#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...
…I Told You So Alan Kondo Producer: Visual Communications 1973, 18 min., BW, US "All this identity thing. What is it you're looking for?" asks the elderly aunt of leading Japanese American poet, Lawson Inada. Through this intimate portrait, we explore Inada's answer to this compl...
A 1994 Video Book Beverly Singer 1994, 6 min., Color, US In this video diary, Beverly Singer, a documentarian and member of the Santa Clara Tewa Pueblo, has created an introspective examination of her life and memories. She muses aloud about history, person...
Adventures in Assimilation Richard Dean Moss 1992, 8 min., Color, US In this engaging performance video, Moss experiments with his own choreography and dance, using movement within a fixed frame to express self-discovery and the aesthetics of identity....
Afroargentines Jorge Fortes & Diego H. Ceballos Producer: Jorge Fortes & Diego H. Ceballos 2003, 75 min., Color/BW, Argentina “Most Argentines, if you ask, will tell you: ‘In Argentina there are no black people.’” So opens AFROARGENTINES, a film which unearths the hidden history of black people in Argentina and their contrib...
Afro-punk James Spooner 2003, 66 min., Color, US AFRO-PUNK explores race identity within the punk scene. This film tackles hard questions, such as issues of loneliness, exile, inter-racial dating and black power. We follow the lives of four people w...
aletheia Tran T. Kim-Trang 1992, 16 min., Color, US An introduction to Kim-Trang's video series on metaphorical and physical blindness, ALETHEIA explores the interconnected issues of cosmetic surgical alteration of the eyelids, technology, language, ra...
alexia Tran T. Kim-Trang 2002, 10 min., Color, US Alexia is an experimental video about word blindness and metaphor. Word-blindness is a condition that usually afflicts people who have suffered a stroke, causing them to lose the visual recognition of...
All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11 Lillian Benson 2003, 28 min., Color, US Twelve African American firefighters were among the World Trade Center victims on September 11th, 2001. This moving documentary profiles these heroes, their families and the ultimate sacrifices they ...
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...
An Intro to Cultural Skit-zo-frenia Jamika Ajalon 1993, 10 min., Color, US An experimental documentary exploring the lives, views of people who don't fit or who live outside the definitions regulating race ("i.e. black enough"), gender, or sexuality....
Animal Appetites Michael Cho 1991, 18 min., Color, US Michael Cho's biting critique on popular cultural stereotypes centers on the case of two Cambodian immigrants tried in California on charges of slaughtering their pet dog for food. Contrasting animal ...
Anomaly: A Documentary Film about Multiracial Identity Jessica Chen Drammeh Producer: Jessica Chen Drammeh & Sharon K. Smith 2013, 47 min., Color, US ANOMALY is an award-winning documentary film that provides a thought-provoking look at multiracial identity by combining personal narratives with the larger drama of mixed race in American culture. Th...
Asian Boys Angel Velasco Shaw 1994, 19 min., Color, US This documentary was produced in collaboration with performance artist Nicky Paraiso for his critically acclaimed multi-media performance at P.S. 122. Eleven different interviews with "Asian Boys" are...
Beyond Good and Evil Chyng Sun & Miguel Picker Producer: Chyng Sun & Miguel Picker 2003, 37 min., Color, US We are taught from an early age that ”good triumphs over evil.” This video examines in detail how this rhetoric, in both the entertainment and the news media, perpetuates the negative impact of media ...
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...
Bittersweet Survival : Southeast Asian Refugees in America J.T. Takagi & Christine Choy Producer: Third World Newsreel 1982, 30 min., Color, US This documentary examines the re-settlement of South-East Asian refugees in the United States in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The film begins with a montage of riveting footage depicting the deva...
Black & White Edgar Garcia Chavez Producer: Edgar Garcia Chavez 2020, 5 min., Color, US This experimental film dissects the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s definitions of the words "Black" and "White" – to prove how, historically, the meanings of both words have been ingrained with ver...
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...
black enuf* Carrie Hawks 2016, 23 min., Color, US A queer oddball seeks approval from Black peers despite a serious lack of hip-hop credentials and a family that ‘talks white’. Carrie Hawks' quest for a Black Card (undeniable acceptance of my racial ...
Black Nations/Queer Nations? Shari Frilot Producer: Frilot and Black Nations/Queer Nations? 1995, 52 min., Color, US This is an experimental documentary chronicling the March 1995 groundbreaking conference on lesbian and gay sexualities in the African diaspora. The conference brought together an array of dynamic sch...
Black Russians Kara Lynch Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 116 min., Color, US/Russia BLACK RUSSIANS is a feature length documentary that investigates the lives of contemporary Afro-Russians aged 10 to 65, born and raised in Soviet Russia. Their experiences chronicle two ideological cu...
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...
Border Brujo Isaac Artenstein Producer: Cinewest 1989, 60 min., Color, US Border Brujo is a ritual-linguistic journey across the U.S./Mexico border written and performed by artist Guillermo Gómez Peña. In the guise of a cross-cultural shaman, Gómez Peña shifts into 15 diff...
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...
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...
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...
Color Schemes Shu Lea Cheang 1989, 29 min., Color COLOR SCHEMES uses the cycles of a generic laundromat washing machine as a metaphor to tackle misconceptions about racial assimilation. Twelve writers and performance artists from various cultural bac...
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...
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...
The Couple in the Cage Coco Fusco & Paula Heredia 1993, 30 min., Color, US Over the last five hundred years, non-western human beings have been exhibited in the taverns, theaters, gardens, museums, zoos, circuses and world's fairs of Europe, and the circuses and freak shows ...
Cow Tipping: the Militant Indian Waiter Randy Redroad Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 10 min., Color, US In this original short drama, a Cherokee café waiter faces customers who insist on sharing their ignorance about American Indians--or are they Native Americans? His efforts to educate others often end...
Crocodile Conspiracy Zeinabu Irene Davis 1986, 13 min., Color, US/Cuba This charming tale focuses on Willa Ledbetter, an African American middle-aged school teacher in Watts, and her longing to visit her parent's homeland of Cuba. In the face of unexpected political and...
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, h...
Demarcations Kym Ragusa Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 5 min., Color, US DEMARCATIONS uses the female body as a landscape to explore memories of a rape. Ragusa focuses on ways in which identity and exoticism are played out on the level of the body....
Desi Remix Chicago Style Balvinder Dhenjan 1996, 46 min., Color, US/UK Shot in Chicago and London this energetic documentary follows three very different Punjabi bands and their attempts to use their music as a bridge between the competing cultural influences of India an...
Detour: Or How I Spent My Weekend Deron Twohatchet 1995, 28 min., Color, US Two mismatched drifters, Jim and James, are on a voyage discovering the contours of homo/hetero, red/white, personal/political, textual/metatextual in an experimental narrative feast. In a critique of...
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...
Dreaming Rivers Martina Attille Producer: Sankofa Film and Video Collective 1988, 35 min., Color, UK Evoking the colonial experience of Caribbean immigrants in Britain, DREAMING RIVERS presents an impressionist rendering of a middle-aged Black on the past, present and future from her death bed. Atten...
E Minha Cara Thomas Allen Harris 2001, 56 min., Color, US/Brazil A mythopoetic feast of self-discovery that crosses three continents and three generations, E MINHA CARA traces the filmmaker's journey to Salvador Da Bahia, the African heart and soul of Brazil, as he...
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...
Fade to Black Tony Cokes & Donald Trammel 1991, 33 min., Color, US This videotape is a meditation on contemporary race relations. In voiceover, two Black men describe events that typically go unnoticed or discounted by the white mainstream. They examine gestures, hes...
Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides Lucy Craft, Karen Kasmauski & Kathryn Tolbert 2015, 26 min., Color, US Three Japanese war brides trace their tumultuous journey to America as the young wives of US soldiers and civilians. Atsuko, Emiko and Hiroko were among tens of thousands of Japanese women who married...
A Family Called Abrew Maureen Blackwood Producer: Sankofa Film and Video Collective 1992, 42 min., Color, UK This documentary profiles a fascinating family that has been based in Scotland since the end of the 19th century. It also traces the history of people of African descent living in Europe before the gr...
Family Portrait in Black and White Julia Ivanova Producer: Boris Ivanov 2011, 85 min., Color, Canada/Ukraine Olga Nenya has 27 children. Four of them, now adults, are her biological children; the other 23 are adopted or foster children. Of those 23, 16 are biracial. Some residents of Sumy, Ukraine, consider ...
Fei Tien: Goddess in Flight Christine Choy 1983, 23 min., Color Based on the play, "Pigeons," by Ginny Lim, this film focuses on the meeting between an older immigrant and younger American-born woman living in Chinatown. The linkages in their pasts and possible fu...
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,...
Forbidden to Wander Susan Youssef 2003, 35 min., Color FORBIDDEN TO WANDER chronicles the experiences of a young Arab American woman traveling on her own in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the summer of 2002. The film is a ...
Four Women Julie Dash 1979, 7 min., Color, US An imaginatively choreographed dance interpretation of the ballad by Nina Simone on four common stereotypes of Black women....
The Friends Kathe Sandler 1996, 26 min., Color A coming of age story about the friendship between two young Black girls growing up in 1957 Harlem, Phyllisia Cathy from a newly arrived, upwardly mobile Caribbean family and Edith Jackson, Harlem-bor...
From Asia With Love Sari Dalena 2002, 12 min., Color, US A critical look at the proliferation of the mail-order bride industry in Asia and its representations of Asian women in the West....
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...
Fuori/Outside Kym Ragusa 1997, 12 min., Color, US In FUORI/OUTSIDE the videomaker, an American woman of African and Italian descent, examines her relationship with her Italian American grandmother. The lives of the two women are inextricably linked t...
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...
Hafu - The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan Megumi Nishikura & Lara Pérez Takagi 2013, 85 min., Color, Japan HAFU is the unfolding journey of discovery into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experience in modern day Japan. The film follows the lives of five “hafus”–the Japanese t...
Haircuts Hurt Randy Redroad 1992, 10 min., Color, US A Native American woman and her young son encounter everyday racism when they visit a local barbershop. The situation leads her to reflect on her own childhood and reconsider her son's first haircut. ...
Hair-tage Shawn Batey Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1997, 10 min., Color, US This short documentary examines the decisions involved in growing and wearing dreadlocks in African-American communities. Through interviews and playful camerawork, Batey explores the motivations and ...
Her Uprooting Plants Her Celine Salazar Parrenas 1994, 17 min., Color, US Ten years after immigrating to the United States, three Filipina sisters move out of the family house and open a sari-sari (corner) store. On Christmas Eve their family meet in the store and share sto...
High Horse Randy Redroad Producer: Randy Redroad 1995, 40 min., Color, US A provocative narrative on the concept of "home" for Native Americans. The film opens in what the filmmaker calls "the artificial world of the colonizers" - a modern American city. From a cop to a y...
Hito Hata: Raise the Banner Duane Kubo & Robert Nakamura Producer: Visual Communications 1980, 90 min., Color, US This poignant drama chronicles the contributions and hardships of Japanese Americans from the turn of the century to the late seventies. This history is told by Oda, a feisty Issei--one of the elderly...
Homecoming Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1991, 20 min., Color, US This sensitive drama adeptly portrays the clash of two cultures and the difficulty of finding a healthy balance in the process of assimilation. Constance is a young Jamaican American woman who has re...
Homeland Insecurity Third World Newsreel Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 6 min., Color, US A recent string of hate crimes in the months following September 11th is set within the historical context of jingoism and nationalism in the United States....
Hope in My Heart: The May Ayim Story Maria Binder 1997, 28 min., Color, Germany A moving documentary about the life and untimely death of Ghanaian-German poet, academic and political personality May Ayim. Ayim was one of the founders of the Black German Movement, and her research...
I Call Myself Persian: Iranians in America Tanaz Eshaghian & Sara Nodojoumi 2002, 27 min., Color, US From the Iran hostage crisis of '79 to the WTC attacks, images of hostile Iranians and Middle Easterners have been well-ingrained in the American psyche, but no informed images come to mind representi...
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...
Illusions Julie Dash 1983, 34 min., BW, US Set in a fictitious Hollywood studio in 1942, this elegant drama contrasts society's views of Black women with their self-perceptions. An ambitious movie executive, Mignon Dupree is perceived by her ...
I'm British But… Gurinder Chadha 1989, 30 min., Color, UK This unique look at Asians in Britain offers first-hand views of second generation Asians, adding archival footage and invigorating Bhangra and Bangla music--traditional Punjabi songs updated with hip...
Imagining Place Anita Chang 1999, 35 min., Color, US For one year, with a curious eye and a curious mind, the filmmaker asks herself and a cross section of individuals, "What does belonging feel like in America?" Amidst increasing social, technological...
In Whose Name? Nandini Sikand 2004, 11 min., Color In Whose Name? is a filmic essay which explores the co-opting of icons by political agendas. This experimental short is told through personal narrative, Super 8mm home movies, Bollywood film clips an...
Indochina: Traces of a Mother Idrissou Mora-Kpai 2011, 72 min., Color, France/Benin INDOCHINA: TRACES OF A MOTHER documents a little-known chapter in African, Asian and French colonial history and the personal story of Christophe, a Beninese-Vietnamese orphan that returns to Vietnam ...
Injustice Ken Fero 2001, 98 min., Color The story of the struggles for justice by the families of people who have died in police custody. Between 1969 and 1999, over one thousand people died in police custody in England. Not one police offi...
Introduction to the End of an Argument Elia Suleiman & Jayce Salloum 1990, 45 min., Color Using clips from feature films, cartoons and network tv, this unique video provides a rare critique of the portrayal of Arabs in Western media. Collaborating images of Valentino, Barbara Eden, Golda ...
Invisible Roots: Afro-Mexicans in Southern California Tiffany Walton & Lizz Mullis Producer: Tiffany Walton, Lizz Mullis & Richard Goldlander 2015, 21 min., Color, US More than one million Mexicans are of African descent, yet this heritage is often forgotten, denied, and many times stigmatized, both in Mexico and in Chicanx communities in the United States. INVISIB...
Jagadakeer: Between the Near and East Tina M. Bastajian 2001, 19 min., Color, US Jagadakeer is an Armenian word meaning fate, or literally, what is written on one's forehead. Memory, nostalgia, displacement, absence and reconnection are explored using the Armenian genocide as a po...
Ki-Hi-Ka Ste': Life of Chief George Tall Chief Amy Tall Chief 2010, 63 min., Color, US Ki-Hi-Ka Ste' is a heartfelt story of one man's journey through life, the many lives he impacted and the legacy that he will leave behind. At age 93, George Eves Tall Chief is currently the oldest me...
The Kitchen Blues Charlene Gilbert 1994, 14 min., BW, US An intimate portrait of an everyday moment, focusing on a young girl getting her hair braided. It opens with a photograph of the filmmaker at age 5 and her voice describing her own childhood hair memo...
The KKK Boutique Ain't Just Rednecks (76 minutes) Camille Billops & James Hatch 1994, 76 min., Color, US Write Billops and Hatch: "Even as late as a hundred years ago, discrimination on the basis of race was considered a natural and even desirable trait for humans to possess. We Americans have tried to i...
The KKK Boutique ain't Just Rednecks: A Docu/Fantasy about Everybody's Racism Camille Billops & James Hatch 1994, 60 min., Color, US Write Billops and Hatch: "Even as late as a hundred years ago, discrimination on the basis of race was considered a natural and even desirable trait for humans to possess. We Americans have tried to i...
Know Your Enemy Art Jones 1990, 27 min., Color, US Using the controversy surrounding the rap group Public Enemy, KNOW YOUR ENEMY critiques the mass media's bias against rap music and culture. Interviews combined with performance footage, and archival ...
L’Esprit Prêt-à-Partager Jamika Ajalon 2009, 28 min., Color, Germany/Senegal Documents an art workshop held in Dakar, Senegal, in 2008, where artists from Africa and Europe explore issues surrounding fashion, sport and diasporic art and identities. The artists collaborate with...
Last Wish Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1994, 15 min., BW, US A Black woman convict on the run and a White southern good ol' boy face off in an after-hours diner. It is an unsettling encounter over hot food, the blues, and each one's "last wish", culminating in ...
Lest We Forget Jason DaSilva 2003, 55 min., Color, US Through critical lenses, this film explores a lesson that history has forgotten in a country that is alienating its citizens and violating their basic rights. During World War II it was Japanese-Amer...
Life or Liberty Konrad Aderer Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 9 min., Color, US The popular cries for increased security since September 11th have glossed over the potential impact that heightened surveillance and policing may have on basic civil liberties. This film highlights ...
Little Brother: Series Nicole Franklin Color, US LITTLE BROTHER is a series of short documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look at B...
Little Brother: A Do Right Man (Chapter 3) Jasmin Tiggett Producer: Nicole Franklin, Epiphany, Inc. 2012, 17 min., Color, US LITTLE BROTHER is a series of short documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look at B...
Little Brother: Manchild in the Promised Land (Chapter 5) Nicole Franklin Producer: Nicole Franklin & J. Tiggett 2015, 17 min., Color, US LITTLE BROTHER: MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND is Chapter 5 of the film series that features young Black boys and their thoughts on Love. This chapter was filmed in Tucson, AZ, where the young men have...
Locations of the M/othership: Black Women as Fugitive Archetype of Resistance Jamika Ajalon 2009, 20 min., Color/BW, UK/US A live audio/visual installation using images of subversive and legendary Black women and excerpts from sci-fi films and TV series. Ajalon explores the intersection of Black women’s representations an...
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 ...
Looking For Wendy Kimberly Saree Tomes 1998, 18 min., Color Tomes' pseudo-search for her roots as a Korean adoptee takes her from her adoptive father who works in bio-engineering (genetically creating the world's juiciest tomato) to the adoptive relationship b...
Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing And The Fight For Fairness Thomas Allen Harris 2011, 15 min., Color, US A documentary that connects the Lesbian and Gay Marriage Equality movement with the Black Civil Rights Movement.
This documentary interweaves archival footage and photos with contemporary intervie...
Me-ba… I'm Coming: A Travelogue Kara Lynch Producer: Strange Fruit Productions 1997, 9 min., Color, US "Time has its own disposition, there's no hurry, there's no rush, the day continues as always." This video travelogue incorporates black-and-white Super-8 landscapes from a bus window, panoramic self-...
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...
Mi Nombre es Carlos Paul Barrera Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2000, 13 min., Color, US My Name is Carlos is an intimate portrait of an immigrant from Guatemala, who comes to New York City in search of the American dream. Still a window washer 30 years later, Carlos begins to have "visi...
Mi Otro Yo (My Other Self) Isaac Artenstein Producer: Cinewest 1989, 30 min., Color, US Expanding his exploration of marginalized identity and border culture, videomaker Artenstein's MI OTRO YO looks at the work of Chicano artists living in California. Their cultural ties to Mexico and h...
Middle Passage-n-roots Ada Babino 1995, 30 min., Color, US Middle Passage-N-Roots takes a passionate look at hair care and the ordeal that hair undergoes based on its owners ideological beliefs and society's definiton of beauty. This project was conceived as ...
Mississippi Triangle Christine Choy, Worth Long, Allan Siegel Producer: Third World Newsreel 1984, 78 min., Color, US This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and whites live in a complex world of cotton, labor, and racial conflict. The history of the Chinese com...
Mississippi Triangle (110 minutes) Christine Choy, Worth Long & Allan Siegel Producer: Third World Newsreel 1984, 110 min., Color, US This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and whites live in a complex world of cotton, labor, and racial conflict. The history of the Chinese com...
Monique Yvonne Welbon 1990, 3 min., BW, US Using a childhood experience of racial bigotry at school, this film looks at the ways in which racism is ingrained in American society, even in the play of children. MONIQUE is a compelling exploratio...
Mother Tongue Patrice Mallard Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1994, 7 min., BW, US Inspired by the experience of her great-grandparents, Mallard uses the history of slavery and the nature of language to examine the profound effects of colonization on the psyche of a people....
Mott to Mulberry Herman Lew 1992, 30 min., Color, US A lighthearted but poignant story about a second generation Chinese American teenager named Conrad. Living in New York City's Chinatown, Conrad's attraction to a local Italian girl clashes with the cu...
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....
Nailed Angel Velasco Shaw 1992, 50 min., Color A Filipina's exploration of the Catholic Church and 400 years of colonialism in the Pacific region is woven in a montage of images, sounds, stories and performances. Inspired by Lucy Reyes, a woman wh...
Namibia: Independence Now! Christine Choy & Pearl Bowser Producer: Third World Newsreel 1985, 55 min., Color, US/Namibia This moving film was shot inside refugee settlements in Zambia and Angola. It examines how exiled Namibians worked to free their country from illegal South African exploitation and prepare for their c...
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...
Negritude: A Dialogue Between Wole Soyinka and Senghor Manthia Diawara 2015, 59 min., Color, USA/France/Germany/Portugal This imagined dialogue between Léopold Sédar Senghor, one of the founding fathers of Negritude, and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka was reconstructed almost entirely from archival materials. It probes the...
Nelson Mandela: the Struggle is My Life Lionel Ngakane 1985, 45 min., Color "Your freedom and mine cannot be separated" are the words written by Nelson Mandela from his prison cell to the people of South Africa in 1985. Through interviews with leaders of the African National ...
ocularis: eye surrogates Tran T. Kim-Trang 1997, 21 min., Color, US The latest tape in Kim-Trang's eight tape series on metaphorical and physical blindness Ocularis: Eye Surrogates addressing issues of surveillance and technology that allow us to see what we normally ...
operculum Tran T. Kim-Trang 1993, 14 min., Color, US A visit with seven cosmetic surgeons specializing in eylid alteration, this piece juxtaposes text with consultation footage. OPERCULUM is revelatory of both the medicalization of race and the authorit...
Ori Raquel Gerber 1989, 90 min., Color, Brazil This documentary provides an overview of the Black Movement in Brazil during the 70s and 80s and tells the story of Beatriz Nascimento, an activist and historian searching for her African heritage. Be...
Orientations Richard Fung Producer: Gay Asians Toronto 1985, 56 min., Color, Canada More than a dozen men and women of different Asian backgrounds speak frankly about their lives as members of a minority within a minority. They speak about coming out, homophobia, racism, cultural id...
Our House: Lesbians and Gays in the Hood Black Planet Productions Producer: Black Planet Productions 1993, 28 min., Color, US Up front and in your face interviews with Black gays and lesbians provide an uncompromising look at homophobia, racism, alienation and empowerment for queer African Americans. This riveting documentar...
Out of La Negrura/Out of Blackness in the Bronx Jane Gabriels 2018, 24 min., Color, US Dance artists Sita Frederick, Ana "Rokafella" Garcia, and Marion Ramirez collaborate to create a performance work that explores Caribbean and Latina-American experiences through dance.
OUT OF LA NE...
Panic is the Enemy Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1986, 10 min., Color, US In 1984, Bernhard Goetz, shot four young men in a New York City subway car, because he thought they were dangerous. This video focuses on the "panic" generated by the press and reveals its implication...
Parallel Adele Adele Pham Producer: Adele Pham 2008, 16 min., Color, US Two half Vietnamese documentary filmmakers, both named Adele, weave a shared narrative of mixed Asian (hapa) experiences through interviews with 7 other mixed race subjects. History, memory, and anecd...
Passing Kym Ragusa 1995, 9 min., BW, US The videomaker's grandmother recounts the tale of a trip she and her lover took through the segregated South of the 1950s. As her story unfolds--revealing as much in silences and gaps as it does in it...
The Passion of Remembrance Maureen Blackwood & Isaac Julien Producer: Sankofa Film and Video Collective 1986, 80 min., Color, UK This first feature film by one of Britain's most respected workshops, is a multi-layered look at issues of concern to Black youth during the turbulent 80s--the Thatcher era. Combining documentary foot...
Patagonia Dan Boord & Luis Valdovino 1996, 29 min., Color, US Patagonia takes the form of a diary about a crisis in cultural identity. It tells the story of two trips one to Patagonia and the other to the United States. The video chronicles how the main characte...
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...
The People United Alonzo Speight 1985, 60 min., Color, US Boston, 1978: It was an intense period of racial conflict over school bussing and escalating incidents of police brutality in the predominantly Black section of Roxbury. In the wake of growing racial ...
Perfect Image? Maureen Blackwood Producer: Sankofa Film and Video Collective 1988, 30 min., Color, UK This fast-paced examination of Black women's struggles to assert their own positive self-images features two female characters who seem to represent archetypical extremes. The film is a visual feast, ...
Permanent Wave Christine Choy & Renee Tajima 1986, 20 min., Color, US This is fast paced drama about sexual harassment in the workplace from a child's perspective. The "Beautiful Dreamer Salon" is owned by Eva, a single parent who manages to juggle her clients, her em...
Plastic Warriors Amy Tall Chief Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2004, 26 min., Color, US Native New Yorkers give their emotional responses to terms like "squaw" and "redskin" in this thought-provoking documentary about Native American stereotypes in American culture....
The Promised Land Joan Baker Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 10 min., Color, US This evocative documentary is a visual mosaic about West Indian migration to the North. The conflicting feelings and memories of one young woman intersect those of elders born in the Caribbean who tal...
The Pyre Balvinder Dhenjan 1996, 4 min., Color An impressionistic and experimental short which looks at the images that present themselves "glittering behind glass" when you go window shopping in Little India....
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...
Radio Haiti Moira Tierney 2002, 4 min., Color, US New York's Haitian community take it to the bridge to protest a year of mortal policing.
On April 20th 2000 10,000 Haitians and other New Yorkers marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to demand an end...
Railroad Reflecting John Bentham Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 9 min., Color, US In this intimate and inventive video, two African men reflect on freedom, slavery and colonization from differing view points. Bentham juxtaposes their stories in a manner evoking African oral history...
Rain Veena Cabreros-Sud 1997, 4 min., BW, US Rain tells the bleak story of two kids, Jose and Nicky, who are spotted by a policeman while playing with a toy gun. What starts as a childish game, quickly turns into a real life horror show, as they...
Re:Orientations Richard Fung 2016, 68 min., Color, Canada A fascinating look into the lives and thoughts of seven Queer Pan-Asian Canadians as they look back on ORIENTATIONS, a 1984 documentary in which they featured. How have they changed? And how has the w...
Red Card: Soccer and Racism (Tarjeta Roja) Rodolfo Muñoz 2007, 93 min., Color, Ecuador This award-winning documentary about racism in Ecuador tells the story of Afro-Ecuadorian soccer player, Agustin "El Tin" Delgado. Arguably the best soccer player in the Ecuadorian national team, Delg...
Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself. Yvonne Welbon 1995, 30 min., Color, us/China An autobiographical experimental documentary about the artist's experiences as an African-American woman living in Taiwan for six years. Recreations of time and place are presented through memories, h...
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 ...
Rock Me, Goong Hay Shelton Ito Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 5 min., Color, US The Goong Hay Kid is the fictional Chinese rapper created and played by Alvin Eng. ROCK ME, GOONG HAY combines hip-hop styling with a forceful protest against stereotypes....
Rouch in Reverse Manthia Diawara 1995, 52 min., US/UK Malian filmmaker and scholar Manthia Diawara critiques visual anthropology through the work of Jean Rouch....
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. Par...
Salty Dog Blues Al Santana & Denise B Santiago 2012, 52 min., Color/BW, US SALTY DOG BLUES features a group of men and women of color who served in the United States Merchant Marine from 1937 – 1989. This nine-year project examines their development as a multi-racial and int...
Sapphire and the Slave Girl Leah Gilliam 1995, 17 min., BW, US This film is loosely based on the 1950's British detective film SAPPHIRE, in which two Scotland Yard detectives investigate the murder of a young woman who is passing for white. Referencing everyone f...
Shades Jamika Ajalon 1994, 12 min., Color SHADES explores the issues around dark and light skin in the African American community. Drawing on erotic imagery and the relation between a light skinned woman and a darker skinned Lesbian, this vid...
Sisters N Brothers Veena Cabreros-Sud 1994, 4 min., BW, US The repeated image of an encounter on the street between a young Filipino man and woman grows increasingly threatening as male and female voice-over articulates the moment. Set to the beat of bhangra ...
Slave Routes: Resistance, Abolition and Creative Progress Jayne Cortez Producer: Manthia Diawara 2009, 100 min., Color, US From the 1400s to the 1800s millions of Africans were forcefully removed from Africa and shipped across the Atlantic to the so-called "New World". In 1808, the passage of the Transantlantic Slave Trad...
Slowly, This Arthur Jafa 1995, 26 min., Color, US When two friends meet in a crowded Manhattan restaurant, the conversation takes an unexpected and intimate turn. Speaking from their experiences as a Japanese American man and an African American man,...
Some Divine Wind Roddy Bogawa 1991, 72 min., Color, US SOME DIVINE WIND (a reference to the Japanese term Kamikaze, or “divine wind”) tells the story of Ben, whose father was part of a U.S. bombing mission that destroyed his Japanese mother’s village—and ...
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 ...
Stories Within: A Film by the Austin Asian American Community PJ Raval Producer: Hanna Huang & Andrew Lee 2022, United States Stories Within delves into a diverse cross section of 14 individuals from the AAPI community in Austin. It allows each participant the opportunity to speak to their younger selves about the acts of ra...
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...
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 Your Bags Camille Billops 1998, 11 min., Color, US "My take on slavery: When the Africans boarded the ships bound for America, they carried in their bags all their memories of home. When they arrived in the New World, their bags had been switched, and...
Tapestry: Asian Women in America (a.k.a. Tapestry II) Organization of Asian Women Producer: Organization of Asian Women 1991, 55 min., Color, US Through archival photographs, oral histories and folk songs by Nobuko Miyamoto, this video weaves the history of 200 years of Asian women's experiences. It begins with early Asian immigration to the U...
Taxi-vala/auto-biography Vivek Renjen Bald 1996, 45 min., Color, US This documentary focuses on the lives and dreams of South Asian immigrant taxi drivers in New York City. Combining video and taxi-driver interviews and the personal narrative of the second-generation...
Tenacity Chris Eyre 1995, 10 min., BW, US The story of two Indian boys who encounter the violence of the adult world in a roadside hit-and-run accident. Filmed in Onondaga Territory in upstate New York, this award winning short is about frien...
Terrorism: An American Reality Cynthia Lockhart Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 12 min., Color, US Cynicism and outrage animate this exploration of how American foreign policy has fueled resentment around the world....
To Be Me: Tony Quon Pat Lau & Don Miller Producer: Visual Communications 1973, 10 min., Color, US This award-winning short film follows Tony, an active ten-year-old Chinese immigrant as he describes adjusting to an American school. Tony describes his first impressions of "strange new classrooms", ...
To Walk Naked Jaqueline Maingard, Sheila Meintjes & Heather Thompson 1995, 12 min., Color In 1990, a group of African women protested the unlawful destruction of their homes in the squatter camps of Dobsonville, by the then Afrikaaner National government. In 1995, a group of women filmmake...
Turmeric Border-Marks Christina Choe 2000, 25 min., Color TURMERIC BORDER-MARKS is an experimental documentary set in modern Seoul, Korea, where an intersection becomes two stories of migration, globalization, hybrid identity, cracked mirrors and turmeric (a...
Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela Thomas Allen Harris Producer: Thomas Allen Harris 2005, 73 min., Color, US In the wake of his stepfather’s death, Thomas Allen Harris embarks on a journey of reconciliation with the man who raised him as a son but whom he could never call "father." As part of the first wave ...
Undertow Me-K Ahn 1995, 18 min., BW, US "undertow" is an experimental short film which explores how the loss of family and culture can affect one's body consciousness and sexuality. It juxtaposes one adopted woman's reconstructed search for...
United Front Against Racism (Newsreel #37) Newsreel 20 min., BW, US A report on the 3-day conference called by the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, in July 1969. The film emphasizes the nature of developing Fascism in the U.S., covering Imperialism, Capital...
Unspoken Patrick G Lee 2020, 17 min., Color, US Through letter-writing, a community discussion, and a drag performance, six queer and trans Asian Americans grapple with their queerness and consider what family acceptance might look like.
UNSPOK...
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...
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...
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 the Gods Al Santana Producer: Al Santana 1985, 60 min., Color, US This documentary captures the rich legacy of ancient African religions practiced today in the United States. It provides viewers with rare insight into the practices and beliefs of the Akan and Yoruba...
Wataridori: Birds of Passage Robert Nakamura Producer: Visual Communications 1974, 37 min., Color, US Lyricism and visual beauty are evident in this film as four Issei (first generation Japanese Americans) describe a collective history through their personal memories. The filmmaker paints the canvas o...
We, Too, Sing America: Racist Backlash in the Aftermath of September 11 Yun Jong Suh Producer: Third World Newsreel 2001, 12 min., Color, US This short is a poignant and revealing document of the thoughts, hopes and fears of Muslim, Arab-American and South Asian children in the milieu of a country calling for war and unconditional complian...
What Do You Call An Indian Woman Who's Funny? Gurinder Chadha 1994, 19 min., BW, UK What do you call an Indian woman who's funny in 20th Century Britain? A British performer? A Black comedienne? An enigma? This humorous and comedic documentary, brings the laughs and dreams of four In...
Women and Men Are Good Dancers Arlene Bowman 1994, 6 min., Color, US "Women and Men Are Good Dancers," is a translation from the Cree language of an intertribal pow wow song. Bowman was inspired to create this tape by the "nizhoni" (Dine) or "it is beautiful" of the Pl...
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...
Work in Progress Luis Valdovino 1990, 14 min., Color, US This thoughtfully crafted experimental documentary explores the effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform upon illegal immigrants that could not file for amnesty. The video uses a biting humor in a prov...
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...
The Yellow Pages Ho Tam 1995, 8 min., Color, US Arranged from A to Z in 26 segments, The Yellow Pages looks at the relationship between imagery and text in the context of the Asian experience within North America and beyond. In a playful and satiri...
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