Angels of the Earth, The Patricio Luna Producer: CEFREC/CAIB 2001, 40 min., Color, Bolivia In his first trip to the city, Sinchi faces deceit, violence and rejection from strangers and from his long lost brother, Antonio. This short drama is a cautionary tale about the dangers of city life ...
Anomaly: A Documentary Film about Multiracial Identity Jessica Chen Drammeh Producer: Jessica Chen Drammeh & Sharon K. Smith 2013, 47 min., Color, US ANOMALY is an award-winning documentary film that provides a thought-provoking look at multiracial identity by combining personal narratives with the larger drama of mixed race in American culture. Th...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
Bodily Functions Jocelyn Taylor 1995, 14 min., Color Exploring the notions of body image and sexual expression as they intersect with family and society, this short interweaves three narratives: first, a "naked fugitive on the loose" as she runs, walks ...
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.
...
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...
Chircales Marta Rodríguez & Jorge Silva 1971, 42 min., BW, Colombia This film portrays the life of a family of brick makers in the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia, documenting the personal experience of the Castañeda family to expose the exploitation of manual laborers....
Close to Home Rodney Evans 1998, 24 min., Color, US CLOSE TO HOME documents the filmmaker's journey as he comes out to a conservative, Jamaican family and negotiates a painful relationship with a 21-year old heterosexual man....
Coming Full Circle: The Journey of a Korean Transgendered Adoptee Larry Tung 2015, 24 min., Color, US/Korea Pauline Park, a transgender rights activist in New York City, was born into a poor family in post-war Korea. Adopted by white American parents, she left Korea as a 7-month old baby boy and grew up in ...
Comrades Edward Wong 1999, 26 min., Color, US COMRADES is a personal documentary essay about two men who took part in the violent socialist struggles of the mid-20th century, only to face resistance and disillusionment. The producer's father, Yoo...
Conquering Fear a.k.a. Overcoming Fear María Morales Producer: CEFREC/CAIB 2004, 55 min., Color, Bolivia When an impoverished Aymara family migrates from the highlands to seek a better life elsewhere, the husband abandons his wife, Manuela, and their children. Manuela moves on with her life, becoming the...
Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories Pam Sporn 2000, 57 min., Color, US/Cuba Highlights the experience of a black Cuban American famiy, revealing that the Cuban-American experience is more diverse, racially and ideologically, than we are often led to believe.
This documenta...
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...
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 str...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides Lucy Craft, Karen Kasmauski & Kathryn Tolbert 2015, 26 min., Color, US Three Japanese war brides trace their tumultuous journey to America as the young wives of US soldiers and civilians. Atsuko, Emiko and Hiroko were among tens of thousands of Japanese women who married...
A Family Called Abrew Maureen Blackwood Producer: Sankofa Film and Video Collective 1992, 42 min., Color, UK This documentary profiles a fascinating family that has been based in Scotland since the end of the 19th century. It also traces the history of people of African descent living in Europe before the gr...
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...
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...
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 ...
Frankie & Jocie Jocelyn Taylor 1994, 20 min., Color, US Examining the relationships between brother and sister, hetero and queer, male and female, this video weaves a provocative discussion between a Black lesbian and her straight brother. In an eloquent e...
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 ...
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...
Fuori/Outside Kym Ragusa 1997, 12 min., Color, US In FUORI/OUTSIDE the videomaker, an American woman of African and Italian descent, examines her relationship with her Italian American grandmother. The lives of the two women are inextricably linked t...
Grandmother's Flower Jeong-hyun Mun 2008, 89 min., Color, South Korea When director Mun accidentally discovered the diaries of his late granduncle, who was mentally ill, he unexpectedly learned about his family's secret history. The small mountain village in South Jeoll...
Her Uprooting Plants Her Celine Salazar Parrenas 1994, 17 min., Color, US Ten years after immigrating to the United States, three Filipina sisters move out of the family house and open a sari-sari (corner) store. On Christmas Eve their family meet in the store and share sto...
Homecoming Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1991, 20 min., Color, US This sensitive drama adeptly portrays the clash of two cultures and the difficulty of finding a healthy balance in the process of assimilation. Constance is a young Jamaican American woman who has re...
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 t...
Human Touch: Pain and Power Vejan Lee Smith Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1995, 30 min., Color, US In a powerful and moving reclamation of the body and human touch, this video documents how survivors of sexual abuse reaffirm their sexuality and physical selves. Intercutting dance footage, interview...
If You Could Walk In My Shoes Ricardo E Causo 2016, 27 min., Color, US Ecuadorian immigrant Roberto Marquez has been living in New York City for more than a decade, yet he has been unable to adjust his immigration status because there has been no path to citizenship for ...
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...
In the Name of our Coca Leaves a.k.a. In the Name of our Coca Humberto Claros & Albino Pinto Producer: CEFREC/CAIB 2004, 45 min., Color, Bolivia In the midst of the historical conflict between indigenous coca growers in Chapare and the Bolivian military, Joselo Coca must chose between his military career and his family’s survival.
TWN is p...
In Whose Name? Nandini Sikand 2004, 11 min., Color In Whose Name? is a filmic essay which explores the co-opting of icons by political agendas. This experimental short is told through personal narrative, Super 8mm home movies, Bollywood film clips an...
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 t...
Judith: Portrait of a Street Vendor Zahida Pirani 2014, 17 min., Color, US JUDITH: PORTRAIT OF A STREET VENDOR is a documentary short that takes the audience on an intimate journey into the daily life of Judith, a street vendor from Guatemala who lives and works in New York ...
Keep Saray Home Brian Redondo Producer: Brian Redondo, Bethany Li & Kevin Lam 2020, 31 min., Color, US Far from the southern border, in the outskirts of Boston, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees are facing their own battle against family separation. ICE is detaining and deporting community members on a...
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...
La Bruja: A Witch from the Bronx Felix Rodriguez 2005, 50 min., Color, US Art, labor and family blend in this intimate documentary about performance artist Caridad De La Luz, better known as 'La Bruja'. Born and raised in the Bronx, this daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants ...
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...
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 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 ...
Living in Half Tones Me-K Ahn 1994, 9 min., Color A metaphorical reconstruction of the artist's developing identity as an adopted Korean girl in America who returns to Korea for the first time "to search for bits and pieces of my past." A visually po...
Lockdown, USA Michael Skolnik & Rebecca Chaiklin 2006, 84 min., Color, US In 1973, New York State enacted the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which are the harshest drug control measures ever passed in any democratic nation. President Reagan declared the National “War on Drugs” in 1...
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...
Ma/baap Siraj Jhaveri 1994, 30 min., Color When your parents hate each other -- how do you learn to love? This award-winning, personal chronicle's the relationship between the filmmaker's Muslim father and Hindu mother --exploring their forbid...
Marriage Bibo Liang 2001, 60 min., Color, China MARRIAGE is an intimate portrait about the intersecting and antagonistic relations between generations and institutions. Filmed in 1997, it traces two sides of one mountain in a remote village in Sout...
The Marriage Dinner Third World Newsreel Workshop Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 1987, 20 min., Color, US Elena, a young Salvadoran woman, is forced to marry a man she does not love in order to remain in the United States with other members of her extended family. Jim, her new husband, is a naive, cultur...
Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing And The Fight For Fairness Thomas Allen Harris 2011, 15 min., Color, US A documentary that connects the Lesbian and Gay Marriage Equality movement with the Black Civil Rights Movement.
This documentary interweaves archival footage and photos with contemporary intervie...
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 ...
Mommy, What's Wrong? Anita Chang 1997, 14 min., Color Along with optically-printed home movie and hand-processed Super-8 film footage, the filmmaker incorporates an interview with her mother about immigration, motherhood and spirituality, in search of st...
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...
Mouth Harp in Minor Key: Hamid Naficy In/On Exile Maryam Sepehri Producer: Maryam Sepehri 2017, 61 min., Color, US/Iran For Iranian scholar Hamid Naficy, exile is like an elevator that runs between “two cultural poles, two memories, two lives.” Naficy belongs to the Iranian generation that lived through the modernizati...
The Mseyas Gustavo Vizoso 2007, 72 min., Color, Tanzania/Spain AIDS kills more than two million people every year in Africa. As a result of this epidemic, there are more than 11 million orphans. This documentary is the story of the Mseyas, AIDS orphans from Iring...
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...
My Life, Our Struggle Suzana Amaral 1979, 43 min., Color, Brazil On the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, a group of poor women decided to organize their community to improve the conditions of poverty in which they lived. Grupo de Maes de Vila Campo Li...
Najeeb: A Persian Girl in America Tanaz Eshaghian 2000, 26 min., Color, US After the Iranian Revolution took place in 1979, after which 80,000 Persian Jews fled the country. Since then, thousands of young women have grown up in Iranian homes in the United States, where they...
A Nice Arrangement Gurinder Chadha 1990, 11 min., Color, UK Set in the London home of an Indian family on the morning of their daughter's wedding, this film is a wry depiction of one of the most central of Indian traditions -- the arranged marriage. As the you...
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...
Ọya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa! Seyi Adebanjo 2015, 30 min., Color, US/Nigeria In this documentary, Queer Gender-Non-Conforming Nigerian media artist Seyi Adebanjo tells a tale not often heard about gender and indigenous Yorùbá spirituality. ỌYA follows Seyi's journey to Nigeria...
Passing Kym Ragusa 1995, 9 min., BW, US The videomaker's grandmother recounts the tale of a trip she and her lover took through the segregated South of the 1950s. As her story unfolds--revealing as much in silences and gaps as it does in it...
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...
Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself. Yvonne Welbon 1995, 30 min., Color, us/China An autobiographical experimental documentary about the artist's experiences as an African-American woman living in Taiwan for six years. Recreations of time and place are presented through memories, h...
Resilience Lana Lovell 2010, 48 min., Color, Canada An intimate, richly detailed documentary that confronts long-held stereotypes by stepping inside the lives of three real women in the real world. With honesty, intelligence and humour, Nancy, Simone a...
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 ...
Rising Up: the Alams Konrad Aderer Producer: Third World Newsreel Call for Change 2005, 11 min., Color, US As part of the Homeland security measures, immigrant men from 25, mostly Muslim countries were required to enroll in a Special Registrationprogram. The result: no evidence of terror, but some 13,000 ...
Some Divine Wind Roddy Bogawa 1991, 72 min., Color, US SOME DIVINE WIND (a reference to the Japanese term Kamikaze, or “divine wind”) tells the story of Ben, whose father was part of a U.S. bombing mission that destroyed his Japanese mother’s village—and ...
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 ...
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...
Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela Thomas Allen Harris Producer: Thomas Allen Harris 2005, 73 min., Color, US In the wake of his stepfather’s death, Thomas Allen Harris embarks on a journey of reconciliation with the man who raised him as a son but whom he could never call "father." As part of the first wave ...
Two Months to Home Janice Ahn 2006, 8 min., Color, US In the months prior to 9-11, an Afghan woman named Samira Rahman narrowly escapes from the Taliban, losing her family. After settling down in Long Island and beginning a new family, Samira is taken aw...
Undertow Me-K Ahn 1995, 18 min., BW, US "undertow" is an experimental short film which explores how the loss of family and culture can affect one's body consciousness and sexuality. It juxtaposes one adopted woman's reconstructed search for...
Unspoken Patrick G Lee 2020, 17 min., Color, US Through letter-writing, a community discussion, and a drag performance, six queer and trans Asian Americans grapple with their queerness and consider what family acceptance might look like.
UNSPOK...
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...
Voces de Fillmore Ariana Allensworth, Teresa Basilio & Regina Eaton Producer: Third World Newsreel Workshop 2015, 19 min., Color, US This documentary traces the memories and experiences of families living on one block located in South Williamsburg, a Brooklyn neighborhood that is affectionately known by long time residents as South...
Waiting for Mercy: The Case against Mohammed Hossain and Yassin Aref Ellie Bernstein Producer: Tony Grocki 2009, 68 min., Color, US Were these two Muslim men who had no prior criminal history set-up to appear as criminals or were they possible terrorists?
This documentary tells the story of a fictitious FBI plot in Albany New...
Wataridori: Birds of Passage Robert Nakamura Producer: Visual Communications 1974, 37 min., Color, US Lyricism and visual beauty are evident in this film as four Issei (first generation Japanese Americans) describe a collective history through their personal memories. The filmmaker paints the canvas o...
Who Gives Kisses Freely From Her Lips Simin Farkhondeh 2009, 41 min., Color, US/Iran Inspired by the work of Sara Gomez and Cuban Imperfect Cinema, Who Gives Kisses Freely From Her Lips, weaves together fiction and documentary to tell the story of a filmmaker determined to make a film...
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