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Criminal Justice & Prisoners' Rights

#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...

amBUSHed
Jared Katsiane
1992, 12 min., BW, US
This beautifully shot film depicts the brutal and daily occurance of police violence. AMBUSHED uses experimental narrative techniques to delve into the life and consciousness of two generations of Afr...

Arizona : Resisting SB 1070 Immigration Law
Producer: NDLON, NDWA & Puente Movement
2011, 60 min., Color, US
These four videos document the impact of SB 1070 and other immigration policies on the lives of immigrant families in Arizona, and the growing national efforts to end these violations of human and civ...

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 ...

Corrections
Ashley Hunt
2001, 59 min., Color, US
CORRECTIONS is a documentary about private prisons. A story of justice turned to profit, it presents the new investors in the "war on crime": venture capital and for-profit prisons. With the highest i...

Daughters of Mother India
Vibha Bakshi
Producer: Vibha Bakshi & Maryann De Leo
2013, 45 min., Color, India
DAUGHTERS OF MOTHER INDIA reveals the aftermath of the horrific rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in December 2012. For weeks, mass protests filled the streets of India and 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...

Dreams Inside and Out
Sylvie Thouard
1990, 52 min., Color, US
The Family, a repertory theater company composed of former inmates and actors, and born in the aftermath of the 1971 Attica uprising, is well-known for Miguel Piñero's play SHORT EYES, winner of the B...

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...

Farouk Abdel Muthi: Political Prisoner
Konrad Aderer
2003, 9 min., Color, US
The late Farouk Abdel-Muhti was born in Ramallah, Palestine in 1947. His mother died when Israeli Occupation forces refused to let his family through a checkpoint to reach a hospital. He came to the U...

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...

I Won't Drown On That Levee and You Ain't Gonna Break My Back
Ashley Hunt
Producer: The Corrections Documentary Project
2006, 30 min., Color, US
I WON'T DROWN... began with an invitation to travel to New Orleans as part of a delegation to investigate what actually happened at the Orleans Parish Prison during and after Hurricane Katrina. What c...

In the Event Anyone Disappears
Allan Siegel
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1974, 25 min., Color, US
This documentary examines conditions faced by US prisoners in the early 70s, conditions that have remained virtually unchanged until today. Shot inside men's maximum-security prisons in Trenton and Ra...

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 ...

Jails, Hospitals, and Hip Hop
Mark Benjamin & Danny Hoch
2000, 90 min., US
From the mind of Brooklyn actor, performance artist and Hip-Hop activist Danny Hoch, this film spins out the stories of ten lives shocked by global Hip-Hop, the prison system and life in general. Movi...

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...

Lockdowns Up
Ashley Hunt
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2001, 8 min., Color, US
A frightening look at the potentials that privatized prisons see for their industry following the policy shifts after September 11th. A corporate conference call from one of the leading correctional ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The Survivor’s Project: Voices from the Inside-Out!
Cabral Larc Trotman
2007, 45 min., Color, Canada
THE SURVIVOR'S PROJECT: VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT! explores the traumatic impact and implications of gun violence on young people, and young black men in particular, living in low-income, racialized ...

Teach Our Children
Christine Choy & Susan Robeson
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1972, 35 min., BW, US
This film focuses on the historic 1971 Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York. It targets the conditions that caused prisoners to take drastic steps toward securing their basic rights. The film...

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...

To Love, Honor & Obey
Christine Choy & Marlene Dann
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1980, 55 min., Color, US
This film explores the social, psychological and cultural factors that contribute to violence against women regardless of ethnicity or economic background. Survivors, safe house administrators, counse...

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...

Waiting for Mercy: The Case against Mohammed Hossain and Yassin Aref
Ellie Bernstein
Producer: Tony Grocki
2009, 68 min., Color, US
Were these two Muslim men who had no prior criminal history set-up to appear as criminals or were they possible terrorists? This documentary tells the story of a fictitious FBI plot in Albany New...

We Demand Freedom
Allan Siegel
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1974, 55 min., Color, US
This film traces the development of prison philosophy; how prisons have been used historically and their function today. From the period of the slave trade through the mid-70s, this film shows how the...


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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.

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