Against the Grain Seyi Adebanjo & Betty Yu 2011, 6 min., Color, US To break the mold of past documentaries about gender transformation, AGAINST THE GRAIN goes beyond the usual gender binary and linear racial focus. This short documentary follows the story of OluSeyi,...
All the Love Sistema Radio Venceremos Producer: Sistema Radio Venceremos 1987, 30 min., Color, El Salvador Young, war-wounded Salvadoran guerrillas rehabilitate in Cuba. Their stories, hopes and prospects for the future are recounted with startling clarity and acceptance.
Made in El Salvador by Sistema ...
amaurosis Tran T. Kim-Trang 2002, 28 min., Color, US Amaurosis is an experimental documentary about Nguyen Duc Dat, a blind, American Asian guitarist living in Little Saigon, California. Dat was a 'triple outcast': blind, Amerasian and an impoverished o...
Among Women Renata Gangemi 1996, 32 min., Color, US Using interviews and experimental techniques, AMONG WOMEN is a wide ranging exploration of the social perceptions of pregnancy, the medical professions approach towards it, and midwifery as a healthy ...
Another Brother Tami Gold Producer: AndersonGold Films 1998, 51 min., Color, US Through found photographs, audiotaped interviews and archival footage, ANOTHER BROTHER tells the story of Vietnam veteran Clarence Fitch. Clarence Fitch was a man of and for his times, an African Ame...
Before David Melissa Saucedo Gonzalez Producer: Melissa Saucedo Gonzalez 2015, 20 min., Color, US A short documentary film about pre-partum depression, its symptoms, and the difficulties it poses when a woman is going through extreme physical and emotional changes.
The film reflects on the cons...
Body and Soul (De Corpo e Alma) Matthieu Bron 2011, 54 min., Color, Mozambique Victoria, Mariana and Vasco are three young Mozambicans with physical disabilities living in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city. The film explores how they see themselves, raising questions about self-...
Born in Brazil Cara Biasucci 2002, 52 min., Color, Brazil The World Health Organization suggests a maximum cesarean rate of 15%. Although research shows the majority of Brazilian women prefer natural birth, statistics provide a different story --- 65% - 85% ...
Bringin' in Da Spirit Rhonda L. Haynes 2003, 60 min., Color, US Through the use of first person narrative and rare archival images, this documentary provides a moving glimpse of the women who have skillfully brought scores of children across the threshold of exist...
Catching Babies: Celebrating the Power of Birth, Mothers and Midwives Barni A. Qaasim Producer: Jennifer Lucero 2011, 60 min., Color, US/Mexico What if we could change the world by changing the way babies are born? Shot in El Paso, Texas, CATCHING BABIES tells the stories of mothers and midwives on the journey to bring life into the world.
...
A Cosmic Demonstration of Sexuality Shari Frilot 1992, 20 min., Color, US A humorous comparison between female sexuality and cosmic structures, this video interviews five different women on topics such as menstruation, masturbation and ejaculation. The video proposes how se...
COVER/AGE Set Hernandez Rongkilyo Producer: California Immigrant Policy Center 2019, 24 min., Color, US COVER/AGE examines the lack of healthcare access for undocumented immigrants in California, and how two undocumented individuals are advocating to fight this exclusion. One protagonist is Emma, an eld...
Daughters of Mother India Vibha Bakshi Producer: Vibha Bakshi & Maryann De Leo 2013, 45 min., Color, India DAUGHTERS OF MOTHER INDIA reveals the aftermath of the horrific rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in December 2012. For weeks, mass protests filled the streets of India and the...
De*fat*ting Michelle Lewis & Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2000, 13 min., Color, US Today is the first day of the elusive diet for Lewis' main character. A funny and poignant meditation on American society's fascination with thinness, DE*FAT*TING explores food, addiction, obesity, an...
Diabetes: Notes from Indian Country Beverly Singer Producer: Beverly Singer 2000, 30 min., Color, US In 1993, the U.S. Public Health/Indian Health Service reported that 40% of all persons, 40 years and older, residing on American Indian reservations are diabetic. This video visits the Winnebago Indi...
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...
Don't Get Sick After June: American Indian Healthcare Chip Richie Producer: Steven R. Heape 2010, 60 min., Color, US Declared wards of the state, Native Americans were promised housing, education and healthcare in numerous treaties with the US Government. Like so many other federal promises, these too have not been ...
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...
ekleipsis Tran T. Kim-Trang 1998, 23 min., Color, US "I came across a New York Times article about a group of hysterically blind Cambodian women in Long Beach, California, the largest group of such people known in the world. Hysterical blindness is sigh...
Epilogue: The Palpable Invisibility of Life Tran T. Kim-Trang 2006, Color, US How can we make visible the invisible? How can we "see" our lost loved ones? In EPILOGUE, Vietnamese-American filmmaker Tran T. Kim Trang looks for answers to these questions in the audio recordings ...
He Wo Un Poh: Recovery in Native America Beverly Singer 1994, 54 min., Color, US A critical look at the effects of alcoholism on Native American communities. Singer, a member of the Santa Clara Tewa Pueblo, introduces us to the experiences of seven Native Americans on the road to...
Imelda Is Not Alone Paula Heredia 2023, 31 min., Color, US/El Salvador Imelda Cortez, aged 19, arrives at the hospital bleeding after giving birth in a latrine. She is handcuffed to the hospital bed, arrested on suspicion of abortion, and later charged with attempted and...
In My Genes Lupita Nyong'o 2009, 78 min., Color, Kenya What is it like to be 'white' in a 'black' society? IN MY GENES shares the lives of 8 people with albinism in Kenya. It reveals the uplifting life story of Agnes, a woman with albinism of few means wh...
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 ...
Jails, Hospitals, and Hip Hop Mark Benjamin & Danny Hoch 2000, 90 min., US From the mind of Brooklyn actor, performance artist and Hip-Hop activist Danny Hoch, this film spins out the stories of ten lives shocked by global Hip-Hop, the prison system and life in general. Movi...
kore Tran T. Kim-Trang 1994, 17 min., Color, US The third installment in the series opens with two women who are blindfolded and making love. This visually lush and erotic exploration of blindness investigates questions of desire and power, empowe...
Land Where My Fathers Died Daresha Kyi 1991, 24 min., Color, US A fiercely independent young African American woman and her nouveau-nationalist photographer boyfriend decide to visit the father she hasn't seen in years. The tragicomic reunion shatters her illusion...
Lincoln Hospital (Newsreel #35) Newsreel Producer: Newsreel 1970, 11 min., BW, US When a city-run health clinic in the South Bronx fails to meet the needs of the city, local residents and health workers force a strike and then run the clinic themselves....
Medical Committee for Human Rights (Newsreel #40) Newsreel BW, US The film shows the medical committees role during the long strike at San Francisco State College and the need for tactical knowledge of first aid as the student movement intensified....
Morir Por Amor: Latinas and Aids Marta Noemi Bautis 1998, 47 min., Color, US Maria suspects that her husband is being unfaithful. "And have you thought about AIDS?," her friends warns her. The development of the story is juxtaposed by documentary elements filmed in Argentina, ...
Mute Love Patrice Mallard 1998, 58 min., Color, US MUTE LOVE is a feature-length narrative film about three generations of African-American women who are trying to mend their fractured relationships. Mavis is a twenty-three year old recovering drug ad...
Older Women and Love Camille Billops & James Hatch 1987, 26 min., Color, US Using interviews and dramatizations, this film achieves a touching and often humorous look at social attitudes towards relationships between older women and younger men. The filmmakers are involved on...
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...
Politics from a Black Woman's Insides Yuko Edwards 1997, 26 min., Color, US Follow one woman's search for the Hottentot Venus, the legendary link between ape and human and icon of black female subjectivity. Edwards's film explores the construction of race through both scienti...
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...
Rest in Peace Jeff Mao 1990, 15 min., BW, US In this subtle and comic narrative, a young Asian American is pressured by his wife, family and "tradition" to grant the last wish of a dying relative. First, however, he must decipher a note written ...
Seen, But Not Heard: AIDS and the Untold War Against Black Women Cyrille Phipps 2008, 12 min., Color, US SEEN, BUT NOT HEARD is a short documentary that will explore the historical antecedents, current trends, and emerging activism concerning HIV/AIDS and women of African descent. Through raw and reveal...
A Shortness of Breath Ann Kaneko 1993, 15 min., BW, US Mixing documentary and narrative this film is a candid account of one woman's struggle with breast cancer and her own imminent death. Delving into various attitudes towards death and dying, the filmma...
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...
Struggle For Life National Liberation Front Vietnam Producer: National Liberation Front Vietnam 1968, 30 min., BW, Vietnam This film depicts Vietnamese medical cadres working to save the lives of people in the liberated areas of South Vietnam during the war. At the front, medics carry the wounded to carefully concealed tu...
Su-Casa Senior Media Production Workshop Films: 2020 Films Producer: Third World Newsreel 2020, 24 min., Color, US From April to June, 2020, a dozen senior filmmakers learned about film theory, film scripting, and were taught to film and edit on their smart phones. Originally planned as an in-person workshop to be...
Suzanne, Suzanne Camille Billops & James Hatch 1982, 30 min., BW, US This poignant documentary profiles a young black woman's struggle to confront the legacy of a physically abusive father and her headlong flight into drug abuse. Suzanne, after years of physical and ps...
Testing the Limits: NYC Testing the Limits Collective Producer: Testing the Limits Collective 1989, 30 min., Color, US In 1987, the Ronald Reagan administration faced criticism from AIDS activists for its mismanagement of the AIDS crisis. Chanting "Test drugs, not people" and "Educate, don't isolate", activist groups ...
Three Tours Betty Yu Producer: Betty Yu 2016, 49 min., Color, US "Nicole Goodwin, Ryan Holleran and Ramon Mejia are three U.S. military service members who deployed to Iraq after 9-11 to fight in the “Global War on Terrorism.” Nicole and Ramon served in Iraq during...
The Throwaways Bhawin Suchak & Ira McKinley Producer: Bhawin Suchak & Ira McKinley, Executive Producer: Sam Pollard 2014, 62 min., Color, US THE THROWAWAYS is a personal exploration of the devastating impact of police brutality and mass incarceration on the black community told through the eyes of formerly incarcerated activist Ira McKinle...
To Light the Spirit Reynaldo Yujra Producer: CEFREC/CAIB 2002, 45 min., Color, Bolivia In a collective production, an Aymara filmmaker follows the Kallawayas, healers and spiritual leaders of the Chari community of La Paz, to learn about the indigenous reality of the region. Traditional...
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...
Viva Eu! (Long Live Me!) Tania Cypriano 1989, 18 min., Color, US/Brazil/Spain This documentary is a tribute to Wilton Braga, a visionary artist who was one of the first people to be diagnosed with AIDS in Brazil. As Braga travels to Barcelona, New York and Sao Paolo, the film ...
With Blood Juliana Fredman & Dan O'Reilly-Rowe 2006, 57 min., Color, US/Palestine This documentary follows ordinary people’s efforts to overcome extraordinary obstacles in pursuit of routine health care in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Shot on location with patients and health work...
Women of Substance Rory Kennedy & Robin Smith 1994, 60 min., Color, US Narrated by Joanne Woodward, this video is a comprehensive portrait of the legal, moral and health care battles being waged to improve treatment opportunities for pregnant addicts and women with child...
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