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Poverty & Economic Issues

Birth of a Nation: 4*29*1992
Matthew McDaniel
1993, 60 min., Color, US
After criminal charges were dropped against four Los Angeles police officers accused in the brutal beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles erupted. This video offers a rare view of the rebellion that bega...

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...

Boom: The Sound of Eviction
F. Cavanaugh, A. Mark Liiv & A. Wood
2002, 96 min., Color, US
With visions of instant wealth during the dot-com boom, the world largely ignored the disastrous tidal wave of gentrification that came with the new industry that has changed the city's landscape fore...

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 ...

Call For Change Series 2005
Various
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 133 min., Color, US
A series of 16 shorts on how NYC communities of color view their "State of America" and what they're doing to make changes. These shorts aim to provoke discussion and more. Topics range from the cont...

Los Cartoneros
Michael McLean
2006, 26 min., Color, US/Argentina
Juanchi, a 21-year-old from a small town outside Buenos Aires, supports himself and his family by digging through trash. Six days a week, he roams the street of the Argentine capital in search of card...

Chircales
Marta Rodríguez & Jorge Silva
1971, 42 min., BW, Colombia
This film portrays the life of a family of brick makers in the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia, documenting the personal experience of the Castañeda family to expose the exploitation of manual laborers....

Chronicle of Hope: Nicaragua
Allan Siegel
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1985, 50 min., Color, US/Nicaragua
Narrated by American documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio, this is an intimate look at a journey made by ordinary Americans to provide humanitarian aid to Nicaragua during the U.S.- sponsored contra...

Diabetes: Notes from Indian Country
Beverly Singer
Producer: Beverly Singer
2000, 30 min., Color, US
In 1993, the U.S. Public Health/Indian Health Service reported that 40% of all persons, 40 years and older, residing on American Indian reservations are diabetic. This video visits the Winnebago Indi...

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...

Echando Raices
J.T. Takagi
Producer: The American Friends Service Committee/Rachel Kamel/Third World Newsreel
2002, 60 min., Color, US
Made in collaboration with local community groups, this three part documentary looks at the lives and struggles of a range of immigrant and refugee communities. In the Central Valley of California, m...

Environmental Racism
Ada Gay Griffin & Kenyatta Fuderburk
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1990, 60 min., Color, US
In two 30 minute programs that combine footage from over 20 sources, this tape focuses on educating and organizing disadvantaged communities to act on environmental issues and conditions affecting the...

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...

Floristas
Ruben Gonzalez
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
1995, 18 min., Color, US
Floristas are immigrant flower vendors who scratch out a living by hawking their wares on the streets of New York City. Gonzalez depicts a world where survival depends on not only selling your wares,...

Food, Water, Revolution
Danya Abt
2006, 13 min., Color, US
In March 2006, Veterans Against the Iraq War organized a march from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans in support of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Did you see any media coverage of this event? Neither...

Fresh Seeds in The Big Apple
Allan Siegel & Maureen Sherlock
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1976, 25 min., Color, US
Made in cooperation with the parents and workers of two publicly funded daycare centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn, this historical Third World Newsreel production -- FRESH SEEDS IN THE BIG APPLE -- as...

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...

He Wo Un Poh: Recovery in Native America
Beverly Singer
1994, 54 min., Color, US
A critical look at the effects of alcoholism on Native American communities. Singer, a member of the Santa Clara Tewa Pueblo, introduces us to the experiences of seven Native Americans on the road to...

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 ...

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....

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...

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....

My Life, Our Struggle
Suzana Amaral
1979, 43 min., Color, Brazil
On the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, a group of poor women decided to organize their community to improve the conditions of poverty in which they lived. Grupo de Maes de Vila Campo Li...

N.O. East
Mary Beth Black
2005, 9 min., Color, US
Two months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes and communities in 2005, residents of New Orleans East are willing to rebuild their neighborhood with the support of city and federal agencies....

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...

No Time to Lose
Allan Siegel & Patricia Benoit
1988, 28 min., Color, US
Average New Yorkers describe their childhood experiences as "carefree", and "lots of fun and games". But 40% of all Black children and 50% of all Hispanic children in New York City live below the nat...

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...

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...

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...

Remembering Jason
Nashid Fareed
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2000, 24 min., Color, US
Dedicated to "those we have lost to needless violence", REMEMBERING JASON portrays the lives of those connected to him. After living what could be termed a normal life--school, sports, music--Jason Th...

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...

Stubborn City
Pooja Rangan
2006, 9 min., Color, India/US
In 2005, 8 feet of rain fell in Bombay, India in one day. This poetic piece highlights the resilience of the impoverished neighborhoods of this ancient city that were most affected, and how people su...

Suburban Route/Rota ABC
Francisco Cesar
1991, 11 min., Color, Peru
This moving poetic essay looks at the survivors of the "Brazilian Miracle", the second and third generations in Sao Paulo to grow up after the promise and disappointment of the great industrial surge ...

Talking Back
Renata Gangemi & Ruben Gonzalez
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
1992, 17 min., Color, US
This documentary examines the lives and concerns of Latinas who are members of the service industry in the US. Video maker Gangemi weaves her own experiences as a domestic with those of other Latin A...

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...

Tijuana, Nada Mas
Yolanda Pividal
2010, 27 min., Color, US/Mexico
Jonathan (“Pollo”) and Enrique (“Gordo”) are 14-year old orphans making their own living on the streets of Tijuana, the busiest frontier city in the world. Jonathan assists the “Coyotes” in smuggling ...

Voices in the Street
J.T. Takagi & Herman Lew
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 13 min., Color, US
When the Republicans had their 2004 convention at Madison Square Garden, workers in the area from hotdog vendors to day laborers were directly affected. A short on the lives and thoughts of people wo...

Walking With FUREE
Miriam Perez
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 10 min., Color, US
Post 9/11, Wanda Imasuen, a Harlem raised believer in the American Dream, found herself jobless and going to the welfare office. The humiliation of her treatment and the persistent efforts of the wom...

Will Be Televised
Shu Lea Cheang
1991, 300 min., Color
As video camcorders become more widely distributed in Asia, video makers have become active protagonists in the social and political changes taking place in the region. This series of tapes from five ...

The Women of Waray Waray
Fruto Corre
1990, 5 min., BW, US
A satiric look at U.S. intervention in the Philippines, using a half-Eartha Kitt, half-Imelda Marcos look-alike and television footage to represent the bizarre relationship between s....

Work and Respect
Domestic Workers United
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2010, 10 min., Color, US
Over 200,000 women work in the homes of New Yorkers as housekeepers and nannies. Mostly women of color and often undocumented, their work is not covered by labor laws, and for many, the pay and condit...


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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, Ford Foundation, Golden Globe Foundation, Kolibri Foundation and individual donors.