Film Subjects

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Black Studies

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 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...

Black Women, Sexual Politics and the Revolution
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1992, 29 min., Color, US
Black women speak candidly on issues of sex, class and gender roles. The video examines how African American women deal with issues of poverty, abortion, battering and lack of health care, and address...

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...

The KKK Boutique Ain't Just Rednecks (76 minutes)
Camille Billops & James Hatch
1994, 76 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...

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...

A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde
Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1995, 52 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 socia...

Mama Gloria
Luchina Fisher
Producer: Yvonne Welbon & Zainab Ali
2020, 76 min., Color, US
At a time when Black transgender women face escalating violence and make up the majority of transgender people murdered each year, Gloria Allen’s story is an inspiring portrait of aging seldom seen. B...

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 ...

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...

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....

The Nation Erupts
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Deep Dish TV, Black Planet Productions
1992, 60 min., Color, US
Focusing on nationwide responses in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. Grassroots producers across the country reflect on the media coverage of the resulting L.A. uprising and its aftermath. Communi...

NCZ Goes to War
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1992, 30 min., Color, US
An examination of the Persian Gulf anti-war movement and its scant coverage in the mainstream media. NCZ went out in the streets and documented the response from activists, demonstrators, journalists ...

Our House: Lesbians and Gays in the Hood
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1993, 28 min., Color, US
Up front and in your face interviews with Black gays and lesbians provide an uncompromising look at homophobia, racism, alienation and empowerment for queer African Americans. This riveting documentar...

A String of Pearls
Camille Billops & James Hatch
2002, 56 min., Color, US
With this film, Camille Billops completes her family's trilogy - three documentaries that cover more than thirty years: "Suzanne Suzanne", shown in the New Director's series at the Museum of Modern Ar...

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...

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...

Vintage: Families of Value
Thomas Allen Harris
1995, 72 min., Color, US
VINTAGE is an experimental documentary which looks at three African American families through the eyes of lesbian and gay siblings--including the filmmaker and his younger brother. Three groups of que...

Voices of the Gods
Al Santana
Producer: Al Santana
1985, 60 min., Color, US
This documentary captures the rich legacy of ancient African religions practiced today in the United States. It provides viewers with rare insight into the practices and beliefs of the Akan and Yoruba...

X 1/2: The Legacy of Malcolm X
Black Planet Productions
Producer: Black Planet Productions
1994, 45 min., Color, US
Set within the context of current African American struggles, this video examines the historical and contemporary legacies of Malcolm X. Using mixed media and experimental audio, X & 1/2 explores Blac...


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