialisée en archéologie de la Chine ancienne et médiévale.

Man has always been intrigued by what he cannot see. This search for the invisible is also of interest to archaeologists. Photographs of objects, of tombs, of sarcophagi, of mummies all leave us imagining what visual elements have disappeared. Nowadays, certain photographic and image processing techniques can make visible that which had disappeared centuries ago. Using black light and then intricate exploitation of digital photography, the walls of the catacombs of Kom el-Shougafa in Alexandria…

For the first time, this film tells the story of the great adventure of lacquer, the eminent technique that has existed in Asia for over 9,000 years. From lacquer trees to synthetic lacquer, Japanese Wajima bowls to mass-produced furniture in China, and polished lacquer paintings in Vietnam, craftsmen, artists and scientists illustrate the different faces of these objects which have become works of art.

The findings of a Franco-Chinese research mission on the geological history of the Himalayas and Tibet (connected with the collision between two continents), with the observations that brought the facts to light.

In the southern province of Guangxi, in the south of the People's Republic of China, the shamans of the Nung people practice shamanistic rituals daily in order to restore ecological, biological, and social balance. On the first day of each lunar month, Along, a famous shaman and soothsayer, is visited by many people seeking divination. He uses the techniques of Taoism to deal with more benign maladies. When he encounters a serious case, he visits the home of the person in question, in this…

In September 1998, a group of fifty or so researchers and technicians from France and China met together in Gonghe, a tiny hamlet to the north of the Tibetan highlands, to carry out one of the most extensive seismological studies ever organized in China, the observation of a 1000-km long section of the earth's crust.

In the Fujian province in China, live the Hakka people, who consider themselves as the most authentic representatives of the Chinese culture and traditions. They live in round or squared huge fortresses, which are built in accordance to the canons of the Chinese geomancy.

Ethnologist and film-maker Patrice Fava has sought out surviving traditions - mainly of Taoist origin - in China.

On the occasion of the publication of his book on the Tibetan medical system, Dr. Fernand Meyer talks about the close link between a traditional medicine and the culture that produced it.

Shadow theatre, Chaozhui stick puppets, Guangdong rod puppets, Fujian and Taiwan glove puppets and string puppets, presenting opera performances.