Best movies like The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

The only way to change the world is to make a little noise.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble Starring Yo-Yo Ma, Kinan Azmeh, Kayhan Kalhor, Cristina Pato, and more. If you liked The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble then you may also like: The Ugly Dachshund, War Dance, Waterborne, The Necessities of Life, Mobile Étoile and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Follow several talented members of the ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution.

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The Ugly Dachshund

The Garrisons are the "proud parents" of three adorable dachshund pups - and one overgrown Great Dane named Brutus, who nevertheless thinks of himself as a dainty dachsie. His identity crisis results in an uproarious series of household crises that reduce the Garrisons' house to shambles - and viewers to howls of laughter!

War Dance

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

Waterborne

Heera Bhatti, an American-Sikh, runs a corner store in Los Angeles with the help of her son, Vikram, and Gulu. She does not approve of Vikram's Caucasian girlfriend, Lillian, and would prefer that Vikram marry a Punjabi girl, but Vikram has made up his mind. Then the lives of all Californians are turned upside down when one morning eight people are dead after drinking contaminated tap water.

The Necessities of Life

In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family

Nightmare

Clarinetist Stan has a nightmare about killing a man in a mirrored room. But when he wakes up and finds blood marks on himself and a key from the dream, he suspects that it may have truly happened.

Ordinary World

Perry is a happily married father of two living a comfortable but sedate life in the suburbs. On the occasion of his 40th birthday, he seeks to revisit his former life as the lead singer in a popular punk band though his middle-aged reality quickly (and hilariously) clashes with the indulgences of his youth.

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen

Based on the journal of Knud Rasmussen's "Great Sled Journey" of 1922 across arctic Canada. The film is shot from the perspective of the Inuit, showing their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. It tells the story of the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter; the shaman must decide whether to accept the Christian religion that is converting the Inuit across Greenland.

The Cheetah Girls

A four-member teen girl group named the Cheetah Girls go to a Manhattan High School for the Performing Arts and try to become the first freshmen to win the talent show in the school's history. During the talent show auditions, they meet a big-time producer named Jackal Johnson, who tries to make the group into superstars, but the girls run into many problems.

Eve and the Fire Horse

Eve is a precocious nine year-old girl with a wild imagination growing up in a traditional Chinese immigrant family in Vancouver where Confucian doctrines, superstitious obsessions and divine visions abound. When Buddhism and Catholicism are thrown into the mix, life for Eve and her 11-year-old prim and authoritative sister, Karena, escalates into a fantasia of catastrophe, sainthood and cultural confusion. The journey of a young girl and her sister striving to grow up in world where childhood is lonely and the world is full of wonder.

Stay Away, Joe

Joe Lightcloud persuades his Congressman to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so he and his father, Charlie, can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, then the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend, Bronc Hoverty, accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy plumbing and other home improvements for his stepmother.

The Song of Names

A man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.

Is Everybody Happy?

It is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist. The music for the film was written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke, except for "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy and "Tiger Rag". The film's title comes from Lewis's catchphrase "Is everybody happy?" The film's soundtrack exists on Vitaphone discs preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but the film itself is considered a lost film, according to the Vitaphone Project website. A five minute clip from the film can be found on YouTube.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

After bassist Jason Newsted quits the band in 2001, heavy metal superstars Metallica realize that they need an intervention. In this revealing documentary, filmmakers follow the three rock stars as they hire a group therapist and grapple with 20 years of repressed anger and aggression. Between searching for a replacement bass player, creating a new album and confronting their personal demons, the band learns to open up in ways they never thought possible.

Saving Face

A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.

Sparkle

Musical prodigy, Sparkle struggles to become a star while overcoming issues that are tearing her family apart. From an affluent Detroit area and daughter to a single mother, she tries to balance a new romance with music manager Stix while dealing with the unexpected challenges her new life will bring as she and her two sisters strive to become a dynamic singing group during the Motown-era.

Under the Cherry Moon

Two friends from Miami are in the French Riviera enjoying life by scamming money off of rich women. One day, they read about a young woman set to inherit $50 million from her father. At first, Tricky has Christopher Tracy talked into romancing her for her money, but in getting to know her, Christopher falls in love with her. This love comes between the brothers, and Tricky tells about the plan.

Smile

Introduced to a volunteer opportunity with the Doctor's Gift Program, Katie (Mika Boorem) signs up for a trip to China, where she meets Lin (Yi Ding), a girl with whom she shares a birthday. Lin has a facial deformity that discourages her from ever showing her face, but her friendship with Katie helps her start to see life in a new way.

Tyrel

Tyrel joins his friend on a trip to the Catskills for a weekend birthday party with several people he doesn’t know. As soon as they get there, it’s clear that (1) he’s the only black guy, and (2) it’s going to be a weekend of heavy drinking. Although Tyrel is welcomed, he can’t help but feel uneasy in “Whitesville.” The combination of all the testosterone and alcohol starts to get out of hand, and Tyrel’s precarious situation starts to feel like a nightmare.

The Little Colonel

After Southern belle Elizabeth Lloyd runs off to marry Yankee Jack Sherman, her father, a former Confederate colonel during the Civil War, vows to never speak to her again. Several years pass and Elizabeth returns to her home town with her husband and young daughter. The little girl charms her crusty grandfather and tries to patch things up between him and her mother.

My Last Day Without You

On a one-day business trip to New York, a German business executive falls in love with a singer-songwriter who exposes him to her Brooklyn world and emotions he's never experienced before.

Dim Sum Funeral

An Irish funeral has a wake. A Jewish funeral has sitting shiva. A traditional Chinese funeral is something else entirely. Thats what the estranged siblings of the Chinese-American Xiao family must undergo upon news of their mothers death. The one brother and three sisters dont get along, however they share one thing: hatred for their domineering and manipulative mother, the Dragon Lady."

Tokyo Idols

This exploration of Japan's fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.

Lou Reed's Berlin

Lou Reed recorded the album Berlin in 1973. It was a commercial failure. Over the next 33 years, he never performed the album live. For five nights in December 2006 at St. Ann's Warehouse Brooklyn, Lou Reed performed his masterwork about love's dark sisters: jealousy, rage and loss.

The Grace Lee Project

Filmmaker Grace Lee leaves her Missouri home to travel the country and talk with an array of women who share her name.

Beyond Paradise

Haunted by a tragic past, a stunning music student flees her homeland and ends up in an estranged marriage in Los Angeles, where her piano teacher's lover sparks a passion in her that threatens to destroy everything.

East Side Sushi

Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.

Angel and the Badman

A remake of the classic 1947 John Wayne western about an injured gunslinger who falls in with good company in the form of some Quakers.

Chasing Trane

An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose original, avant-garde work has impacted and influenced people all over the world. A story about music's ability to entertain, inspire and transform.

Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland

Based on the best-selling book, Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days, and told through the eyes of Jackson's trusted bodyguards, Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard. The movie will reveal firsthand the devotion Michael Jackson had to his children, and the hidden drama that took place during the last two years of his life.

Sam & Me

23-year-old Nikhil comes to Canada from India to find his fortune and is convinced by his uncle to work as a companion and care-giver to Sam, an elderly Jewish man. An unlikely friendship ensues, which gives both men new insight into life.

Paper Moon Affair

An enigmatic Japanese woman, abandoned by her wealthy Chinese husband in a remote Pacific Northwest village, becomes entwined in the lives of two rugged locals.

Birth of the Blues

Jeff grows up near Basin Street in New Orleans, playing his clarinet with the dock workers. He puts together a band, the Basin Street Hot-Shots, which includes a cornet player, Memphis. They struggle to get their jazz music accepted by the cafe society of the city. Betty Lou joins their band as a singer and gets Louie to show her how to do scat singing. Memphis and Jeff both fall in love with Betty Lou.

From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China

A beautiful expression of two differing cultures brought together by the warmth and dedication of a great musician and humanitarian. In 1979, as China re-opened its doors to the West, virtuoso Isaac Stern received an unprecedented government invitation to tour the country. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2000.

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