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American Studies

#Bars4Justice a.k.a. Bars4Justice
Queen Muhammad Ali & Hakeem Khaaliq
Producer: Nation19 Magazine (a Mobile Regime brand)
2015, 9 min., Color, US
On the one year anniversary of Mike Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, a benefit concert in commemoration of his life was organized by Hip-Hop and civil rights activists Common, Talib Kweli, Immorta...

139X (Newsreel #22)
San Francisco Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
25 min., BW, US
The film details the efforts of Berkeley students to develop support for a mass sit-in and a building take-over after the State Regents refused to allow Elridge Cleaver to teach Political Science 139X...

38 Families (Newsreel #?)
San Francisco Newsreel
25 min., BW, US

Against the Grain
Seyi Adebanjo & Betty Yu
2011, 6 min., Color, US
To break the mold of past documentaries about gender transformation, AGAINST THE GRAIN goes beyond the usual gender binary and linear racial focus. This short documentary follows the story of OluSeyi,...

All the Ladies Say
Ana Garcia
Producer: Ana "Rokafella" Garcia
2010, 45 min., Color, US
Veteran b-girl Ana "Rokafella" Garcia's first documentary film ALL THE LADIES SAY features the work of female breakdancers in the United States, including Aiko, Baby Love, Beta, Lady Champ, Severe and...

Animal Appetites
Michael Cho
1991, 18 min., Color, US
Michael Cho's biting critique on popular cultural stereotypes centers on the case of two Cambodian immigrants tried in California on charges of slaughtering their pet dog for food. Contrasting animal ...

Anomaly: A Documentary Film about Multiracial Identity
Jessica Chen Drammeh
Producer: Jessica Chen Drammeh & Sharon K. Smith
2013, 47 min., Color, US
ANOMALY is an award-winning documentary film that provides a thought-provoking look at multiracial identity by combining personal narratives with the larger drama of mixed race in American culture. Th...

April Film, The, a.k.a. Chicago, April 27th (Newsreel #13)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
25 min., BW, US
The Chicago police force, getting in shape for the violence of August, tests its cubs and mace against unsuspecting anti-war marchers. Made by Chicago Newsreel....

Army a.k.a. Army Film (Newsreel #36)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 18 min., BW, US
Shot in 1969, this film documents the building anger of draftees in the U.S.military, and the growth of the anti-war movement within the military. Soldiers are interviewed and seen as they face bruta...

Before David
Melissa Saucedo Gonzalez
Producer: Melissa Saucedo Gonzalez
2015, 20 min., Color, US
A short documentary film about pre-partum depression, its symptoms, and the difficulties it poses when a woman is going through extreme physical and emotional changes. The film reflects on the cons...

Berkeley Rebellion (Newsreel #20)
Producer: Newsreel
1968, 22 min., BW, US
Newsreel's short film shows two days of demonstrations in Berkeley over the issue of "the streets belong to the people" and the decision of the City Council to close off Telegraph Avenue for the 4th o...

Beyond the Bricks: A New Era of Education
Derek Koen
Producer: Ouida Washington
2010, 31 min., Color, US
BEYOND THE BRICKS follows African‐ American students Shaquiel Ingram and Erick Graham as they struggle to stay on track in the Newark public school system. Fifteen year‐old Shaquiel is a bright studen...

Black & White
Edgar Garcia Chavez
Producer: Edgar Garcia Chavez
2020, 5 min., Color, US
This experimental film dissects the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s definitions of the words "Black" and "White" – to prove how, historically, the meanings of both words have been ingrained with ver...

black enuf*
Carrie Hawks
2016, 23 min., Color, US
A queer oddball seeks approval from Black peers despite a serious lack of hip-hop credentials and a family that ‘talks white’. Carrie Hawks' quest for a Black Card (undeniable acceptance of my racial ...

Black Women, Sexual Politics and the Revolution
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1992, 29 min., Color, US
Black women speak candidly on issues of sex, class and gender roles. The video examines how African American women deal with issues of poverty, abortion, battering and lack of health care, and address...

Bobby Seale a.k.a. Interview with Bobby Seale (Newsreel #44)
San Francisco Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 15 min., BW, US
At the time of this moving prison interview, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale had faced a series of charges of conspiracy in connection with his involvement in the Black Liberation and Anti-wa...

Boston Draft Resistance Group a.k.a. BDRG (Newsreel #7)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1968, 18 min., BW, US
A profile of a grassroots anti-war group in Boston, this short film documents some of the tactics and activities used by draft resistance groups across the country during the Vietnam War. Using the l...

Break and Enter a.k.a. Squatters (Newsreel #62)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1971, 42 min., BW, US
This film captures the militant antecedents to today's housing reclamation movement in New York City. In 1970, several hundred Puerto Rican and Dominican families reclaimed housing left vacant by the ...

The Case Against Lincoln Center (Newsreel #17)
Newsreel
Producer: NEWSREEL
1968, 12 min., BW, US
More than 20,000 Latino families were displaced to make way for Lincoln Center, home to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Symphony. This film examines the patrons of art" complex (corporation...

Catching Babies: Celebrating the Power of Birth, Mothers and Midwives
Barni A. Qaasim
Producer: Jennifer Lucero
2011, 60 min., Color, US/Mexico
What if we could change the world by changing the way babies are born? Shot in El Paso, Texas, CATCHING BABIES tells the stories of mothers and midwives on the journey to bring life into the world. ...

Catonsville Nine (Newsreel #18)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
15 min., BW, US
Filmed in Baltimore during the support demonstrations for the nine catholics who were on trial for napalming the 1-A Draft files in Catonsville, Maryland. The film examines some relationships between ...

Changing Face of Harlem
Shawn Batey
Producer: Shawn Batey & Shaun Jaffier
2014, 62 min., Color, US
Told through the personal accounts of residents, business owners, politicians and real estate developers, CHANGING FACE OF HARLEM explores the drastic transformation of this historic neighborhood over...

Chicago (Newsreel #12)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
15 min., BW, US
As leaders of the Movement met in the relative calm of a Chicago suburb in March to plan the strategy for the summer, the empty streets of the city are waiting, and ominous. An inside look at some of ...

Childcare: People's Liberation (Newsreel #56)
Newsreel
1970, 20 min., BW, US
The film shows how community run childcare centers are a step toward liberation, by giving parents and children a chance to develop relationships with their peers and new relationships with each other...

Claiming Our Voice
Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel
Producer: Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel & Chitra Aiyar
2013, 21 min., US
CLAIMING OUR VOICE follows members of Andolan, a Queens-based organization founded and led by South Asian domestic workers as a means to support each other and collectively organize against exploitati...

Closer to the Dream (Long Version)
Guetty Felin & Hervé Cohen
2008, 102 min., Color, US
An electoral road movie about Barack Obama and the movement that united Americans across party, racial and ethnic lines. In 2008 Haitian-American filmmaker Guetty Felin, her husband, French filmmaker ...

Closer to the Dream (Short Version)
Hervé Cohen & Guetty Felin
2008, 54 min., Color, US
An electoral road move about Barack Obama and the movement that united Americans across party, racial and ethnic lines. In 2008 Haitian-American filmmaker Guetty Felin, her husband, French filmmaker H...

Color Schemes
Shu Lea Cheang
1989, 29 min., Color
COLOR SCHEMES uses the cycles of a generic laundromat washing machine as a metaphor to tackle misconceptions about racial assimilation. Twelve writers and performance artists from various cultural bac...

Columbia Revolt (Newsreel #14)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1968, 50 min., BW, US
In April 1968, black and white students rebelled against the university administration, occupying five buildings, including the president's office in one of the first campus revolts of the Civil Right...

Coming Full Circle: The Journey of a Korean Transgendered Adoptee
Larry Tung
2015, 24 min., Color, US/Korea
Pauline Park, a transgender rights activist in New York City, was born into a poor family in post-war Korea. Adopted by white American parents, she left Korea as a 7-month old baby boy and grew up in ...

Community Control (Newsreel #24)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 38 min., BW, US
This film documents one of the most important struggles for education in the sixties. In 1968, under intensive community pressure from Black and Latino communities, the State of New York chose three N...

Comrades
Edward Wong
1999, 26 min., Color, US
COMRADES is a personal documentary essay about two men who took part in the violent socialist struggles of the mid-20th century, only to face resistance and disillusionment. The producer's father, Yoo...

COVER/AGE
Set Hernandez Rongkilyo
Producer: California Immigrant Policy Center
2019, 24 min., Color, US
COVER/AGE examines the lack of healthcare access for undocumented immigrants in California, and how two undocumented individuals are advocating to fight this exclusion. One protagonist is Emma, an eld...

Cruisin' J-town
Duane Kubo
Producer: Visual Communications
1974, 24 min., Color, US
This is the story of the formation of the popular jazz fusion band, Hiroshima, in the late 70s. The musicians reflect on their culture, musical influences, and the political movements of the 1960's ou...

December 7/September 11
Ann Brandman & Paul Nishijima
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2001, 15 min., US
A comparison of how the events and possible after effects of September 11th may mirror those of the attack on Pearl Harbor. A collection of interviews with Japanese-American veterans who witnessed the...

Deported
Rachèle Magloire & Chantal Regnault
2012, 72 min., Color, Haiti
DEPORTED follows members of a unique group of men in Haiti: criminal deportees from North America. Since 1996, the United States has implemented a policy of repatriation of all foreign residents who h...

Desi Remix Chicago Style
Balvinder Dhenjan
1996, 46 min., Color, US/UK
Shot in Chicago and London this energetic documentary follows three very different Punjabi bands and their attempts to use their music as a bridge between the competing cultural influences of India an...

Doing What It Takes: Black Folks Getting and Staying Healthy
Donna Golden
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1994, 23 min., Color, US
Black communities are disproportionately affected by cancer, heart disease, low birth weight and infant mortality rates. Facing political, economic and racial barriers to good health, this video docum...

A Dream Is What You Wake Up From
Larry Bullard & Carolyn Y. Johnson
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1978, 50 min., Color, US
Originally released in 1978, A DREAM IS WHAT YOU WAKE UP FROM explores the role of Black families in American society. The everyday lives of three Black families with different approaches to their str...

E Minha Cara
Thomas Allen Harris
2001, 56 min., Color, US/Brazil
A mythopoetic feast of self-discovery that crosses three continents and three generations, E MINHA CARA traces the filmmaker's journey to Salvador Da Bahia, the African heart and soul of Brazil, as he...

The Earth Belongs to the People (Newsreel #57)
Newsreel
Producer: Boston Newsreel
1971, 17 min., BW, US
An analysis of the ecological crisis, this film dispells the myths that big business and big government had been telling the people about the global ecological crisis. Is there really over-population ...

Enemy Alien
Konrad Aderer
2011, 82 min., Color, US
ENEMY ALIEN is the gripping story of the fight to free Farouk Abdel-Muhti, a Palestinian-born human rights activist detained in a post-9/11 sweep of Muslim immigrants. Told through the eyes of the fil...

Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides
Lucy Craft, Karen Kasmauski & Kathryn Tolbert
2015, 26 min., Color, US
Three Japanese war brides trace their tumultuous journey to America as the young wives of US soldiers and civilians. Atsuko, Emiko and Hiroko were among tens of thousands of Japanese women who married...

Finding Common Ground in New Orleans
Walidah Imarisha
Producer: Phil Fivel Rothberg
2006, 23 min., Color, US
In this short documentary, activist and poet Walidah Imarisha travels to New Orleans and other neighboring towns shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. In her path she encounter grassroo...

Finding D-QU: The Lonely Struggle of California's only Tribal College
Chris Newman
Producer: Chris Newman
2010, 26 min., Color, US
In 2005, D-Q University, California’s only tribal college, was shut down after a 35-year struggle. Since then, the school’s board of trustees, past students, and community members have tried to reopen...

Foster Care Film Series: Volume 1
Yasmin Mistry
Producer: Yasmin Mistry
2017, 39 min., Color, US
In this award-winning collection, Charell, Ashley, and Camilla share their deeply personal stories about their experiences in the U.S. foster care system. Foster Care Film Series: Volume 1 celebrates ...

Four American Sailors a.k.a. Four Americans (Newsreel #3)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1967, 19 min., BW, Japan/US
An extended interview with the four American sailors who deserted in protest against the war in Vietnam in 1967. Filmed in Japan, the interviews reveal much about how they reached their decision to de...

Freckled Rice
Stephen C. Ning
Producer: Stephen C. Ning & Yuet-Fung Ho
1983, 48 min., Color, US
This is a story of Joe Soo, a 13-year-old boy coming of age and coming to terms with his Chinese America heritage in Boston during the 1960s. His Boston encompasses Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the Kennedy ...

From Spikes to Spindles
Christine Choy
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1976, 46 min., Color, US
This raw, gutsy portrait of New York's Chinatown captures the early days of an emerging consciousness in the community. We see a Chinatown rarely depicted, a vibrant community whose young and old join...

Garbage a.k.a. Garbage Demonstration (Newsreel #5)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1968, 10 min., BW, US
During a prolonged garbage collector's strike in New York City, a group of youths from the Lower East Side of Manhattan decide to use the situation to make a political statement. They collect garbage...

Gideon's Army
Dawn Porter
Producer: Julie Goldman
2013, 95 min., Color, US
GIDEON’S ARMY follows the personal stories of Travis Williams, Brandy Alexander and June Hardwick, three young public defenders who are part of a small group of idealistic lawyers in the Deep South ch...

The Haight a.k.a. The Streets Belong to the People (Newsreel #21)
San Francisco Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
6 min., BW, US
The San Francisco Haight community fights in the streets to defend their culture against brutal police oppression. Made by San Francisco Newsreel....

Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America
Eduardo López & Peter Getzels
Producer: Wendy Thompson-Marquez
2012, 90 min., Color, US
At a time of heated and divisive debate over immigration, HARVEST OF EMPIRE examines the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis we ...

Here to Stay
ManSee Kong
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2008, 7 min., Color, US
Illustrates the effects of gentrification in Manhattan’s Chinatown as an elderly man and fellow tenants in endangered single-room occupancy building await the results of an anti-eviction lawsuit. A TW...

Herman B. Ferguson, Candidate for U.S. Senate (Newsreel #15)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
12 min., BW, US
A film about Herman Ferguson, a candidate for the U.S. Senate on the Freedom and Peace ticket in the 1968 election....

Herstory (Newsreel #61)
Newsreel
9 min., BW, US
Through the use of a cranky, songs, rhythm, music and narration, the San Francisco Women's Street Theatre gives a short history of women's struggles from prehistory to the early 1970s....

High School Rising (Newsreel #38)
San Francisco Newsreel
15 min., BW, US
An analysis of how the schools by using the tracking system, exploit and oppress people in terms of class origins and how students can begin to organize....

Hiroshima Nagasaki Download
Shinpei Takeda
2010, 73 min., Color, US/Japan
In Spring of 2009, two former high school friends set out on a road trip from Vancouver, Canada, heading south towards the Mexican border. Along the way, they meet atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima a...

History Doesn’t Have to Repeat Itself
Stéphane Gérard
2014, 85 min., Color, France/US
Forty-three years after the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, filmmaker Stéphane Gérard travels to New York City in an attempt to find the activist community that was born out of this historical moment and to ...

Homes Apart: Korea
J.T. Takagi & Christine Choy
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1991, 56 min., Color, US/Korea
They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90's, as the rest of t...

I.S. 201 and Report from Newark (Newsreel #10)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
7 min., BW, US
Nine months after the riot. Malcolm X Memorial Services held at I.S. 201 in New York, March 1968, and scenes from Newark, March 1968....

The Imagined, the Longed-for, the Conquered and the Sublime
Roddy Bogawa
1994, 8 min., Color, US
The video is a collection of 'pure images' of landscape, redeeming these images for what they are. Taken, but unaltered, in the order they appear, from the films Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger ...

Imagining Place
Anita Chang
1999, 35 min., Color, US
For one year, with a curious eye and a curious mind, the filmmaker asks herself and a cross section of individuals, "What does belonging feel like in America?" Amidst increasing social, technological...

Imperialism U.S.A. (1776-1969) (Newsreel #?)
San Francisco Newsrel
Producer: Newsreel
50 min., BW, US
What the history books won't tell you... Analysis and highlights of the rapid and ruthless military and economic expansion of the United States. Who benefited and who suffered. Made by San Francisco N...

In a Perfect World…
Daphne McWilliams
Producer: Daphne McWilliams & Sam Pollard
2015, 76 min., US
IN A PERFECT WORLD… Explores all the requisite dynamics of what it is to be a man raised by a single mother. The inspiration for the film came from the director's own relationship with her son who has...

Inside Women Inside
Christine Choy & Cynthia Maurizio
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1978, 21 min., Color, US
This film exposes the daily humiliation regularly faced by women in U.S. prisons using firsthand accounts of inmates at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women and the Correctional Institute ...

Invisible Roots: Afro-Mexicans in Southern California
Tiffany Walton & Lizz Mullis
Producer: Tiffany Walton, Lizz Mullis & Richard Goldlander
2015, 21 min., Color, US
More than one million Mexicans are of African descent, yet this heritage is often forgotten, denied, and many times stigmatized, both in Mexico and in Chicanx communities in the United States. INVISIB...

Is There Anything Specific You Want Me to Tell You About?
Yau Ching
1991, 12 min., Color
Using a combination of dramatized footage, tourist video, old propaganda films and archival material to explore the nature of exile and the ambivalent longing for "home" which it produces....

Judith: Portrait of a Street Vendor
Zahida Pirani
2014, 17 min., Color, US
JUDITH: PORTRAIT OF A STREET VENDOR is a documentary short that takes the audience on an intimate journey into the daily life of Judith, a street vendor from Guatemala who lives and works in New York ...

Keep Saray Home
Brian Redondo
Producer: Brian Redondo, Bethany Li & Kevin Lam
2020, 31 min., Color, US
Far from the southern border, in the outskirts of Boston, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees are facing their own battle against family separation. ICE is detaining and deporting community members on a...

Ki-Hi-Ka Ste': Life of Chief George Tall Chief
Amy Tall Chief
2010, 63 min., Color, US
Ki-Hi-Ka Ste' is a heartfelt story of one man's journey through life, the many lives he impacted and the legacy that he will leave behind. At age 93, George Eves Tall Chief is currently the oldest me...

The KKK Boutique Ain't Just Rednecks (76 minutes)
Camille Billops & James Hatch
1994, 76 min., Color, US
Write Billops and Hatch: "Even as late as a hundred years ago, discrimination on the basis of race was considered a natural and even desirable trait for humans to possess. We Americans have tried to i...

The KKK Boutique ain't Just Rednecks: A Docu/Fantasy about Everybody's Racism
Camille Billops & James Hatch
1994, 60 min., Color, US
Write Billops and Hatch: "Even as late as a hundred years ago, discrimination on the basis of race was considered a natural and even desirable trait for humans to possess. We Americans have tried to i...

Lincoln Hospital (Newsreel #35)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1970, 11 min., BW, US
When a city-run health clinic in the South Bronx fails to meet the needs of the city, local residents and health workers force a strike and then run the clinic themselves....

Little Brother: Series
Nicole Franklin
Color, US
LITTLE BROTHER is a series of short documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look at B...

Little Brother: A Do Right Man (Chapter 3)
Jasmin Tiggett
Producer: Nicole Franklin, Epiphany, Inc.
2012, 17 min., Color, US
LITTLE BROTHER is a series of short documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look at B...

Little Brother: Manchild in the Promised Land (Chapter 5)
Nicole Franklin
Producer: Nicole Franklin & J. Tiggett
2015, 17 min., Color, US
LITTLE BROTHER: MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND is Chapter 5 of the film series that features young Black boys and their thoughts on Love. This chapter was filmed in Tucson, AZ, where the young men have...

Little Brother: The Street (Chapter 2)
Nicole Franklin
Producer: EPIPHANY Inc.
2012, 17 min., Color, US
LITTLE BROTHER is a series of 15-minute documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look ...

Little Immigrants
Sonia Fritz & Frances Lausell
2008, 42 min., Color, Mexico/US
LITTLE IMMIGRANTS is an insider's look into child smuggling captured from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. This documentary is a dramatic firsthand account of a family's journey to reunite after ...

Living Along the Fenceline
Lina Hoshino & Gwyn Kirk
Producer: Lina Hoshino, Gwyn Kirk & Deborah Lee
2012, 65 min., Color, US
LIVING ALONG THE FENCELINE tells the stories of seven grassroots women leaders from across the Pacific to Puerto Rico whose communities are affected by the U.S. military presence in their backyards. A...

Living Quechua
Christine Mladic Janney
2014, 18 min., Color, US
An uplifting journey through a diverse network of Quechua speakers and students in New York City, one Peruvian woman’s mission to revive her indigenous language becomes an inspiration for a historical...

Locations of the M/othership: Black Women as Fugitive Archetype of Resistance
Jamika Ajalon
2009, 20 min., Color/BW, UK/US
A live audio/visual installation using images of subversive and legendary Black women and excerpts from sci-fi films and TV series. Ajalon explores the intersection of Black women’s representations an...

Lockdown, USA
Michael Skolnik & Rebecca Chaiklin
2006, 84 min., Color, US
In 1973, New York State enacted the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which are the harshest drug control measures ever passed in any democratic nation. President Reagan declared the National “War on Drugs” in 1...

The Lower 9: A Story of Home (Long Version)
Matthew Hashiguchi
Producer: Matthew Hashiguchi & Elaine McMillion
2012, 50 min., Color, US
THE LOWER 9: A STORY OF HOME showcases six determined Lower Ninth Ward residents who share their most intimate stories of home, as they resume their lives years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged their n...

The Lower 9: A Story of Home (Short Version)
Matthew Hashiguchi
Producer: Matthew Hashiguchi & Elaine McMillion
2012, 20 min., Color, US
THE LOWER 9: A STORY OF HOME showcases four determined Lower Ninth Ward residents who share their most intimate stories of home, as they resume their lives years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged their ...

Maid to Stay
Aparna Talaulicar
1999, 30 min., Color, US
"Maid to Stay" is the story of four South Asian Women domestic workers in New York. Elizabeth has been sent back to India because her employers discover she's been talking to a women's group about ho...

Make-Out (Newsreel #49)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1970, 5 min., BW, US
As a young couple make out in a car, we hear the woman's stream of consciousness thoughts. She worries about her reputation and whether he'll try to "go all the way." This film is best used with dis...

Mark of a Man (Newsreel #28)
San Francisco Newsreel
20 min., BW, US
An anti-recruting film. How Army trains its men to fight against the people of Vietnam. Recent American veterans of the Vietnamese war describe their experiences. Made by San Francisco Newsreel....

Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing And The Fight For Fairness
Thomas Allen Harris
2011, 15 min., Color, US
A documentary that connects the Lesbian and Gay Marriage Equality movement with the Black Civil Rights Movement. This documentary interweaves archival footage and photos with contemporary intervie...

May Day Panther a.k.a. May Day (Newsreel #29)
San Francisco Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 15 min., BW, US
This film documents a rally in San Francisco sponsored by the Black Panther Party. Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, and other speakers addressed thousands of protesters demanding more rights for Africa...

Meat-Cooperative a.k.a 6th Street Meat Club, A (Newsreel #11)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
10 min., BW, US
Formed on the Lower East Side of New York to side step high prices, poor quality, and weight cheating of local supermarkets....

Medical Committee for Human Rights (Newsreel #40)
Newsreel
BW, US
The film shows the medical committees role during the long strike at San Francisco State College and the need for tactical knowledge of first aid as the student movement intensified....

Mill-In a.k.a. The Christmas Mill-In (Newsreel #6)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1968, 12 min., BW, US
In order to raise the consciousness of New Yorkers, anti-war demonstrators took to the streets on fashionable Fifth Avenue on Christmas eve. To the dismay of the shoppers, their action snarled traffi...

Mississippi Triangle (110 minutes)
Christine Choy, Worth Long & Allan Siegel
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1984, 110 min., Color, US
This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and whites live in a complex world of cotton, labor, and racial conflict. The history of the Chinese com...

Mohawk Nation
Allan Siegel
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1978, 45 min., Color, US
In 1974, a group of Mohawks reoccupied a part of their ancestral land and proclaimed it Ganienkeh. MOHAWK NATION, made in the mid-70s by the occupants themselves and the Third World Newsreel crew, is ...

Mott to Mulberry
Herman Lew
1992, 30 min., Color, US
A lighthearted but poignant story about a second generation Chinese American teenager named Conrad. Living in New York City's Chinatown, Conrad's attraction to a local Italian girl clashes with the cu...

Mouth Harp in Minor Key: Hamid Naficy In/On Exile
Maryam Sepehri
Producer: Maryam Sepehri
2017, 61 min., Color, US/Iran
For Iranian scholar Hamid Naficy, exile is like an elevator that runs between “two cultural poles, two memories, two lives.” Naficy belongs to the Iranian generation that lived through the modernizati...

Nas: Time Is Illmatic
One9 & Erik Parker
Producer: One9 & Erik Parker
2014, 74 min., Color, US
Twenty years after the release of Nas’s groundbreaking debut album ‘Illmatic,’ NAS: TIME IS ILLMATIC takes us into the heart of his creative process. Returning to his childhood home in Queensbridge, N...

The Nation Erupts
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Deep Dish TV, Black Planet Productions
1992, 60 min., Color, US
Focusing on nationwide responses in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. Grassroots producers across the country reflect on the media coverage of the resulting L.A. uprising and its aftermath. Communi...

NCZ Goes to War
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1992, 30 min., Color, US
An examination of the Persian Gulf anti-war movement and its scant coverage in the mainstream media. NCZ went out in the streets and documented the response from activists, demonstrators, journalists ...

No Game (Newsreel #2)
Marvin Fishman and Masanori Oe
Producer: Newsreel
1968, 17 min., BW, US
In October, 1967, 100,000 people marched on Washington to demand an end to the Vietnam War. Marvin Fishman and Masanori Oe with help from Jonathan Chernoble documented the event and later gave the f...

Of Kites and Borders
Yolanda Pividal
2014, 60 min., Color, US/Mexico/Spain
OF KITES AND BORDERS, winner of the Best Documentary Award at the San Diego Film Festival and the Havana Film Festival in New York, tells the story of the daily struggle to be a child living on the US...

One People
Al Santana
Producer: Laura L. Fowler & Al Santana
2007, 30 min., Color, US
Is everything political? Against the backdrop of a gentrified Harlem community, the story centers on two sisters who have opposite views about social responsibility and the role of artists. Aliyah, a ...

Only the Beginning (Newsreel #59)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1971, 20 min., BW, US
In April 1971, thousands of G.I.'s came to Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam War. They stood in front of the U.S. Capitol and threw away their medals. Told from the veterans' point of view, t...

The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn
Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas
2010, 52 min., Color/BW, US/Haiti
Part carnival, part vodou ceremony, and part grassroots protest, Haitian “Rara” is one of the most breathtaking and contested forms of music in the Americas. The Other Side of the Water follows a gro...

The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn (72)
Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas
2010, 72 min., Color/BW, US/Haiti
Part carnival, part vodou ceremony, and part grassroots protest, Haitian “Rara” is one of the most breathtaking and contested forms of music in the Americas. The Other Side of the Water follows a grou...

Our House: Lesbians and Gays in the Hood
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1993, 28 min., Color, US
Up front and in your face interviews with Black gays and lesbians provide an uncompromising look at homophobia, racism, alienation and empowerment for queer African Americans. This riveting documentar...

People's Park (Newsreel #33)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 25 min., BW, US
In the late 1960s the University of California at Berkeley began buying up and destroying a nearby area populated by hippies, the poor, and other members of the "counter culture". In retaliation, the ...

People's War (Newsreel #43)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 40 min., BW, US
This newly restored film records the mobilization and participation of the Vietnamese people in their country's fight against colonialism and foreign military aggression. Moving beyond the perception...

Photos of Angie
Alan Domínguez
Producer: Alan Domínguez, David Domínguez & Jennifer Warren
2011, 55 min., Color, US
In 2008, 18 year-old, Mexican-American Angie Zapata was found dead in her small apartment in Greely, Colorado. The media quickly reported that she was a typical teenager – she loved using her cell pho...

Pig Power (Newsreel #23)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
6 min., BW, US
As students take to the streets in New York and Berkeley, the state violence that follows illustrates Chicago Mayor Daley's thesis that the police are there "to preserve disorder"....

PRIMETIME: Fighting Back Against Foreclosure
Jennifer Fasulo & Manauvaskar Kublall
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2009, 23 min., Color, US
This timely film takes the viewer behind the foreclosure statistics and into the homes and hearts of two NYC women who have been pummeled by the foreclosure tsunami. It breaks down the complex issues...

El Pueblo se Levanta (Newsreel #63)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1971, 42 min., BW, US
In the late '60s, conditions for Puerto Ricans in the US reached the boiling point. Faced with racial discrimination, deficient community services, and poor education and job opportunities, Puerto Ric...

R.O.T.C. (Newsreel #34)
Newsreel
20 min., BW, US
An anti-ROTC film with data demonstrating university complicity with the military, what that military is used for and why the supposedly neutral universities want to keep ROTC on campus....

Race Against Prime Time
David Shulman
1985, 60 min., Color, US
An award winning documentary about TV news and racial conflict in Miami. In 1980, Arthur McDuffie, an African American community worker was brutally kicked, beaten and clubbed to death by Miami po...

A Refutation of Time
Dan Boord & Greg Durbin & Luis Valdovino
1997, 8 min., Color, US/Argentina
A student from the Large Midwestern Universe receives an unusual e-mail message in the Logic Lab. The communication concerns, the nature of time, tango singer Carlos Gardel, the humorist Will Rodgers,...

Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself.
Yvonne Welbon
1995, 30 min., Color, us/China
An autobiographical experimental documentary about the artist's experiences as an African-American woman living in Taiwan for six years. Recreations of time and place are presented through memories, h...

Resilience: Garment Workers
Betty Yu
2001, Color, US
Garment worker parents fight sweatshop conditions in New York City....

Resistance at Tule Lake
Konrad Aderer
Producer: Michelle Chen
2017, 78 min., US
The dominant narrative of the World War II incarceration of Japanese-Americans has been that they behaved as a “model minority,” that they cooperated without protest and proved their patriotism by enl...

Resist-Resistance a.k.a. Resist and the New England Resistance (Newsreel #8)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
10 min., BW, US
This film gives a general outline of the kinds of work being done in The Boston-Cambridge area by National Resist and the New England Resistance....

The Right to Vend
Naomi Abraham, Melissa Cox, Nseabasi Esema, Mtume Gant, Cynthia Wright, Henrietta Yuki
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2016, 10 min., Color
There are as many as 20,000 street vendors in New York City including hot dog vendors, flower vendors, t-shirt vendors, street artists, food trucks and many others. This short documents the inspiratio...

Riot-Control Weapons (Newsreel #9)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
6 min., BW, US
A visual presentation of some of the weapons that the police were using in uprisings around the country in the late 60s....

Salty Dog Blues
Al Santana & Denise B Santiago
2012, 52 min., Color/BW, US
SALTY DOG BLUES features a group of men and women of color who served in the United States Merchant Marine from 1937 – 1989. This nine-year project examines their development as a multi-racial and int...

San Francisco State: On Strike a.k.a. San Francisco State Sit In (Newsreel #26)
San Francisco Newsreel
1969, 25 min., BW, US
A documentary of the now famous San Francisco State strike of 1968-69. This film shows the role the tracking system played in determining the quality of education provided to children of working-clas...

She's Beautiful When She's Angry (Newsreel #48)
Newsreel
1969, 17 min., BW, US
This film documents a play given at the March 28th, 1969 abortion rally by some very angry women. A beauty contestant is primed by her mother, her teacher, her boyfriend, an ad man, and a capitalist f...

Los Siete de la Raza (Newsreel #39)
San Francisco Newsreel
30 min., BW, US
A film about the oppression of the Latino community, living in the Mission district of San Francisco. It deals specifically with the case of the seven brothers (Los Siete) who have been accused, tried...

Splash!
Thomas Allen Harris
1991, 10 min., Color, US
SPLASH is a fable-like tale of memory and emotion. Using a range of techniques, it deftly explores the interplay between identity, fantasy, gender, homosexual desire and pre-adolescence. These forces ...

Stories Within: A Film by the Austin Asian American Community
PJ Raval
Producer: Hanna Huang & Andrew Lee
2022, United States
Stories Within delves into a diverse cross section of 14 individuals from the AAPI community in Austin. It allows each participant the opportunity to speak to their younger selves about the acts of ra...

A String of Pearls
Camille Billops & James Hatch
2002, 56 min., Color, US
With this film, Camille Billops completes her family's trilogy - three documentaries that cover more than thirty years: "Suzanne Suzanne", shown in the New Director's series at the Museum of Modern Ar...

Summer '68 (Newsreel #505)
Norman Fruchter & John Douglas
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 60 min., BW, US
This documentary provides an in-depth examination of protest activities surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It documents draft resistance, the growth of G.I. coffee houses, the...

Take Your Bags
Camille Billops
1998, 11 min., Color, US
"My take on slavery: When the Africans boarded the ships bound for America, they carried in their bags all their memories of home. When they arrived in the New World, their bags had been switched, and...

The Throwaways
Bhawin Suchak & Ira McKinley
Producer: Bhawin Suchak & Ira McKinley, Executive Producer: Sam Pollard
2014, 62 min., Color, US
THE THROWAWAYS is a personal exploration of the devastating impact of police brutality and mass incarceration on the black community told through the eyes of formerly incarcerated activist Ira McKinle...

Tongues of Heaven
Anita Chang, An-Chi Chen, Leivallyn Kainoa Kaupu, Monica Hau‘oli Waiau & Shin-Lan Yu
2013, 60 min., Color, US/Taiwan
Set in Taiwan and Hawai‘i, territories where the Austronesian family languages are spoken, TONGUES OF HEAVEN focuses on the questions, desires and challenges of young indigenous peoples to learn the l...

Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles
Seyi Adebanjo
2013, 7 min., Color, US
TRANS LIVES MATTER! JUSTICE FOR ISLAN NETTLES is a powerful and moving document of a community vigil for Islan Nettles, a Transgender Womyn of Color who was beaten to death in front of a New York Poli...

Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela
Thomas Allen Harris
Producer: Thomas Allen Harris
2005, 73 min., Color, US
In the wake of his stepfather’s death, Thomas Allen Harris embarks on a journey of reconciliation with the man who raised him as a son but whom he could never call "father." As part of the first wave ...

Union a.k.a. Oil Strike a.k.a. Richmond Oil Strike (Newsreel #25)
San Francisco Newsreel
20 min., BW, US
January '69, oil workers in Northern California struck, and for the first time, students at San Francisco State and University of California were asked to join the union in the struggle. This action a...

United Front Against Racism (Newsreel #37)
Newsreel
20 min., BW, US
A report on the 3-day conference called by the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, in July 1969. The film emphasizes the nature of developing Fascism in the U.S., covering Imperialism, Capital...

Unspoken
Patrick G Lee
2020, 17 min., Color, US
Through letter-writing, a community discussion, and a drag performance, six queer and trans Asian Americans grapple with their queerness and consider what family acceptance might look like. UNSPOK...

Venceremos Brigade (Newsreel #?)
Newsreel
20 min., BW, US
A film shot in Cuba in 1970-1971 about two brigades of 500 Americans that went to Cuba in order to show support by breaking the blockade and to help with the sugar harvest of ten million tons. This is...

Voces de Fillmore
Ariana Allensworth, Teresa Basilio & Regina Eaton
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2015, 19 min., Color, US
This documentary traces the memories and experiences of families living on one block located in South Williamsburg, a Brooklyn neighborhood that is affectionately known by long time residents as South...

Voices of the Gods
Al Santana
Producer: Al Santana
1985, 60 min., Color, US
This documentary captures the rich legacy of ancient African religions practiced today in the United States. It provides viewers with rare insight into the practices and beliefs of the Akan and Yoruba...

War for Guam
Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Producer: Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Baltazar B. Aguon, Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Cristine Borja Sumbi, Beni Matías
2015, 57 min., Color, US
WAR FOR GUAM is a 57-minute film about World War II and its enduring legacy in Guam, a U.S. territory since 1898. The film tells the extraordinary story of how the Native people of Guam, the Chamorros...

Wave: A True Story in Hip Hop
Tony Wesley & Brian Bullock
Producer: Tony Wesley & Brian Bullock
2016, 46 min., Color, US
See how the legendary Tony "Mr. Wave" Wesley went from a kid in the Bronx to an international B-Boy superstar to entrepreneur and activist. This film includes never before seen archival pictures and i...

A Week with Azar
Tara Najd Ahmadi
Producer: Jurij Meden and Tara Najd Ahmadi
2018, 11 min., Color, US
A Week with Azar is a short experimental documentary film, based on a true story of Azar, an Iranian computer engineer living in the United States, who in the winter of 2017 failed to see her ill sist...

Whatever It Takes
Christopher Wong
2011, 92 min., Color, US
WHATEVER IT TAKES chronicles the struggles and triumphs of the very first year of the Bronx Center for Science & Mathematics, an innovative public high school in New York City. At the Bronx Center ...

Wilmington (Newsreel #30)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1970, 15 min., BW, US
This documentary is about a "company town." The DuPont family controls the state of Delaware as if it were a private kingdom through the giant DuPont Corporation. Their normal image as benevolent, p...

The Woman's Film (Newsreel #55)
Newsreel
Producer: Women's Caucus--San Francisco Newsreel
1971, 40 min., BW, US
Produced collectively by women, this documentary is a valuable historical document of the origins of the modern women's movement in the United States. The film delves into the lives of ordinary women ...

The Wreck of the New York Subways (Newsreel #47)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 15 min., BW, US
During the winter of 1969, the New York Transit Authority increased the public transportation fee fare from 20 cents to 30 cents--a 50% increase. Infuriated riders scrambled under turnstiles and throu...

X 1/2: The Legacy of Malcolm X
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1994, 45 min., Color, US
Set within the context of current African American struggles, this video examines the historical and contemporary legacies of Malcolm X. Using mixed media and experimental audio, X & 1/2 explores Blac...

Yanqui Walker and the Optical Revolution
Kathryn Ramey
2009, 33 min., Color, US/Nicaragua
This film explores a now-obscure American expansionist, William Walker, who through military force and coercion became president of Nicaragua in 1856. Walker was one of many expansionists who believed...


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TWN acknowledges that in New York we are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee peoples and challenges the harm that continues to be inflicted upon Indigenous and People of Color communities here and abroad, which is why we all need to be part of the struggle for rights, equality and justice.

TWN is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Color Congress, MOSAIC, New York Community Trust, Peace Development Fund, Humanities NY, Ford Foundation, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and individual donors.