Film Subjects

Select Subject and click GO

Caribbean Studies

‘70: Remembering a Revolution
Alex DeVerteuil & Elizabeth Topp
2011, 114 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
How did a handful of students change the course of history in Trinidad and Tobago? Between February and April 1970, the streets of Port of Spain were filled with young Black men and women chanting ‘Po...

The Amerindians
Tracy Assing
Producer: Tracy Assing
2010, 40 min., Color, US
In this revealing documentary, Tracy Assing explores Trinidad’s indigenous history and the inner workings of the organization which represents these indigenous descendants, the Santa Rosa Carib Commun...

Art for Social Change
Mary Wells
2007, 33 min., Color, Jamaica
Jamaican filmmaker Mary Wells made ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE, a perceptive half-hour film, in response to the launch of Frances-Anne Solomon’s heart-wrenching movie A Winter Tale when it opened in cinemas...

Asé
Nicole Brooks
2012, 6 min., Color, Canada
Dance film that celebrates the lives of enslaved Africans. As they are released from their daily work, they gather to prepare and participate in Sunday worship in solidarity with their Ancestors and f...

Autonomy
Atkilt Geleta
2013, 26 min., Color, Nicaragua
Since the colonial period, the Atlantic Coast has been mired in conflict due to incursions by the Spanish Crown, the Nicaraguan government and the United States. Today, huge waves of mestizo migration...

Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens
Deborah A. Thomas & John L. Jackson, Jr. & Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn
Producer: Deborah A. Thomas, John L. Jackson, Jr., Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn, & Junior “Ista J” Manning
2011, 63 min., Color, Jamaica
For many around the world, Jamaica conjures up images of pristine beach vacations with a pulsating reggae soundtrack. The country, however, has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world...

Blood
Judy Singh
2005, 40 min., Color, Cuba
BLOOD features popular Canadian-Jamaican dub poet d’bi.young, with performances by the Cuban female Hip-Hop Group Las Krudas. The film is part extraordinary music video (shot on locations around Havan...

Boys of Summer
Keith Aumont
Producer: Keith Aumont & Ariana Garfinkel
2010, 94 min., Color, Curaçao/US
On the tiny Caribbean island of Curaçao, Manager Vernon Isabella has sent his Little League All-Stars to the World Series for seven consecutive years, routinely defeating such baseball powerhouses as ...

C’est Quitte: The French Creoles of Trinidad
Alex DeVerteuil
2004, 59 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
The role of the Catholic church, of the French and Patois (Creole) languages, of educational institutions, of family values and the impact of racism, prejudice and cultural stereotypes are discussed f...

Calypso @ Dirty Jim's
Pascale Obolo
2005, 85 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
Featuring the last of the great calypsonians, bringing them all together to sing such classics as “Rum & Coca Cola,” “Jean and Dinah,” and “Shame and Scandal in the Family,” to name a few, the film pr...

Calypso Dreams
Geoffrey Dunn and Michael Horne
2004, 85 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
An intimate portrait of some of the true calypsonians in Trinidad & Tobago, in performance and in conversation. Shot over three years in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the documentary includes such legendar...

Caribbean Skin, African Identity
Mandisa Pantin
2010, 33 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
The documentary examines the concept of African identity as it has evolved over the generations in Trinidad & Tobago. In it, the director explores her own identity, using the Emancipation Day parade a...

Come With It, Black Man
Tamara Tam-Cruickshank
2012, 103 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
This documentary features music and performances of legendary calypsonian Dr. Leroy Calliste, better known as Black Stalin....

Dal Puri Diaspora
Richard Fung
2012, 80 min., Color, Canada
The recipe for dal puri traveled with indentured workers from India’s Gangetic plain to southern Caribbean colonies of Britain and the Netherlands in the 19th Century. In the 1960s the wrapped roti mi...

Deported
Rachèle Magloire & Chantal Regnault
2012, 72 min., Color, Haiti
DEPORTED follows members of a unique group of men in Haiti: criminal deportees from North America. Since 1996, the United States has implemented a policy of repatriation of all foreign residents who h...

Directions
Renne Pollonais
2008, 12 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
No one gives directions like a Trinidadian. Ask a Trini how to get to a certain place and if he doesn’t know the way, instead of admitting his ignorance, he’ll send you on a roundabout route guarantee...

Drills of Liberation
Juan C Dávila Santiago
Producer: Juan C. Dávila Santiago
2021, 121 min., Color, Puerto Rico
"Liberation Drills" is the untold story of the Puerto Rican protest wave of 2016-2019, which culminated with the resignation of governor Ricardo Rosselló. In 2016, the US Congress appointed a seven-me...

Drummit 2 Summit
Christopher Laird
2009, 45 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
On April 18th, 2009, the Rights Action Group and Fishermen and Friends of the Sea held a public event in the St. James Amphitheatre, Trinidad. This event, called a “Drummit 2 Summit,” was to allow for...

Edouard Glissant: One World in Relation
Manthia Diawara
2010, 50 min., Color, US
In 2009, filmmaker Manthia Diawara, along with his camera, documented his conversations with Martinican philosopher, writer, and poet Édouard Glissant aboard the Queen Mary II on their transatlantic j...

Entry Denied
Christopher Browne
1997, 21 min., Color, Jamaica
A young Jamaican footballer, from the ghetto areas of Kingston, is refused a visa to take up a scholarship at a university in the United States. Dramatic events and coincidences conspire to take this ...

Forward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution
Bruce Paddington
Producer: Bruce Paddington & Luke Paddington
2013, 113 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
The invasion of Grenada by US forces in 1983 echoed around the world and put an end to a unique experiment in Caribbean politics. What were the circumstances that led to this extraordinary chain of ev...

Forward Home: The Power of the Caribbean Diaspora
Lisa Wickham
2011, 50 min., Color
Shot in nine countries, this documentary reveals the economic power of the people of the Caribbean Diaspora living in global cities; the significance of their contribution to their homeland, as travel...

Four Days in May: Kingston 2010
Deanne M. Bell, Deborah A. Thomas & Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn
Producer: Deanne M. Bell, Deborah A. Thomas & Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn
2018, 41 min., Color/BW, Jamaica
In 2010 Jamaican military and police forces declared a state of emergency in West Kingston to apprehend Christopher “Dudus” Coke—who had been ordered for extradition to the U.S. At least 75 civilians ...

Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America
Eduardo López & Peter Getzels
Producer: Wendy Thompson-Marquez
2012, 90 min., Color, US
At a time of heated and divisive debate over immigration, HARVEST OF EMPIRE examines the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis we ...

Hinkson
Christopher Laird
2013, 97 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
Trinidadian Donald ‘Jackie’ Hinkson, in his 70th year and on the occasion of a massive retrospective in four exhibition spaces talks about his life’s work and demonstrates his techniques in expressing...

La Historia de Jonas
Luisa Sanchez
1992, 5 min., Color, US
Using a collage of urban scenes and voice over narration, this 5 minute video explores the feelings and issues faced by a new Puerto Rican immigrant to New York City in his own words. Available in Sp...

Human Traffic: Past and Present
Frances-Anne Solomon
2012, 34 min., Color, US
This eye-opening film documents the 2011 Conference on Human Trafficking and features the work of leading scholars, historians, lawyers, activists, and artists to generate a broad discussion of some o...

The Insatiable Season
Mariel Brown
2007, 52 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
It’s January 2006 and Brian Mac Farlane’s carnival workshop is quiet and practically empty – littered with left-over costumes and a couple of hangers-on from last year’s carnival. The atmosphere begin...

Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano
Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi
2005, 50 min., Color, US/Cuba
INVENTOS explores the burgeoning Hip-Hop scene in Cuba. In spite of the US trade embargo against Cuba, the Hip-Hop movement is flourishing with popular innovative groups such as EPG&B, Grandes Ligas, ...

Invisible
Elspeth Duncan
2008, 11 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
INVISIBLE tells the story of a woman named “Veronica” and her two children. Both the mother and her young daughter are HIV-positive and face the bitter effects of discrimination against people living ...

JAB! The Blue Devils of Paramin
Alex DeVerteuil
2006, 47 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
Isolated in the mountains of Trinidad, the district of Paramin, once a year at Carnival time sheds its rural languor and erupts into an inferno of blue-painted ‘jabs’ or devils. This 46-minute documen...

Landscape & Memory: Martinican Land-people-history
Renee Gosson & Eric Faden
2001, 30 min., Color, US/Martinique
In LANDSCAPE AND MEMORY, the French West Indies most renowned identity theoreticians Jean Bernabe, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphael Confiant investigate the different ways in which France, as a colonial...

Living Along the Fenceline
Lina Hoshino & Gwyn Kirk
Producer: Lina Hoshino, Gwyn Kirk & Deborah Lee
2012, 65 min., Color, US
LIVING ALONG THE FENCELINE tells the stories of seven grassroots women leaders from across the Pacific to Puerto Rico whose communities are affected by the U.S. military presence in their backyards. A...

Mas Man
Dalton Narine
2010, 56 min., Color, Trinidad/US
Mingling traditional Carnival elements with abstract ideas, Emmy Award winner Peter Minshall goes chic to chic with upper crust art in Trinidad’s annual spring festival. The film captures his flair fo...

No Bois Man No Fraid
Christopher Laird
2013, 100 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
Two young Trinidadian internationally certified multidisciplinary martial artists re-discovered their roots in the unique Trinidadian martial art of Kalinda or stick fighting and were accepted for men...

Now Jimmy
Mary Wells
1999, 15 min., Color, Jamaica
This film explores land rights issues from the point of view of Jimmy, a squatter living in Jamaica....

Nuyorican Básquet
Julio César Torres González & Ricardo Olivero Lora
Producer: Freddie Marrero
2017, Color, Puerto Rico
Nuyorican Básquet chronicles the dramatic story of the Puerto Rican national basketball team’s participation in the 1979 Pan American Games. Boasting a totally unique approach to the game, the Puer...

On The Map
Annalee Davis
2007, 30 min., Color, Barbados/Trinidad/Guyana
ON THE MAP debunks the myth of a unified, “laid back” Caribbean culture by exposing how Caribbean people treat themselves as “other.” By questioning the notion of a merged Caribbean, the film asks dif...

The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn
Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas
2010, 52 min., Color/BW, US/Haiti
Part carnival, part vodou ceremony, and part grassroots protest, Haitian “Rara” is one of the most breathtaking and contested forms of music in the Americas. The Other Side of the Water follows a gro...

The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn (72)
Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas
2010, 72 min., Color/BW, US/Haiti
Part carnival, part vodou ceremony, and part grassroots protest, Haitian “Rara” is one of the most breathtaking and contested forms of music in the Americas. The Other Side of the Water follows a grou...

Positive and Pregnant
Stacy Lela
2010, 24 min., Color, Trinidad & Tobago
When a pregnant young woman discovers she is HIV-positive, her world comes crashing down. As she exhausts her possible options, the damage caused by her own errors overshadows whatever hopes she fores...

Punta Soul
Nyasha Laing
2008, 39 min., Color, Belize
Punta Soul is the intergenerational story of an inspiring musical journey told through its intimate portraits of Garifuna musicians such as Andy Palacio. The Garifuna, an afro-indigenous people exiled...

Quienes Son?
Alex Stikich
Producer: A Fiacchino/Stikich Production
2002, 8 min., Color
In October 1962, the world was at a standstill. In response to the failed invasion of Cuba by the United States, the Soviet Union began a buildup of offensive missiles on the island. The United States...

Reunion: West Indian Women at War
Frances-Anne Solomon
1993, 25 min., Color, UK
In 1943, 300 middle-class “colored” women from across the West Indies were recruited to the ATS, a branch of the British Army during WW2. Meeting up for a reunion with her wartime friends, 72-year-...

Samuel Lind's Coastal World
Sonia Fritz
Producer: Frances Lausell
2006, 24 min., Color, Puerto Rico
This documentary captures the colors, music and culture that inspire the art of Samuel Lind, an Afro-Puerto Rican painter, graphic artist and sculptor. Originally from Loiza, Puerto Rico, Lind celebra...

Secondhand (Pepe)
Hanna Rose Shell & Vanessa Bertozzi
2007, 24 min., Color, United States/Haiti/Canada
In this documentary about used clothing, the historical memoir of a Jewish immigrant rag picker intertwines with the present-day story of 'pepe' — secondhand clothing that flows from North America to ...

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...

Solitary Alchemist, The
Mariel Brown
2009, 70 min., Color, Trinidad/UK
What happens when talent isn’t enough? When, in spite of a life of work, you look around in the autumn of your life and discover that your world is not what you thought it would be. This is where we m...

Stand-By Generation, The
Juan Carlos Davila
2016, 20 min., Color, Puerto Rico
Shot in Puerto Rico, THE STAND-BY GENERATION explores the challenges of young workers seeking secure and stable jobs. The majority of the jobs offered to the new generation of workers in Puerto Rico a...

Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes
Mark James
Producer: Reshma B / Mark James
Color, Jamaica
STUDIO 17: THE LOST REGGAE TAPES tells the compelling story of the Chin’s, The Chinese Jamaican family behind “Studio 17”. Located in downtown Kingston, Studio 17 became a legendary recording studio r...

Sweet Sugar Rage
Honor Ford-Smith & Harclyde Walcott
1985, 45 min., Color, Jamaica
A popular Jamaican women's troupe uses improvisation and theater as consciousness-raising tools for both rural and urban audiences. Their performances speak directly to the daily experiences of women-...

The Terror and the Time
The Victor Jara Collective
Producer: The Victor Jara Collective
1978, 75 min., BW, Guyana
The terror is British colonialism in Guyana; the time is 1953, the year of the first elections under a provisional democratic constitution. Stylized scenes photographed throughout Georgetown accompany...

Vieques: An Endless Battle
Juan C Dávila
2016, 68 min., Color, Puerto Rico
For more than sixty years the United States Navy used the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, to test military weaponry and to train soldiers. Decades of opposition from the local community and internatio...

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...

Womanish Ways, Freedom, Human Rights & Democracy
Marion Bethel
2013, 75 min., Color, Bahamas
This documentary is dedicated to the heroic struggle of Kate Moss and Mary Prince, two enslaved women who fought for their freedom in the 1820s in The Bahamas, and to the women of the Women’s Suffrage...


Call Us 1 (212) 947-9277
  • Third World Newsreel
  • • 545 Eighth Avenue, Suite 550, New York, NY 10018
  • • Telephone 212-947-9277

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.