Special Collection

TWN 50 Years

Bittersweet Survival : Southeast Asian Refugees in America

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 devastating effects of the war. It then unveils the mixed reception given Vietnamese refugees in the United States, from battles with local fishermen in Monterey, California, to conflicts in Philadelphia ... More

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 police force. Community leaders, politicians, police officers, survivors of police brutality and sympathizers unravel a pattern of biased violent police behavior from the tenure of Police Commissioner Fra ... More

Black Panther a.k.a. Off the Pig (Newsreel #19)

San Francisco Newsreel

Producer: Newsreel

1968, 15 min., BW, US

A compelling document of the Black Panther Party leadership in 1967. This film contains a prison interview with Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton as well as an interview with Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, footage of the aftermath of the police assault against the Los Angeles Chapter headquarters, demonstrations to free Huey at Hutton Memorial Park and the Alameda County Court House an ... More

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 city. They pulled the boards off the doors, cleaned and repaired the buildings and moved in. BREAK AND ENTER documents the activist work of Operation Move-In and the city's attempts to displaced the ... More

Columbia Revolt (Newsreel #14)

Newsreel

Producer: Newsreel

1968, 50 min., BW, US

In April 1968, black and white students rebelled against the university administration, occupying five buildings, including the president's office in one of the first campus revolts of the Civil Rights/Vietnam War era. The revolt began as a protest against university expansion into neighboring communities and its role as a slum lord. After five days of student control, the administrators and trus ... More

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 in frustration, and a lousy tip. Based on his own experiences encountering skewed perceptions and depictions of his people, Redroad's story blends humor and rage and information. Clips from movie wes ... More

A Dream Is What You Wake Up From

Larry Bullard & Carolyn Y. Johnson

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1978, 50 min., Color, US

Originally released in 1978, A DREAM IS WHAT YOU WAKE UP FROM explores the role of Black families in American society. The everyday lives of three Black families with different approaches to their struggle for survival in the United States are represented through a mix of fiction and documentary scenes, a docudrama style inspired by the work of Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez.

Filmmakers La ... More

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 forces to protest police brutality and hostile real estate developers. With bold strokes, it paints an overview of the community and its history, from the early laborers driving spikes into the trans ... More

Homes Apart: Korea

J.T. Takagi & Christine Choy

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1991, 56 min., Color, US/Korea

They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90's, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in ... More

Inside Women Inside

Christine Choy & Cynthia Maurizio

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1978, 21 min., Color, US

This film exposes the daily humiliation regularly faced by women in U.S. prisons using firsthand accounts of inmates at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women and the Correctional Institute for Women at Riker's Island, New York.

How does a woman cope with such common occurences as illness, pregnancy and family conflicts when she is sent away to prison? At the North Carolina Co ... More

Janie's Janie (Newsreel)

Newsreel, Geri Ashur, Peter Barton, Marilyn Mulford & Stephanie Palewski

Producer: Newsreel

1971, 25 min., BW, US

Produced by The Newsreel collective, JANIE'S JANIE is an extraordinary document of the early 1970's women's movement. In this personal documentary, Jane Giese, a working class woman in Newark, comes to realize that she has to take control of her own life after years of physical and mental abuse. As Janie says, "First I was my father's Janie, then I was my Charlie's Janie, now I'm Janie's Janie." < ... More

A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde (90)

Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1996, 90 min., Color, US

An epic portrait of the eloquent, award-winning Black, lesbian, poet, mother, teacher and activist, Audre Lorde, whose writings -- spanning five decades -- articulated some of the most important social and political visions of the century. From Lorde's childhood roots in NYC's Harlem to her battle with breast cancer, this moving film explores a life and a body of work that embodied the connections ... More

Make-Out (Newsreel #49)

Newsreel

Producer: Newsreel

1970, 5 min., BW, US

As a young couple make out in a car, we hear the woman's stream of consciousness thoughts. She worries about her reputation and whether he'll try to "go all the way." This film is best used with discussions and/or materials about date rape.

A short created by Geri Ashur, Andrea Eagan, Marcia Salo Rizzi and Deborah Shaffer, and co-directed by Ashur and Peter Schlaifer, the film is a vi ... More

My Country Occupied (Newsreel #151)

Tami Gold & Heather Archibald

Producer: Newsreel

1971, 30 min., BW, US/Guatemala

In this moving film, the personal testimonies of Guatemalan Indians, peasants, and guerrillas are dramatized to provide the narration for a powerful overview of the history of U.S. destabilization of democracy in Central America. MY COUNTRY OCCUPIED was inspired by the work of Santiago Álvarez.

North Korea: Beyond the DMZ

J.T. Takagi & Hye Jung Park Edited by Dena Mermelstein

2003, 60 min., Color, North Korea/US

While this tiny state on the divided Korean peninsula is continually demonized in the U.S., few have any first hand knowledge of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. What is it like on the other side of the 38th parallel? How do Koreans in the North view this past decade with the fall of Soviet communism, natural disasters that brought famine and power shortages, and a continued, dangerously ... More

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: schools, hospitals, and other services has been closed or cut back and the neighborhood had began to decay. The closing of the local firehouse was the last straw. They occupied the firehouse and began ... More

People's War (Newsreel #43)

Newsreel

Producer: Newsreel

1969, 40 min., BW, US

This newly restored film records the mobilization and participation of the Vietnamese people in their country's fight against colonialism and foreign military aggression. Moving beyond the perception of the Vietnamese as victims, the film investigates a society fully committed to national liberation. It details their long history of resisting the U.S. military as well as their struggles to overc ... More

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 Rican communities began to address these injustices by using direct action. This film focuses on the community of East Harlem, capturing the compassion and militancy of the Young Lords as they implement ... More

Revolution Until Victory a.k.a. We Are the Palestinian People (Newrseel #65)

San Francisco Newsreel

45 min., BW, US

Filmed in Palestine by Newsreel, REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY shows the refugee camps of the Middle East, the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Movement and Israel's relation ship to the Western imperialism. There is footage of the guerrillas in training, and interviews with Palestinian leaders and militants who work in many programs of the liberation struggle of the time.

Teach Our Children

Christine Choy & Susan Robeson

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1972, 35 min., BW, US

This film focuses on the historic 1971 Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York. It targets the conditions that caused prisoners to take drastic steps toward securing their basic rights. The film questions the reactions of prison warden Oswald, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and President Nixon, as well as the death of 31 inmates and prison guards from bullets fired by the National Guar ... More

To Love, Honor & Obey

Christine Choy & Marlene Dann

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1980, 55 min., Color, US

This film explores the social, psychological and cultural factors that contribute to violence against women regardless of ethnicity or economic background. Survivors, safe house administrators, counselors, police officers, and male abusers in counseling explore the many factors that contribute to the pervasiveness of this tragic aspect of American family life. Shot in battered women's shelters, u ... More

The Woman's Film (Newsreel #55)

Newsreel

Producer: Women's Caucus--San Francisco Newsreel

1971, 40 min., BW, US

Produced collectively by women, this documentary is a valuable historical document of the origins of the modern women's movement in the United States. The film delves into the lives of ordinary women from different races, educational levels and class Filmed mostly in small consciousness-raising groups, from which the women's movement grew, the women talk about the daily realities of their lives ... More

The Women Outside: Korean Women and the U.S. Military

J.T. Takagi & Hye Jung Park

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1995, 60 min., Color, US/South Korea

Documenting the lives of women who work in the South Korean military brothels and clubs where over 27,000 women "service" the 37,000 American soldiers stationed in the most militarized region of the world, The Women Outside follows their provocative journey from the outskirts of Seoul to the inner cities of America. A testament of endurance and survival, it raises questions about U.S. military pol ... More