Film Subjects

Select Subject and click GO

Youth Collection

#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...

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...

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 Ladies Say
Ana Garcia
Producer: Ana "Rokafella" Garcia
2010, 45 min., Color, US
Veteran b-girl Ana "Rokafella" Garcia's first documentary film ALL THE LADIES SAY features the work of female breakdancers in the United States, including Aiko, Baby Love, Beta, Lady Champ, Severe and...

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...

Among the First to Die
Paul Barrera
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 8 min., Color, US
The life and death of one of the first American casualties of the War against Terror - Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, a 28 year old Guatemalan, who joined the Marines because "he wanted to give back...

Apollo Kids
Mike Torres & Third World Newsreel Workshop
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2000, 5 min., Color, US
One morning, Gio misses the #6 train which too frequently bypasses his Spanish Harlem stop. For Gio, one missed train means public humiliation by his teacher, suspension from school, and harassment b...

Arctic Hip Hop
Randy Kelly
Producer: Jacques Ménard & Micheline Shoebridge
2007, 44 min., Color, Canada
In Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, an isolated community of 1500 mainly Inuit residents, Hip-Hop has been popular for many years. But it’s the glamourized gangsta lifestyle on display in music videos that man...

Arizona : Resisting SB 1070 Immigration Law
Producer: NDLON, NDWA & Puente Movement
2011, 60 min., Color, US
These four videos document the impact of SB 1070 and other immigration policies on the lives of immigrant families in Arizona, and the growing national efforts to end these violations of human and civ...

Army a.k.a. Army Film (Newsreel #36)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 18 min., BW, US
Shot in 1969, this film documents the building anger of draftees in the U.S.military, and the growth of the anti-war movement within the military. Soldiers are interviewed and seen as they face bruta...

The Army Forced Them to Be Violent
Tino Saroengallo
2002, 43 min., Color, Indonesia
After the fall of President Suharto in May 1998, the student movement in Indonesia had to face the military/police repression in their fight for overall reform. Because of the repression and force th...

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...

B.E.S. (Bangla East Side)
Sarita Khurana & Fariba Alam
2004, 45 min., Color, US
B.E.S. (Bangla East Side) is a documentary portrait of four Bangladeshi teenagers growing up in the Lower East Side of New York City. Initially started as an after-school workshop at a local high sch...

Between the Cup and the Election
Monique Mbeka Phoba & Guy Kabeya Muya
2008, 56 min., Color/BW, DRC/Belgium
Inspired by the 2006 elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formery Zaire, a group of film students sets out to make a film. With the help of veteran filmmakers Monique Mbeka Phoba and Guy...

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 ...

Beyond the Bricks: A New Era of Education
Derek Koen
Producer: Ouida Washington
2010, 31 min., Color, US
BEYOND THE BRICKS follows African‐ American students Shaquiel Ingram and Erick Graham as they struggle to stay on track in the Newark public school system. Fifteen year‐old Shaquiel is a bright studen...

Big Willow
Jared Katsiane
2013, 11 min., Color, US
Can a young artist's creativity save his favorite willow tree from bulldozers?...

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 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 ...

Blaze: The Truth Through Hip Hop
Maurice Lynch
2006, 90 min., Color, US
The Hip-Hop Christian movement has been uplifting youth by delivering positive religious messages that are not about drugs, sex, or hate but of hope and peace. In a society where artists are glorif...

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-...

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 ...

Can't Jail the Revolution and Break the Walls Down
Kenyatta Tyehimba & Ada Gay Griffin
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1991, 60 min., Color, US
These two 30 minute videos use footage compiled from over 40 social justice media productions to chronicle the perspectives of political prisoners and of war within the United States. Historical foot...

Childcare: People's Liberation (Newsreel #56)
Newsreel
1970, 20 min., BW, US
The film shows how community run childcare centers are a step toward liberation, by giving parents and children a chance to develop relationships with their peers and new relationships with each other...

Children of Fire
Mai Masri
1990, 50 min., Color, Palestine
This film offers a rare view of the Intifada as seen through the eyes of Palestinian children. At age five, Fadi is already throwing stones, while for Hana, 11, the Intifada is a new way of life which...

Deft Changes: An Improvised Experience
Alonzo Speight
1991, 10 min., Color, US
Through short improvised sketches, this video explores the generational conflicts between a father and son who are each musicians. It features performances by guitarist Mark Whittfield, and the late m...

Diamonds in the Rough: A Ugandan Hip Hop Revolution
Brett Mazurek
2009, 53 min., US/Uganda
From the ashes of four decades of war, AIDS and corruption in Uganda, The Bataka Squad artists, Babaluku and Saba Saba, rise to forge a revolutionary path using music. They are on a mission to empower...

Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project
Charles B. Brack
Producer: Charles B. Brack, CoProduced with Third World Newsreel
2008, 58 min., Color, US
This documentary tells the little known story of Sakia Gunn, a 15 year old student who was fatally stabbed in a gay hate crime in Newark, New Jersey. Sakia was an Aggressive, according to GLAAD, a hom...

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...

Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê
Carolina Moraes-Liu
Producer: Carolina Moraes-Liu and Chung Liu
2010, 20 min., Color, Brazil/US
EBONY GODDESS: QUEEN OF ILÊ AIYÊ follows three women competing to be the carnival queen of Ilê Aiyê, a prominent and controversial Afro-Brazilian group with an all-black membership. The selection is b...

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...

Excuse My Gangsta Ways
Corinne E. Manabat
Producer: Corinne E. Manabat & Third World Newsreel Workshop
2008, 15 min., Color, US
We all go through transitions in life, whether it's a career change, or moving, but for Davina Wan, hers has been very extreme - from the gang life to a "normal" life. Excuse My Gangsta Ways is a visu...

Extra Change
Carmen Coustaut
1988, 28 min., Color, US
A realistic view of a 12-year-old African American girl's voyage through early adolescence, peer pressure, friendship and love. Focusing on society's expectations for young women, EXTRA CHANGE is an e...

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 ...

Fathers, Sons & Unholy Ghosts
Danny Thompson & Glen Noble
Producer: Sankofa Film and Video Collective
1994, 13 min., Color, UK
This moving narrative is a unique exploration of the multi-layered and often underexamined relationship between fathers and sons. When Martin, a young father, is left alone one weekend with his son, h...

Favela Rising
Jeff Zimbalist & Matt Mochary
Color, Brazil
Their music fueled a movement. His message fought a war. FAVELA RISING documents a man and a movement, a city divided and a favela (Brazilian squatter settlement) united. Haunted by the murders of ...

Finding Christa
Camille Billops & James Hatch
1991, 55 min., Color, US
This documentary presents a moving yet unsentimental view of motherhood and adoption. It explores the feelings surrounding the reunion of a young woman with her natural mother 20 years after being giv...

Finding D-QU: The Lonely Struggle of California's only Tribal College
Chris Newman
Producer: Chris Newman
2010, 26 min., Color, US
In 2005, D-Q University, California’s only tribal college, was shut down after a 35-year struggle. Since then, the school’s board of trustees, past students, and community members have tried to reopen...

Follow Your Heart: China's New Youth Movement
Duncan Jepson
2007, 89 min., Color, China
A revealing documentary on the work and life of successful and independent Chinese Hip-Hop artists and their cultural influence in a society rapidly changing from communism to consumerism. Clashing wi...

Foster Care Film Series: Volume 1
Yasmin Mistry
Producer: Yasmin Mistry
2017, 39 min., Color, US
In this award-winning collection, Charell, Ashley, and Camilla share their deeply personal stories about their experiences in the U.S. foster care system. Foster Care Film Series: Volume 1 celebrates ...

Four American Sailors a.k.a. Four Americans (Newsreel #3)
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1967, 19 min., BW, Japan/US
An extended interview with the four American sailors who deserted in protest against the war in Vietnam in 1967. Filmed in Japan, the interviews reveal much about how they reached their decision to de...

Freckled Rice
Stephen C. Ning
Producer: Stephen C. Ning & Yuet-Fung Ho
1983, 48 min., Color, US
This is a story of Joe Soo, a 13-year-old boy coming of age and coming to terms with his Chinese America heritage in Boston during the 1960s. His Boston encompasses Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the Kennedy ...

Frekuensia Kolombiana
Vanessa Gocksch
2006, 58 min., Color, Colombia
FREKUENSIA KOLOMBIANA profiles the grassroots Hip-Hop scene in Colombia, exploring the popularity of all the elements--MCing, breakdancing, graffiti, and DJing--and their relation to the political and...

Fresh Seeds in The Big Apple
Allan Siegel & Maureen Sherlock
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1976, 25 min., Color, US
Made in cooperation with the parents and workers of two publicly funded daycare centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn, this historical Third World Newsreel production -- FRESH SEEDS IN THE BIG APPLE -- as...

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...

Gaman...to Endure
Bob Miyamoto, Drawings by Betty Chen
1982, 6 min., Color
An animated film told through a young girl’s eyes, it combines the drawings of Betty Chen and haunting music of Nobuko Miyamoto to tell of 110,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated in U.S. concentration...

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...

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. ...

Heart of Harlem
Brian Lindstrom
Bob McCullough
2001, 9 min., Color, US
HEART OF HARLEM traces the life and times of Holcombe Rucker, who founded a summer basketball league while working for New York Citys Parks Department in order to give young people a positive alternat...

High School Rising (Newsreel #38)
San Francisco Newsreel
15 min., BW, US
An analysis of how the schools by using the tracking system, exploit and oppress people in terms of class origins and how students can begin to organize....

Hip Hop Sp
Francisco Cesar
1990, 11 min., Color
Young Black members of Sao Paulo's hip hop movement depict their experience and views of Black Brazilian history through their music, dance and graffiti....

Hiroshima Nagasaki Download
Shinpei Takeda
2010, 73 min., Color, US/Japan
In Spring of 2009, two former high school friends set out on a road trip from Vancouver, Canada, heading south towards the Mexican border. Along the way, they meet atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima a...

I Love Hip Hop in Morocco
Joshua Asen & Jennifer Needleman
Producer: Rizz Productions, Inc.
2007, 80 min., Color, US/Morocco
This feature-length documentary follows the creation of Morocco's first-ever Hip-Hop festival, from inception all the way to the stage. Along the way we meet DJ Key, a self-taught turntable prodigy wh...

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 a Perfect World…
Daphne McWilliams
Producer: Daphne McWilliams & Sam Pollard
2015, 76 min., US
IN A PERFECT WORLD… Explores all the requisite dynamics of what it is to be a man raised by a single mother. The inspiration for the film came from the director's own relationship with her son who has...

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 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...

Is It Sweet? Tales of an African Superstar in New York
Jesse W Shipley
Color, US
Reggie Rockstone is a celebrity rap musician in Accra, Ghana, where he inspired a young generation of musicians and continues to draw huge crowds. But when he comes to New York to play for the Ghanaia...

Isle of Youth
Newsreel
Producer: Newsreel
1969, 12 min., BW
The daily activities of young Cubans—their work, recreation, and education—as they participate in converting the Isle of Pines from a prison colony to an experiment to create a new society....

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...

The Keepsake
Adaeze Elechi
Producer: Adaeze Elechi
2024, 32 min., Color, United States
After living with relatives in fast-paced Lagos City, Nigeria, 14-year-old Amarachi returns to her home village to live with her mother Ikechi for the first time in eight years. When Ikechi learns Ama...

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...

Leaving Bakul Bagan
Sandeep Ray
1994, 45 min., Color
This moving documentary follows the filmmaker's cousin's imminent departure from India to pursue studies in the U.S. Torn between familial and national loyalties and her desire to travel and experienc...

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...

Little Brother: The Fire Next Time (Chapter 4)
Nicole Franklin
2014, 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: The Street (Chapter 2)
Nicole Franklin
Producer: EPIPHANY Inc.
2012, 17 min., Color, US
LITTLE BROTHER is a series of 15-minute documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look ...

Little Brother: Things Fall Apart (Chapter 1)
Nicole Franklin & Jasmin Tiggett
Producer: EPIPHANY Inc.
2010, 18 min., Color, US
LITTLE BROTHER is a series of 15-minute documentary films dedicated to giving Black boys a unique voice. Beginning in 2010, filmmakers Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett started taking an annual look ...

Little Immigrants
Sonia Fritz & Frances Lausell
2008, 42 min., Color, Mexico/US
LITTLE IMMIGRANTS is an insider's look into child smuggling captured from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. This documentary is a dramatic firsthand account of a family's journey to reunite after ...

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...

Lost & Found
Kaizad Gustad
1995, 28 min., Color
After shining a customer's shoes, a young street vendor, Munna, discovers that his client's overstuffed wallet has accidentally dropped on the road. While his fellow shoe shine boys call him an "idiot...

Loving Each Other in the Shadows
Marcelina Cárdenas
Producer: CEFREC/CAIB
2001, 47 min., Color, Bolivia
Rosita, from a privileged background, and Juancito, from a poor family, fall in love during Carnival time, a time for everyone in their community, rich and poor, to get together, dance and drink the t...

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 dis...

Military Option
Al Santana & Alonzo Speight
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 11 min., Color, US
Women, money and travel. It's still the hook that military recruiters are using on young men, as two students discover at a Queens recruitment office. A look at the military recruitment process thro...

Military Promises
Kamisha S.
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 8 min., Color, US
Brian was recruited into the US Navy, much to his filmmaker sister’s dismay. Pressured by a family history filled with those who served in uniform, as well as calls and visits from recruiters who offe...

Missing Relations
Yvonne Welbon
1994, 13 min., Color, US
Almost 30 years ago, the filmmaker's mother gave birth to twin daughters. For a few months, Welbon shared her childhood with her baby sisters until their father "kidnapped" them. Welbon never saw her ...

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 of the River
Zeinabu Irene Davis
1995, 28 min., BW, US
This powerful drama of a young girl's slave experience in the antebellum South is based on the power of the folk tale and the riddle. Dofimae is an independent spirit despite her condition of slavery....

Mother's Hands
Vejan Smith
1992, 10 min., Color, US
This provocative experimental video depicts the trauma of emotional, physical and sexual abuse from a young girl's point of view. The video uses music, image, audio manipulation and minimal dialogue, ...

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...

Mr. Devious
John Fredericks
2006, 73 min., South Africa
MR. DEVIOUS is an exploration of the life and impact of South African Hip-Hop artist Mr. Devious on the youth and community of Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. The film traces Mr. Devious' intro...

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...

Musica
Gustavo Paredes
1985, 59 min., Color, US
This film is an odyssey through the eyes, words and music of individuals who pioneered Afro-Cuban music in the United States. The video offers a rich overview of a wide number of musical styles from ...

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...

Nas: Time Is Illmatic
One9 & Erik Parker
Producer: One9 & Erik Parker
2014, 74 min., Color, US
Twenty years after the release of Nas’s groundbreaking debut album ‘Illmatic,’ NAS: TIME IS ILLMATIC takes us into the heart of his creative process. Returning to his childhood home in Queensbridge, N...

No Time to Lose
Allan Siegel & Patricia Benoit
1988, 28 min., Color, US
Average New Yorkers describe their childhood experiences as "carefree", and "lots of fun and games". But 40% of all Black children and 50% of all Hispanic children in New York City live below the nat...

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...

Of Kites and Borders
Yolanda Pividal
2014, 60 min., Color, US/Mexico/Spain
OF KITES AND BORDERS, winner of the Best Documentary Award at the San Diego Film Festival and the Havana Film Festival in New York, tells the story of the daily struggle to be a child living on the US...

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...

Outside Lookin' In
Karen Torres
2002, 15 min., Color, US
This highly stylized short presents the opinions of urban Latino youth about the World Trade Center tragedy. Filmmaker Karen Torres interviews teenagers on the streets of Washington Heights in New Yo...

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 ...

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...

Photos of Angie
Alan Domínguez
Producer: Alan Domínguez, David Domínguez & Jennifer Warren
2011, 55 min., Color, US
In 2008, 18 year-old, Mexican-American Angie Zapata was found dead in her small apartment in Greely, Colorado. The media quickly reported that she was a typical teenager – she loved using her cell pho...

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...

Praise House
Julie Dash
1991, 30 min., Color, US
This video uses stunningly beautiful and innovative techniques to tell the story of a young woman moved to dance by a powerful and creative spirit. Despite her mother's disinterest, Hannah is driven t...

Promise and Unrest
Alan Grossman & Áine O’Brien
Producer: FOMACS in association with Ned Kelly Pictures
2010, 79 min., Color, Ireland
Through struggle and sacrifice migrant women often stand as sole breadwinners in the transnational family. Separated from her daughter Gracelle at 7 months, Noemi Barredo left the Philippines for work...

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...

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...

Remembering Jason
Nashid Fareed
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2000, 24 min., Color, US
Dedicated to "those we have lost to needless violence", REMEMBERING JASON portrays the lives of those connected to him. After living what could be termed a normal life--school, sports, music--Jason Th...

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....

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...

Scene Not Heard
Maori Karmael Holmes
2005, 45 min., Color, US
Right from the beginning of the hip hop movement, Philadelphia's artists have made major contributions as emcees, grafitti artists, dancers, and especially as deejays. Native talents such as Will Smit...

She Rhymes Like a Girl
J.T. Takagi
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2005, 7 min., Color, US
Toni Blackman and the FreeStyle Union are challenging the male dominated world of hip hop and empowering women to speak their minds in freestyle workshops. This music video/documentary hopes to promot...

Sisters in the Life: First Love
Yvonne Welbon
1993, 30 min., Color, US
A thirty-something black lesbian reflects on falling for her best friend in junior high. Set in the '70's and '90's, this is a delightful tale of love and friendship. Welbon incorporates recreated fla...

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 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...

Stories Within: A Film by the Austin Asian American Community
PJ Raval
Producer: Hanna Huang & Andrew Lee
2022, 10 min., 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...

Student Movement in Indonesia: 15 Years Later
Tino Saroengallo
2013, 93 min., Color, Indonesia
In May 1998, the student movement in Indonesia, a popular movement denouncing the collapse of the Indonesian economy and demanding the end of President Suharto's authoritarian regime, accomplished the...

The Survivor’s Project: Voices from the Inside-Out!
Cabral Larc Trotman
2007, 45 min., Color, Canada
THE SURVIVOR'S PROJECT: VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT! explores the traumatic impact and implications of gun violence on young people, and young black men in particular, living in low-income, racialized ...

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...

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...

Three Queer Mice
SupaFriends, Daniel Feliciano, Amanda Moscoso, Tatiana Lam Lo, Corina Leu & Alcides Torres
Producer: SupaFriends & Global Action Project
2007, 3 min., Color, US
This short animation is a remake of the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice". We find three very queer mice in a lot of trouble when their rights are being violated. Based on real events. Global Action...

Through My Eyes
Shawn Batey
Producer: Third World Newsreel
2001, 10 min., Color, US
A group of NYC school children assembled in the weeks following September 11th express a wide range of emotions, thoughts and criticisms of the new world in which they now find themselves. A revealing...

Tijuana, Nada Mas
Yolanda Pividal
2010, 27 min., Color, US/Mexico
Jonathan (“Pollo”) and Enrique (“Gordo”) are 14-year old orphans making their own living on the streets of Tijuana, the busiest frontier city in the world. Jonathan assists the “Coyotes” in smuggling ...

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", ...

Tongues of Heaven
Anita Chang, An-Chi Chen, Leivallyn Kainoa Kaupu, Monica Hau‘oli Waiau & Shin-Lan Yu
2013, 60 min., Color, US/Taiwan
Set in Taiwan and Hawai‘i, territories where the Austronesian family languages are spoken, TONGUES OF HEAVEN focuses on the questions, desires and challenges of young indigenous peoples to learn the l...

Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles
Seyi Adebanjo
2013, 7 min., Color, US
TRANS LIVES MATTER! JUSTICE FOR ISLAN NETTLES is a powerful and moving document of a community vigil for Islan Nettles, a Transgender Womyn of Color who was beaten to death in front of a New York Poli...

Variety Survival Talkshow
Se Young JO
2009, 72 min., Color, South Korea
“I was about six. Back then I didn't know what it was or what it was called, so I couldn't tell anyone. But even after I knew what it was, I still couldn't speak out.” --KangYoung, Korean performance ...

Walking Home
Nuala Cabral
Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop
2011, 4 min., BW, US
For the walkers, talkers and those who say nothing. WALKING HOME questions the acceptance of street harassment as a normal interaction between men and women....

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...

Whatever It Takes
Christopher Wong
2011, 92 min., Color, US
WHATEVER IT TAKES chronicles the struggles and triumphs of the very first year of the Bronx Center for Science & Mathematics, an innovative public high school in New York City. At the Bronx Center ...

Young Puppeteers of Vietnam
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Producer: Democratic Peoples' Republic of Viet Nam
1969, 25 min., BW, Vietnam
Art, dance, music and poetry became a vital necessity for the liberated areas of South Vietnam in their daily efforts to survive the bombings and napalming of the Vietnam War. In this moving film, tee...


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, Ford Foundation, Golden Globe Foundation, Kolibri Foundation and individual donors.