Special Collection

Call for Change Series (2005)
Call for Change Series (2005)
Get the collection brochure (PDF)
Among the First to Die
Call For Change Series 2005
Dastaar: Defending Sikh Identity
Excuse My Gangsta Ways
Here to Stay
Just Ralph
Land, Rain & Fire: Report from Oaxaca
Latino Poets Speakout
Military Option
Military Promises
Our Lady Queen of Harlem: A Portrait of Faith and Rebellion
Rising Up: the Alams
Saj: Muslim in America
She Rhymes Like a Girl
Untold Legacy
Voices in the Street
Walking With FUREE
Work and Respect
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Among the First to Die
Paul Barrera
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 8 min., Color, US
The life and death of one of the first American casualties of the War against Terror - Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, a 28 year old Guatemalan, who joined the Marines because "he wanted to give back a little bit to his adopted country" - and received his citizenship posthumously from President Bush. The contradictions and tragedies of being the "other" while fighting the "other". Although this ... More
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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 continued impact of homeland security measures on South Asian and Muslim communities, to police brutality, to slavery era reparations, to the women MC movement and Domestic Workers organizing. Priced for ... More
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Dastaar: Defending Sikh Identity
Kevin Lee
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 12 min., Color, US
A restaurant owner beaten. A policeman fired. A 20 year subway conductor born in the U.S., threatened with job loss: All for wearing the signature turbans of their religion, Sikhism. Since 9/11, hate crimes and job losses have plagued the Sikh-American community, whose religion originated in India, and is not even Islamic. In response, the NYC Sikh community has organized to confront the bias ... More
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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 visual poetic documentary portrait on Davina Wan, a Chinese American woman, who was a former gang member from the 1990s Lower East Side. With interviews from her grandmother and godfather, we will take a ... More
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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 TWN Workshop production and part of the Call for Change Series.
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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, Ralph reflected on being a Palestinian and on voting for the first time, while the neighborhood chimed in. A short that wrecks the western media stereotype of Palestinians, and a display of a truly mult ... More
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Land, Rain & Fire: Report from Oaxaca
Tami Gold & Gerardo Renique
Producer: Tami Gold & Gerardo Renique
2007, 30 min., Color, US/Mexico
What began as a teachers' strike for better wages and more resources for students has erupted into a massive movement for profound social change in the state of Oaxaca. With the largest indigenous population in Mexico, the state of Oaxaca is also one of the poorest and has the highest rate of school dropouts. On June 14, at 4:20 AM, the police made a surprise attack. The more than fifty thousand t ... More
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Latino Poets Speakout
Renata Gangemi & Ruben Gonzalez
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 10 min., Color, US
Three shorts featuring performances by some of New York City's vanguard Latino poets:

KILLKILLKILL by Jesus Papoleto Melendez (5 Min)

GOD BLESS AMERICA by Mariposa (2 min), and

TAMALES IN JANUARY by Carlo Baldi (3 min).

From the war to police brutality to the contradictions of being a person of color in the U.S., these shorts are both lyrical and power ... More
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Military Option
Al Santana & Alonzo Speight
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 11 min., Color, US
Women, money and travel. It's still the hook that military recruiters are using on young men, as two students discover at a Queens recruitment office. A look at the military recruitment process through a mixture of performance and the experiences of two young men of color.
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Military Promises
Kamisha S.
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 8 min., Color, US
Brian was recruited into the US Navy, much to his filmmaker sister’s dismay. Pressured by a family history filled with those who served in uniform, as well as calls and visits from recruiters who offered college, he and his mother thought it made sense. But for two years he has been sweeping the decks of a ship, not allowed to attend classes or anything else. Morale on his ship is such that two s ... More
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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 crumbling sidewalk in the heart of Spanish Harlem, a small but impassioned group of women are fighting for their community. When the Archdiocese of New York locked the doors of the church whe ... More
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Rising Up: the Alams
Konrad Aderer
Producer: Third World Newsreel Call for Change
2005, 11 min., Color, US
As part of the Homeland security measures, immigrant men from 25, mostly Muslim countries were required to enroll in a Special Registrationprogram. The result: no evidence of terror, but some 13,000 people are now being deported mostly for expired visas. The Alams were among the many families who believed that voluntarily participating in the Special Registrationwould show their loyalty. Instea ... More
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Saj: Muslim in America
Sam Pollard
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 4 min., Color, US
Sajda Abdul-Rahim, a college student living in New York City, talks about her religious upbringing as a Muslim and her quest for a less traditional and more personal spiritual connection with God. Part of the Call for Change Series.
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She Rhymes Like a Girl
J.T. Takagi
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 7 min., Color, US
Toni Blackman and the FreeStyle Union are challenging the male dominated world of hip hop and empowering women to speak their minds in freestyle workshops. This music video/documentary hopes to promote a movement of female MCs. Part of the Call for Change Series.
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Untold Legacy
Leslie K. Brown
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 12 min., Color, US
In February 2005, the NY City Council considered a bill that would require companies doing business with NY to investigate and reveal any past complicity and profit from the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Though resisted by the NYC mayor, Chicago already passed such a law, resulting in JP Morgan Chase apologizing and providing some restitution for its slave-based past. This short is a quick introduct ... More
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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 working on the street and their relation to the political process.
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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 women at FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), led Wanda to become an activist and speaker and to recruit other women to empower themselves.
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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 conditions of work are beyond belief. The women are beginning to organize, though, to fight for a bill of rights. As one worker says: imagine if all 200,000 went on strike one day? Wall Street would have t ... More
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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.