The # 7 Train: An Immigrant Journey Hye Jung Park & JT Takagi Producer: Third World Newsreel 1999, 29 min., Color, US Every day 500,000 people from 117 different countries ride a subway that runs from Flushing to Times Square, going through Queens, the most culturally diverse region in the United States. This documen...
The #1 Bus Chronicles Joel Katz Producer: Delmira Valladares 2020, Color, US The #1 Bus Chronicles uses a small sociological microcosm – a bus stop on an industrial highway in New Jersey – to intimately portray some of the most marginalized lives in America today - the ‘workin...
Apollo Kids Mike Torres & Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2000, 5 min., Color, US One morning, Gio misses the #6 train which too frequently bypasses his Spanish Harlem stop. For Gio, one missed train means public humiliation by his teacher, suspension from school, and harassment b...
B.E.S. (Bangla East Side) Sarita Khurana & Fariba Alam 2004, 45 min., Color, US B.E.S. (Bangla East Side) is a documentary portrait of four Bangladeshi teenagers growing up in the Lower East Side of New York City. Initially started as an after-school workshop at a local high sch...
Bamako Sigi-kan Manthia Diawara 2002, 76 min., Color, US This original documentary shot by Arthur Jafa brings a new look to the modern African city and enables a better understanding from the inside of how democracy takes root in Mali. Discover how politics...
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 and Blue Hugh King & Lamar Williams 1987, 58 min., Color, US A powerful mix of archival material, news clips and documentary footage chronicles impassioned community response to decades of deadly force against people of color by members of the Philadelphia poli...
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 to Media Action Call To Media Action Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 140 min., Color, US A series of short videos made in the wake of the September 11, 2001 tragedy, focussing on communities of color who were mostly left out of the media coverage. From Black children's reactions to the e...
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...
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...
The Chinatown Files Amy Chen 2001, 57 min., Color, US This documentary brings to the public, for the first time, a story that was classified as secret by the US government for over four decades. Exploring the roots and legacy of the Cold War on the Chine...
Claiming Open Spaces Austin Allen 1995, 87 min., Color, US CLAIMING OPEN SPACES explores African-American culture as it clashes with the design of the modern American city. The film includes a comprehensive section on New Orleans--the vital place of historica...
Community Plot J.T. Takagi Producer: Takagi Productions 1984, 20 min., Color, US This satiric comedy takes place in a building on New York's multi-ethnic Lower East Side. Four neighbors form an uneasy alliance after a case worker from family court is accidentally killed in their b...
Conakry Kas: The Conakry People Manthia Diawara 2003, 82 min., Color, US In January 2003, Director Manthia Diawara visited Guinea-Conakry to see what was left of the artists (Ballets Africains, Bembeya Jazz National) and intellectuals (D.T. Niane, Telivel Diallo) of the Gu...
El Culebrero, La Muerte de un Colombiano y el Acordeonista Que No Esta Patricia Montoya 1995, 9 min., Color, US Representing the transient aspects of the gay Colombian experience in New York City, Montoya's tape uses deep cultural signifiers from Colombian folklore and a contrasting English voice-over to explor...
Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project Charles B. Brack Producer: Charles B. Brack, CoProduced with Third World Newsreel 2008, 58 min., Color, US This documentary tells the little known story of Sakia Gunn, a 15 year old student who was fatally stabbed in a gay hate crime in Newark, New Jersey. Sakia was an Aggressive, according to GLAAD, a hom...
Excuse My Gangsta Ways Corinne E. Manabat Producer: Corinne E. Manabat & Third World Newsreel Workshop 2008, 15 min., Color, US We all go through transitions in life, whether it's a career change, or moving, but for Davina Wan, hers has been very extreme - from the gang life to a "normal" life. Excuse My Gangsta Ways is a visu...
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...
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...
From Harlem to Harvard Four Square Productions Producer: Four Square Productions 1982, 30 min., Color, US An excellent discussion film for college bound students, this thoughtful documentary captures the alienation, prejudice and insecurity that often confront African American students at predominantly wh...
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...
Frontier Life Hans Fjellestad Producer: Ryan Page 2003, 92 min., Color, US/Mexico A feature-length documentary that explores beyond Tijuana s sin-city heritage and searches for the heart and identity of a city that is much more than a cantina-strewn throwback to the Old West. It a...
Heart of Harlem Brian Lindstrom
Bob McCullough 2001, 9 min., Color, US HEART OF HARLEM traces the life and times of Holcombe Rucker, who founded a summer basketball league while working for New York Citys Parks Department in order to give young people a positive alternat...
Her Israel Marjan Tehrani 2004, 57 min., Color, Israel A documentary that follows three women, a Jewish-Israeli, a Jewish-Ukranian and a Palestinian, through their daily lives in the bustling microcosm of TelAviv/Yafo. HER ISRAEL presents a much-needed hu...
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...
Home Akram Zataari 1994, 33 min., Color, Lebanon This series of shorts documents the lives of Beiruti women. "Make-up" (8 min) is a meditation on age, death and the cycle of life as a widow who lives overlooking the Bashoura Cemetery reflects on the...
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...
Just Ralph Clifton Watson Producer: Third World Newsreel 2005, 11 min., Color, US An alternately serious and humorous "day in the life" of Ralph, a Palestinian-American grocery store owner, whose Brooklyn store is the neighborhood drop in center. As the 2004 election approached, Ra...
Lessons from Class Struggle Kathleen Foster 1998, 46 min., Color, US "Schools are a disaster zone," declares the young narrator at the beginning of this documentary about public education in New York City during the Mayor Giuliani era (1994-2001). LESSONS FROM CLASS ST...
Living the Hiplife Jesse W Shipley 2007, 61 min., Color, US/Ghana This film is a musical portrait of street life in urban West Africa. It follows the birth of Hiplife music in Accra, Ghana, a mix of various African musical forms and American hip hop. Archival footag...
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 ...
Maison Tropicale Manthia Diawara 2008, 58 min., Color, Republic of Congo/France In 2008, filmmaker Manthia Diawara and artist Angela Ferreira travelled to Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo to “search through the debris left behind by those who took away the [Maison Tropicales]....
Memory Tracks Jamika Ajalon 1996, 12 min., UK A woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown follows the afroed spirit of a revolutionary past through London's streets: Brixton and Portobello. I used the camera as the means for reflexive analysis of...
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....
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...
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 Lady Queen of Harlem: A Portrait of Faith and Rebellion Trinidad Rodriguez Producer: Trinidad Rodriguez 2008, 17 min., Color, US “Some people have said to me that I am in disobedience, and because of that I’m in sin. We are not in sin, we are fighting for our rights!” --Carmen Villegas, parishioner and protest organizer
On a...
Palante, Siempre Palante! Iris Morales 1996, 48 min., Color, US In the midst of the African American civil rights struggle, protests to end the Vietnam War and the women's movement for equality, Puerto Rican and Latino communities fought for economic and social ju...
People Say Mary Beth Black 2005, 5 min., Color, US This insightful video montage embodies the full range of images, sights and emotions which followed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.. Yet, it also depicts the hope, compassion and commit...
People's Firehouse #1 Paul Schneider Producer: Third World Newsreel 1979, 25 min., BW, US "We're making our point to the whole United States: you can fight the system; and win!" The Polish Americans of Northside, Brooklyn realized their community was under attack by the city bureaucracy: s...
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 ...
Percussion, Impressions and Reality Allan Siegel Producer: Third World Newsreel 1978, 30 min., Color, US This is the first comprehensive U.S. film to explore the origins and growth of traditional Puerto Rican music. Interviews with musicians living in New York reveal how traditional music is used as a so...
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...
El Puente Sara Echaniz & Maria Christina Villaseñor Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2000, 13 min., Color, US A short documentary about the first accredited high school for peace and justice, the El Puente Academy is located in a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Brooklyn. A case study of how indivi...
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...
Rezoning Harlem: The Battle over Harlem's Future Natasha Florentino & Tamara Gubernat Producer: Natasha Florentino, Tamara Gubernat, Juliana Alzate and Pamela Nichols 2008, 40 min., Color, US Since 2002, more than 100 rezonings have been signed into law in New York City, including the rezoning of 125th Street in Harlem.
REZONING HARLEM follows longtime members of the Harlem community a...
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...
Saints Rising Hailima Yates Producer: Anonamiss Productions, LLC 2008, 45 min., Color, US SAINTS RISING is a documentary presenting the voices of New Orleans years after Hurricane Katrina and the breech of the levees. From children to volunteers, they discuss the troubles that were left be...
State of Emergency: Inside the LAPD Julia Meltzer & Elizabeth Canner 1993, 28 min., Color, US An investigative documentary on police brutality, this video looks at the LA Police Department following the beating of Rodney King. Containing hard-hitting footage of police violence, the tape also ...
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...
Synchronized Corinne Manabat Cueva Producer: Corinne Manabat Cueva 2020, 6 min., Color, United States SYNCHRONIZED is an experimental documentary short that embraces 5 women of color as they collectively reflect about their experiences living and thriving in Oakland. This will uncover their perspectiv...
Take a Look: NYC Chinatown Post 9.11 Kevin Lee Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 4 min., Color, US A closer look at one of the most historical neighborhoods near the World Trade Center finds a variety of personalities, viewpoints, and perspectives. Those who live and work in New York City's Chinat...
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 ...
Two Dollar Dance Yolanda Pividal 2006, 17 min., Color, US Every weekend, hundreds of Latino immigrants pack the dance clubs of Jackson Heights, in Queens, New York City. There, they meet the "two-dollars ballerinas", women who will be their dance floor partn...
Underground Sheron Johnson 2000, 13 min., BW, US UNDERGROUND is a portrait of a homeless man navigating the subways of New York City, who uses his spirit, sense of humor and imagination to survive. A chance encounter with a subway commuter restores ...
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...
Voice of the Faceless Rita Michel 2002, 10 min., Color, US An intimate look at the experience of September 11th for a group of young adults in Laurelton, Queens....
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...
Voices of Chinatown: Here to Stay River 瑩瑩Dandelion Producer: River 瑩瑩Dandelion 2024, 5 min., Color Voices of Chinatown: Here to Stay is a short documentary film that features the story of a fifth-generation family-run store, Wing On Wo & Co., the oldest continuously operating store in Manhattan’s C...
Voting Rights Now Mary Beth Black 2006, 12 min., Color, US On April 1st, 2006, seven month after Hurricane Katrina devasted the city of New Orleans and weeks before the elections for Mayor of New Orleans, thousands of New Orleans residents marched to protest ...
Walking Home Nuala Cabral Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2011, 4 min., BW, US For the walkers, talkers and those who say nothing. WALKING HOME questions the acceptance of street harassment as a normal interaction between men and women....
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...
Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification Barbara McCullough 1979, 4 min., BW, US An original and visionary work, this cathartic film links the present with the ancestral past. A graceful young African American woman emerges from the ruins of a crumbling building. She disrobes, and...
The Way North: Maghrebi Women in Marseille Shara K. Lange 2008, 60 min., Color, France "I thought that in France life would be easier—it’s the land of liberty. But it wasn’t like that at all." --Fatima Rhazi
From Marseille come the stories of North African women making new lives for ...
Welcome to New York Norman Cowie 2002, 26 min., Color, US An experimental documentary on the influence of a conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute, on New York during the 1990's, and the response of citizens to the corporate-friendly policies of th...
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...
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