History from the movements that
built it
Since 1968, Third World Newsreel has documented the movements demanding social justice. Our archives include rare footage, completed films, and global activist media, available for licensing, theatrical screening, and exhibition.
Stock Footage Licensing
Rare footage from inside the movements: Black Panthers, Young Lords, anti-war resistance, women’s liberation, housing activism. 1967–1972.
Our footage has appeared in productions for PBS, BBC, HBO, Apple TV+, Netflix, NHK, and major museums.
Curated packages for programmers and exhibitors. The Newsreel Retrospective (60 digitally preserved films) has screened at BAM, Anthology Film Archives, Maysles Documentary Center, and DOK Leipzig.
DCP-ready titles. Flexible rates for independent venues.
Retrospectives & Theatrical Bookings
About The TWN Archives
What We Hold
Third World Newsreel’s archives contain over 1,500 physical items spanning 1967 to the present: 16mm camera originals, workprints, release prints, production elements, and master tapes across formats from the earliest Newsreel films through TWN’s contemporary catalog. The collection also includes production photographs, organizational records, correspondence, and ephemera documenting nearly six decades of independent social justice media.
These are primary sources. The footage was shot by filmmakers who were participants in the movements they documented — not observers. Much of this material exists nowhere else.
The founding collection: over 60 films produced during the first five years of Newsreel, now digitally preserved in part through foundation support. Anti-war organizing, Black Panther Party rallies and community programs, the Young Lords in East Harlem, draft resistance, student uprisings, women’s liberation, housing reclamation and labor organizing. These films were made collectively, distributed through an alternative network that stretched from New York to San Francisco and the world, and screened in union halls, churches, college campuses, and community centers across the country.
Preserved titles include Columbia Revolt (1968), Black Panther (1968), El Pueblo Se Levanta (1971), America (1969), Break and Enter (1971), The Woman’s Film (1971), and Yippie (1968), among many others.
Available for stock footage licensing, theatrical screening, and educational use.
The Newsreel Collection (1968–1972)
Third World Newsreel Productions and Distribution Collections (1972–Present)
When Newsreel became Third World Newsreel in the early 1970s, leadership shifted to Christine Choy, Susan Robeson, and others committed to centering the voices and work of people of color and Third World solidarity. The archive holds production elements, master tapes, and original materials from this entire era: from Christine Choy’s From Spikes to Spindles (1976) and Teach Our Children (1972) through contemporary work by other TWN filmmakers and workshop graduates.
The distribution collection includes L.A. Rebellion filmmakers (Julie Dash, Barbara McCullough, Zeinabu irene Davis ), Camille Billops’ Sundance–winning work, and titles spanning Caribbean cinema, Asian American communities, Indigenous sovereignty, immigration, labor, incarceration, and LGBTQ history.
700+ titles in active distribution. Selected footage available for licensing.
The physical collection spans 16mm film (originals, negatives, prints), Betacam SP, U-matic, DVCAM, Digital Betacam, VHS, and born-digital productions. Preservation and digitization are ongoing — new material becomes available regularly as TWN continues its funded preservation work.
Digitized materials are available in DCP, Blu-ray, and digital file formats for screening, exhibition, and licensing.
For producers, researchers, and institutions interested in materials beyond our distribution catalog, contact the archives team.
Formats and Access
