Pete and Toshi Get a Camera

Folk legend Pete Seeger was sentenced to prison in the United States in the 1950s on suspicions of communism. His passport was confiscated and he was forbidden to perform. While out on parole he therefore bought a 16mm camera and started filming his family, friends and fellow musicians.
Having completed his sentence, he decided to spend a year travelling the world with his wife Toshi and their three children, Mika, Tinya and Daniel. He took the camera with him to record the world’s music in sound and pictures. They eventually passed through 28 countries, building up a collection of black-and-white photo postcards showing a global diversity of wonderful sounds, rhythms and tones.
Filmmaker William Eigen combines Seeger’s material with recent interviews with the family. The simple narrative structure creates a universal document of their trip, fifty years later. However diverse music may be, it brings worlds together: and in this case, a family too.

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