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...
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...
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 ...
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 Body Thomas Allen Harris 1992, 7 min., Color, US Thomas Allen Harris uses text, special effects, and a single bound male nude to emphasize the humanity underlying the multiple definitions of black identity and subjectivity. The audience may be asked...
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...
Close to Home Rodney Evans 1998, 24 min., Color, US CLOSE TO HOME documents the filmmaker's journey as he comes out to a conservative, Jamaican family and negotiates a painful relationship with a 21-year old heterosexual man....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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....
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...
I Exist: Voices from the Lesbian and Gay Middle Eastern Community in the US Peter Barbosa & Garrett Lenoir Producer: Peter Barbosa 2003, 56 min., Color, US “I Exist” is a documentary exploring individual journeys of Lesbian and Gay people of Middle Eastern cultures living in the United States. The cultural and religious challenges that many Lesbian and ...
I Never Danced the Way Girls Were Supposed To Dawn Suggs Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 7 min., Color, US What makes Black lesbians so special? Suggs takes a fresh and funny approach to explore this and other questions using a mixture of scenes shot on film and video with running commentaries by women in ...
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...
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...
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 ...
Juggling Gender: Politics, Sex and Identity Tami Gold 1992, 26 min., Color, US A loving portrait of Jennifer Miller, a lesbian performer who lives her life with a full beard. Miller works as a performance artist, circus director, clown and as the "bearded lady" in one of the onl...
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...
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...
Lest We Forget Jason DaSilva 2003, 80 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...
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...
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...
The Momentary Enemy Angel Velasco Shaw Producer: Maria Christina Villaseñor 2008, 25 min., Color/BW, US/The Philippines The Momentary Enemy takes a critical comparative look into the way mass media has represented the Philippine-American War, Vietnam and Iraq Wars since the turn of the century to present day. The video...
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...
The Multiplicity of Us New York Women in Film and Television Producer: New York Women in Film and TV 2015, 15 min., Color, US On June 2015, 24 women of immigrant and first generation backgrounds of all ages came together for an intense one day video production workshop. Together, they produced a series of three short video...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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, ...
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....
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...
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...
Respect is Due Cyrille Phipps Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1992, 10 min., Color, US In keeping with the doctrines of Wall Street and Madison Avenue, sex sells rap music. In this video, Black youth examine the ways women of African descent are frequently portrayed in rap lyrics and mu...
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....
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,...
Splash! Thomas Allen Harris 1991, 10 min., Color, US SPLASH is a fable-like tale of memory and emotion. Using a range of techniques, it deftly explores the interplay between identity, fantasy, gender, homosexual desire and pre-adolescence. These forces ...
Stand By Your Man Chuleenan Svetvilas 1992, 3 min., Color This satirical music video uses a disturbingly direct montage of footage from Hollywood films to critique the one dimensional imagery that American movies provide of Asian women as either sexual playt...
Voodoo Dance: A Tribute to the People of Haiti Elsie Haas 1989, 52 min., Color, Haiti This film documents the significant role of Voodoo in Haitian culture from the perspectives of Voodoo priests, government officials, historians and politicians. Attacked by Western clerics and declare...
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...
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...
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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