*** Notice: For the protection of property rights, this catalog is available for online browsing only. Please drop us a line if you would like to receive a copiable version of this catalog. Thank You!
OLD SOUTH, through a quiet unfolding story, provides a window into the underlying dynamics of race relations that influence so many American communities. In Athens, Georgia, a college fraternity traditionally known to fly the confederate flag moves to a historically black neighborhood and establishes their presence by staging an antebellum style parade. Through the perspective of local resident Hope, OLD SOUTH follows the neighborhood struggle over three years, while both communities fight to preserve their historical legacies against an ever evolving cultural backdrop in the South.
Reviews
Beverly unveils the hauntingly present racism still inherent in the Old South, while creating a dichotomy that opens up a space for a much needed conversation. - Kristy Brenerman, Programming Director, Atlanta Film Festival
"Old South' represents the transformation of a neighborhood in Athens, GA but it's a familiar story to many...total erasure of, neighborhoods that were once vital communities in the center of our city." - Laura Kissel, Assoc. Prof. and Director, Film and Media Studies Program, University of South Carolina, Columbia
"This documentary provides an entry point for dialogue, deliberation, and re-imagining how communities can thrive.'Old South' brings up the personal and political in a way that invites audiences to explore their experiences." - Jess Solomon, Community Engagement Facilitator, Alternate ROOTS
In The Black Fatherhood Project, filmmaker Jordan Thierry leads viewers through an honest and essential exploration of fatherhood in Black America, providing historical context and conversation for an issue at the core of the Black experience today.
Nationwide, 67 percent of Black children live in single-parent families, predominantly with their mother, a ratio that has tripled since the 1960's.
In the first half of the film, Thierry begins by telling his own family story, then with the help of historians and others, traces the roots of the fatherless Black home, revealing a history much more complex and profound than is commonly known. The film digs deep to explore how Black families functioned in Africa before slavery, and how slavery, racism, and other recent challenges such as mass incarceration affect Black fatherhood. It looks beyond major historical events and discusses their psychological impacts, and calls into question traditional family roles and cultural adaptation.
In the second half of the film, Thierry puts that history into contemporary perspective in a candid dialogue among a diverse group of Black fathers. These dads talk openly about their experiences and the value systems they employ to raise their own families. Their stories serve as positive role models for inspiring other dads to help break the cycle of fatherless families. Thierry closes the film by sharing insights and solutions to ensure the power of a father's love is not lost on America's Black children.
FEATURED IN THE FILM
Dr. Wade Nobles, Professor Emeritus, Department of Africana Studies, San Francisco State University
Dr. Charles Lewis, President of Congressional Research Institute, Social Work and Policy and Adjunct Professor, Howard University School of Social Work
Dr. Donald Roe, Associate Professor of History, Howard University
Dr. Ronald B. Mincy, Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice, Columbia University School of Social Work
Reviews
"The Black Fatherhood Project is an amazing film. I'm especially impressed by the way it conceptualizes history and offers personal narrative. The information is timely, relevant, and is critical for addressing fatherhood in the African-American community." - Prof. Akil Houston, PhD, Department of African American Studies, Ohio University
"This film is an important contribution to the true image of Black fathers in America . . . The film captures eloquently the challenges, struggles, triumphs, hopes and dreams of African American men." - Dr. Joseph White, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine; pioneer of the field of Black Psychology
"Exceptionally well done.... Addresses the impact of the history of Africa, slavery and institutional racism upon the African-American family today." - Kenneth Yarnell, Principal, Aloha High School, Oregon
Distinguished historian John H. Bracey Jr. offers a provocative analysis of the devastating economic, political, and social effects of racism on white Americans. In a departure from analyses of racism that have focused primarily on white power and privilege, Bracey trains his focus on the high price that white people, especially working class whites, have paid for more than two centuries of divisive race-based policies and attitudes. Whether he's discussing the pivotal role slavery played in the war for independence, the two million white Americans who died in a civil war fought over the question of slavery, or how business owners took advantage of the segregation of America's first labor unions and used low-wage, non-unionized black workers to undercut the bargaining power of white workers, Bracey's central point is that failing to acknowledge the centrality of race, and racism, to the American project not only minimizes the suffering of black people, but also blinds us to how white people have been harmed as well.
Review
"As the inimitable John Bracey conducts this dazzling tour of the U.S. past, we see more clearly than ever how the underside of the nation's history has always and everywhere reached across the color line to create misery among whites." - David Roediger, Professor of History and African American Studies at University of Illinois, Author of How Race Survived U.S History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon
LIVING THINKERS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE IVORY TOWER examines the intersection of race, class and gender for Black women professors and administrators working in U.S. colleges and universities today. Through their diverse narratives, from girlhood to the present, Black women from different disciplines share experiences that have shaped them, including segregated schooling as children, and the trials, disappointments and triumphs encountered in Academia. Though more than 100 years have passed since the doors to higher education opened for Black women, their numbers as faculty members are woefully low and for many still, the image of Black women as intellectuals is incomprehensible. And while overtly expressed racism, sexism and discrimination have declined, their presence is often still often unacknowledged. Through frank and sometimes humorous conversations, this documentary interrogates notions of education for girls and women and the stereotypes and traditions that affect the status of Black women both in and out of the Academy. A perfect companion film for any classroom discussion on the intersection of racism, sexism and/or feminism.
Award
BlackStar Film Festival, Audience Choice Award for Documentary
Renowned energy expert Michael T. Klare provides an invaluable account of the new and increasingly dangerous competition for the world's dwindling natural resources. Arguing that the world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion -- one that goes beyond "peak oil" to encompass shortages of coal and uranium, copper and lithium, water, and arable land -- Klare shows how the desperate hunt for raw materials is forcing governments and corporations to stake their claim in ever more dangerous and remote areas that present grave political and environmental risks. Citing mounting tensions between the U.S. and China over control of resources in the Asia-Pacific region, volatile local border disputes that raise the likelihood of military confrontation, and the destructive environmental consequences of tar sands oil extraction and fracking, Klare argues that we need to radically alter our consumption patterns and build alternative energy systems before it's too late.
Cultural historian Dave Zirin, whose influential blog and bestselling books have offered searing insights into the politics of American sports, examines the myriad ways sports culture has worked both to reproduce and challenge the wider culture's dominant ideas about race and racial difference. Interviewed by Communication scholar Sut Jhally, whose own work has sought to clarify the relationship between popular culture and racial attitudes, Zirin's analysis ranges from the emergence of professional sports in the 1800s to today's commercial media sports spectacles to show how athletes of color have posed a direct threat to traditional notions of whiteness, white male authority, and American ideals of masculinity. The film is richly illustrated throughout with archival and contemporary sports footage.
Reviews
"With Zirin no topic is sacred, no argument is ever evaded, no search for real truth is ever suppressed." - Kevin Powell, Author of Someday We'll All Be Free
"Dave Zirin shows us not only that sports can be a window through which we can examine the complex workings of race and class in this twisted, commercialized culture, but that it can also be a site of resistance." - Peter Rachleff, Author of Hard-Pressed in the Heartland
"Dave Zirin is the thinking man's sports fan and the sports fan's thinking man." - Mickey Z., Author of The Seven Deadly Spins
Stolen Education documents the untold story of Mexican-American school children who challenged discrimination in Texas schools in the 1950's and changed the face of education in the Southwest.
As a 9 year-old second grader, Lupe had been forced to remain in the first grade for three years, not because of her academic performance but solely because she was Mexican American. She was one of eight young students who testified in a federal court case in 1956 to end the discriminatory practice (Hernandez et al. v. Driscoll Consolidated Independent School District), one of the first post-Brown desegregation court cases to be litigated.
Degraded for speaking Spanish and dissuaded from achieving academically, Mexican American students were relegated to a "beginner," "low," and then "high" first grade - a practice that was not uncommon across the Southwest. School officials argued in the case that this practice was necessary because the "retardation of Latin children" would adversely impact the education of White children.
The film portrays the courage of these young people, testifying in an era when fear and intimidation were used to maintain racial hierarchy and control. The students won the case, but for almost sixty years the case was never spoken about in the farming community where they lived despite its significance.
Stolen Education presents the full story and impact for the first time, featuring the personal accounts of most of those who were at the center of the court case. The film documents not only an important moment in Mexican American history, but also provides important context to understand our current educational system's enduring legacy of segregation, discrimination and racism.
Reviews
"A powerful documentary. I highly recommend this film to educators and students. Stolen Education provides a historical foundation for understanding current forms of racism that continue to operate in our schools and shape the educational experiences of our children. Stolen Education demands educators take a serious look at current policies that continue to underserve and marginalize students of color and linguistic minorities." - Charise Pimentel, Assistant Professor, Dept of Curriculum and Instruction, Texas State University
"Absolutely outstanding -- truly one of the most authentic and important presentations of its kind I've ever seen." - Dr. Tahita Fulkerson, President, Tarrant County College-Trinity River Campus
"A heart-wrenching story of unparalleled discrimination perpetrated against Mexican American children by the school board, administrators, and teachers...the effects of which impacted their lives into adulthood." - Desert Magazine
White Like Me, based on the work of acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. In a stunning reassessment of the American ideal of meritocracy and claims that we've entered a post-racial society, Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class, and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today. For years, Tim Wise's bestselling books and spellbinding lectures have challenged some of our most basic assumptions about race in America. White Like Me is the first film to bring the full range of his work to the screen -- to show how white privilege continues to shape individual attitudes, electoral politics, and government policy in ways too many white people never stop to think about.
Features Tim Wise, Michelle Alexander, Charles Ogletree, Imani Perry, Martin Gilens, John H. Bracey, Jr. and Nilanjana Dasgupta.
Reviews
"White Like Me is a phenomenal educational tool in the struggle against racism. Weaving personal narratives and social scientific data, Tim Wise cogently shows whites receive systemic privilege and forcefully challenges the nonsense that by being color-blind, Americans can get beyond the nation's racial hump." - Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Ph.D, Author Racism Without Racists
"Hard and clear lessons on persisting white racism presented accurately, graphically, and unforgettably. Constantly raises the crucial question: Can the US truly become the land of 'liberty and justice for all'?" - Joe Feagin, Former president of the American Sociological Association, Author, Racist America
"White Like Me is an excellent tool for people at all stages of understanding the reality of institutionalized white supremacy and how it shapes the lived experiences of people of color and white people. This film is terrific!" - Frances E. Kendall, Author, Diversity in the Classroom and Understanding White Privilege
A People Uncounted tells the little-known story of the Roma, who have long been both romanticized and vilified in popular culture, politics, and the arts-- from Cher and Shakira to Bizet's Carmen. But the Roma persevere, even as they have been singled out for intolerance and persecution throughout Europe. Seen as outsiders, and lacking the kind of social hierarchy and political power that could otherwise advocate collectively for their rights and tell their history, the Roma struggle with chronic poverty and disenfranchisement.
Touring 11 countries and interviewing dozens of Roma-- including Holocaust Survivors, artists, historians, musicians, and intellectuals-- A People Uncounted documents the culturally rich but often difficult lives of the Roma taking us back through history to the little-known story of Roma genocide at the hands of Nazis during World War II. The Roma and their history come to life through the interplay of their poetry and music, along with compelling true stories told by the survivors of concentration camps. As intolerance is on the rise in European politics, A People Uncounted reminds us through the story of the Roma that ethnic minorities all too often fall prey to racism and genocide.
Reviews
"! Profoundly moving! A powerful documentary on the plight of the Roma people through history...
an expansive essay on prejudice and the resilience of the human spirit." - Montreal Gazette
"Needed no star power to keep me glued to the screen...one-of-a-kind find...a virtually unknown piece of history... a fascinating, hyperbole-free inquiry into what one recent study determined is the most discriminated-against group in all of Europe." - Filmmaker Magazine
"Illuminating! A vivid mix of visual evidence, historical commentary and survivor testimonies."- Variety
DVD (English, German, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Czech with English Subtitles) / 2012 / 99 minutes
Featuring never before seen archival footage, and interviews in South Africa and the United States, filmmakers Larry Shore and Tami Gold tell the little-known story of Senator Robert Kennedy's influential June 1966 visit to South Africa during the worst years of Apartheid. The film is a unique portrait of Senator Kennedy in action at an important moment in American and South African history. The filmmakers explore the visit through the sights and sounds of present day South Africa.
Robert Kennedy's visit gave opponents of Apartheid -- both black and white -- hope and courage to challenge the Apartheid system at a time when they felt isolated and few in the outside world knew what was happening in South Africa. His visit also highlighted the parallels in the fight against racism in South Africa and in the United States, where Martin Luther King Jr., had linked the struggle for Civil Rights with the fight against Apartheid.
RFK IN THE LAND OF APARTHEID follows Kennedy in South Africa during the five-day visit, including his famous "Day of Affirmation" speech at the University of Cape Town on June 6, 1966. The speech is generally considered to be the greatest speech of Robert Kennedy's career. One paragraph, featuring the "ripple of hope", is among the most quoted in American politics and appears on Kennedy's gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery:
"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Another high point of the film is Kennedy's meeting with one of the unknown giants of South African and African history - the banned President of the African National Congress and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Luthuli, who was living under house arrest in a remote rural area. The film travels with RFK to Soweto, the largest black township, where he meets thousands of people and gives voice to Chief Luthuli's call for a free South Africa
The film includes interviews with those that accompanied or met with Kennedy on his trip, as well as with Edward Kennedy, and an original soundtrack by American musician Jason Moran.
Robert Kennedy's actions and words in South Africa were important at the time for one other reason - he publicly challenged the dominant Cold War ideology that anti-Communism should be the only basis for determining American foreign policy, even if it meant supporting repressive regimes. Kennedy demonstrated how it was possible to promote human rights and democracy in an undemocratic society, while engaging in an honest discourse on America's own historical problems and successes.
RFK IN THE LAND OF APARTHEID tells an important story that is relevant to the ongoing struggles for democracy, justice and human rights around the world today.
Reviews
"Marvelous...Fascinating." - Boston Globe
"A remarkable gem. A film that was begging to be made." - Encounters International Film Festival
What's the price of being a by-stander? Sidney Bloch, an internationally recognized professor of psychiatry from Australia, returns to Cape Town, South Africa for his medical school reunion. Sid has suffered from a troubled conscience for forty years and wants to resolve his guilt for colluding with Apartheid - but what will it take to free him from his past? He's accompanied on his quest for reconciliation by his son, Aaron, who is also his harshest critic. Narrated by Aaron, the film explores how a good person accepts racism and injustice.
Review
"A bitingly personal take on a universal theme." - The Sunday Age
BLACK SUN sheds new light on the sources of Nazi ideology by examining its occult roots in the world of myths, symbols and fantasies. It traces this development from the writings of various mystics in the early 20th century, which located the original home of the Germanic peoples in sunken continents such as "Thule" and "Atlantis," and propagated the mythology of a superior Nordic race whose heroes fought the forces of moral decadence and racial impurity.
The film uses interviews, rare archival footage and contemporary scenes shot in historic locales throughout Germany to chronicle how the Nazis used these mythological foundations to develop Nazism as a political religion, with the SS conceived as a "Holy Order" defending "Aryan light" from the "Jewish-Bolshevik darkness." It profiles some of the more eccentric members of the SS-including Karl Maria Wiligut, Richard Anders and Otto Rahn-plus cofounders of the Ancestral Heritage Society-Wolfram Sievers and Herman Wirth-who conducted anthropological and archaeological research to confirm their theories of a "master race."
While BLACK SUN documents the nationalist mystical beliefs that infused National Socialism, the film also reveals the disturbing perpetuation of these beliefs among certain cult groups in Germany today, reflecting an ongoing search for salvation, inspiration and messianic leaders.
Reviews
"An intelligent, intensely focused study tracing the roots of Nazi ideology in German legend, religion, and mythology." - David Sterritt, Cineaste
"Rudiger Sunner's film is enlightening in the best sense of the word." - Berliner Stadtmagazin
Racism has been a characteristic of many cultures, ever since the first human societies millions of years ago. But where does racism come from? What is it about human nature that inclines some people to stereotype and vilify other races? This Australian-made, curriculum fit program explores these questions in a range of different ways - through the eyes of three key experts, through the presentation of various facts and figures about racism in Australia and around the world, and through a simple drama, set in an Australian secondary school, that illustrates how exclusion of people for baseless reasons impacts on all individuals concerned. Racism is a sensitive issue, and this program encourages students to explore, and maybe confront, a societal issue that has been around as long as we have.
Please contact us for primary and secondary schools pricing.
For years, acclaimed author and speaker Tim Wise has been electrifying audiences on the college lecture circuit with his deeply personal take on whiteness and white privilege. In this spellbinding lecture, the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son offers a unique, inside-out view of race and racism in America. Expertly overcoming the defensiveness that often surrounds these issues, Wise provides a non-confrontational explanation of white privilege and the damage it does not only to people of color, but to white people as well. This is an invaluable classroom resource: an ideal introduction to the social construction of racial identities, and a critical new tool for exploring the often invoked - but seldom explained - concept of white privilege.
Review
"Tim Wise is one of the most brilliant, articulate, and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation. He is a national treasure." - Michael Eric Dyson
Through revealing interviews, alternately shocking and humorous, this documentary profile of a white working-class community east of London offers a timely snapshot of an increasingly multicultural Britain. The racial composition of Barking is in rapid flux, with immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Balkans arriving and many longtime white residents leaving.
ALL WHITE IN BARKING probes the attitudes of Barking's white residents toward their new neighbors, characterized by unexamined (and often comic) prejudices about their dress, religious beliefs, and strange cooking smells. There's Dave, a vocally racist BNP activist with a mixed-race grandson; the elderly Holocaust survivor Monty who lives with Nigerian immigrant Betty; and Susan and Jeff, lifetime Barking residents who have ignored their new Nigerian neighbors because "they are not our people."
When the white British couple accept an invitation to dinner from the African family, and later host a barbecue for their Nigerian and Albanian neighbors, the awkward encounters take on the air of a Mike Leigh comedy, revealing both the persistence as well as the gradual undermining of racial and ethnic stereotypes.
Reviews
"Brilliant!... Skillfully illuminates the absurdity of racism... it is often not racism at all but rather bewilderment, ignorance and frustration." - Sarfraz Manzoor, The Guardian
"Deftly proves that racial prejudice is more complicated than it first appears." - Roland White, The Sunday Times
"Highlights the beauty that can come from acceptance while not forgetting how far there is still to go... Highly recommended." - Jessica Hopkins, The Observer
"Incisive, surprisingly upbeat documentary... Although several of the subjects interviewed express obnoxious racist opinions, experienced doc-helmer Marc Isaacs refrains from demonizing anyone here, and instead crafts a communal portrait infused with compassion." - Leslie Felperin, Variety
Award
Amnesty International Award for Best Film, 2008 ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival
Banished vividly recovers the too-quickly forgotten history of racial cleansing in America when thousands of African Americans were driven from their homes and communities by violent, racist mobs. The film places these events in the context of present day race relations by following three concrete cases where black and white citizens warily explore if there is common ground for reconciliation over these expulsions. Banished raises this larger question: will the United States ever make meaningful reparations for the human rights abuses suffered, then and now, against its African American citizens? Can reconciliation between the races be possible without them?
Between 1860 and 1920 hundreds of U.S. counties expelled their black residents. The pattern was depressingly similar in almost all cases. The counties tended to have small, defenseless black populations. A black man was rumored to have assaulted a white woman, was lynched and then white rioters attacked black neighborhoods with guns and firebombs. Few black property owners had time to sell their properties nor dared return to repossess them. Whites could then illegally assume ownership of them. African Americans not only lost their hard-won homes, farms and businesses, but saw their communities and families dispersed and their very right to exist violated. The film reveals that even one hundred years later, these racially cleansed communities tend to remain all-white bastions of separatism, sometimes harboring active klaverns of the Ku Klux Klan.
Banished presents a fascinating detective story through yellowed newspaper archives, registries of deeds, photos from treasured family albums and dimly recalled stories of grandparents and great-grandparents who lived through these traumatic events to reconstruct a dramatic record of the expulsions. The film features black families determined to go to any length to reconstruct their families' past and gain some justice for their ancestors and themselves. It interviews dedicated local journalists, who braved community opposition, to research the banishments in-depth and force their readers to confront their towns' past and present. Banished was itself co-produced by award-winning documentary filmmaker Marco Williams and the Center for Investigative Reporting, widely respected for its in-depth, uncompromising coverage of social justice issues.
Banished first visits Forsyth County, Georgia, now a prosperous suburban sprawl north of Atlanta. In 1912, African Americans were violently driven out; today there is still a saying among black folk: "Don't let the sun go down on you in Forsyth County." In 1987 a bi-racial Martin Luther King Celebration tour was organized through the all-white county. Buses filled with marchers were met by angry mobs, led by seven white supremacist groups and a melee ensued. The governor set up a commission to investigate the incident and to respond to black calls that the stolen land be returned to them. We meet the Strickland family as they return to the 2000 acres once owned by their great grandfather and they restore the neglected family burial ground as a "monument to the past." Although the commission found no deeds for the passage of land from half of the expelled black owners to whites, the white members denied that their community was responsible for any recompense and that statute of limitations had run out for any claims against illegal occupation. The Stricklands were denied not only their land but even the closure that the acknowledgement of past injustices might have given them.
The small, peaceful town of Pierce City, Missouri, banished its African American population in1901; it is still all-white. In 2006, a descendant of one of the expelled families, Charles Brown, decided to exhume the body of his great-grandfather buried in Pierce City and inter it in the family plot in Springfield. He met bureaucratic stone-walling and what emerged as a pattern of denial and avoidance on the part of whites. But the soft-spoken, reasonable Brown persisted and finally convinced the local coroner and a former mayor to help him rebury his ancestor. But when he unexpectedly asked Pierce City to pay the bill as a token of regret for the banishment, the whites felt betrayed, the victims of a "bait and switch." They offered a transparently hypocritical response: the crimes of 1901 were so horrific that no dollar amount could ever compensate, only trivialize them. Sherrilyn Ifill, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland, stresses that reparations are a continuing process, providing recompense whenever and however it becomes possible.
Finally, Banished travels to Harrison, Arkansas, a small city where a faith-based process for "truth and reconciliation" was initiated, perhaps inspired by the South African example. In 1909, a white mob lynched a black man and then expelled the town's black citizens. It is still all-white, a Klan stronghold with the Confederate flag flying over the Chamber of Commerce and a refuge for retirees who "who want to live without black people." A Taskforce for Race Relations was formed to deal with this situation in a "substantive" way. It established two college scholarships for black students to attract them to the local schools, named after Aunt Vine, a maid, who was the only black person allowed to remain in Harrison after 1901. But one of the scholarship recipients observes that Harrison is still a "sundown town;" "black people won't spend the night in Harrison." The Taskforce hired a consultant, David Zimmerman, a local historian, who suggested they erect a monument in the city square acknowledging that nearby there once was a flourishing African American community which was destroyed by a white mob. This would provide a public space for acknowledgement, healing and reconciliation but even this modest plan was met with objections.
Banished is as much a film about forgetting as remembering. In its understated way, it allows its white subjects to reveal a collective repression of their communities' racial history through selective memory, outright denial and rationalization. While African Americans seem compelled to remember, confront and redress the crimes of racism, many whites want to ignore them, not only to reject any responsibility for them but, more importantly, any responsibility for rectifying them. They do not seem to recognize that a free conscience can begin only with remorse. The theft of property, wealth, community and hope must at least be admitted and repaired to whatever extent practical. Racial cleansing is still rampant in the U.S., it just takes more subtle forms: red-lining, redevelopment, gentrification, gated communities, all-white suburbs, the Katrina Diaspora. This powerful but not rhetorical film makes evident that any reconciliation, any honest healing between the races, will only be possible once denial, the willful banishing of our racial past, has itself been banished.
Because it is both a scrupulously researched history film and a probing study of the process of racial reconciliation, Banished is a valuable resource for teaching American History, the Jim Crow era, race relations, cultural competency, prejudice reduction, conflict resolution, and restorative justice as well as journalistic ethics.
Banished is a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting, Two Tone Productions, the Independent Television Service and the National Black Programming Consortium with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Reviews
"BANISHED is a powerful and poignant documentary. Like few other films, it demonstrates compellingly the continuing effects of slavery and its' aftermaths upon contemporary African-American families." - Randall Robinson - author of "The Debt...What America Owes To Blacks"
"One need not support indiscriminate reparations to appreciate how Banished
Ten years after Skin Deep, campuses still struggle to attain diversity, create equity, close achievement gaps, and enhance student success for everyone.
Despite 15 years of diversity programs and initiatives, many of our discussions about race remain mired in confusion. Even a casual observer can't help but notice how structural racism is ignored, how multiculturalism is confused with equality, and how many campuses remain hamstrung in their efforts to become more inclusive and welcoming of everyone. Ironically, in responding to surveys, many students claim they already know all they need to know about diversity and they shy away from opportunities to engage in interracial dialogue and understanding.
What's Race Got to Do with It? Is a new 49-minute documentary film that goes beyond identity politics, celebratory history and interpersonal relations to consider social disparities and their impact on student success in today's post-Civil Rights world.
In one sense, What's Race Got to Do with It? Like Skin Deep, this new film chronicles the experiences of a diverse group of college students - in this case, over the course of a 16-week intergroup dialogue program - as they probe and confront each other about such issues as underrepresentation, the limitations of multiculturalism, social equity, affirmative action, and their own responsibilities for making a difference.
This film goes further than Skin Deep however, by showing the incremental learning and attitudinal change that can occur over the course of a sustained dialogue and by illuminating the stark differences that exist between students on the same campus.
Given the paucity of films whose subject is our own complex set of racial beliefs, What's Race Got to Do with It? Has quickly become a key resource for educators, youth leaders and advocates concerned with strengthening young people's commitment to a more equitable democracy - one that works for everyone.
Major funding provided by Lumina Foundation for Education. Additional funding provided by the Akonadi Foundation, Nu Lambda Trust and the Eastman Fund.
Reviews
"Contains a wealth of pedagogy and substance, especially as pertaining to race relations on campus. Well-crafted and highly recommended." - Lester P. Monts, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, University of Michigan
"What's Race Got to Do with It? Can help anyone - counselors, student affairs directors, faculty, parents and especially students- realize that tension around race is not something to be ashamed of or denied but can be confronted and worked through as leaders of the future. The results are worth it." - Gwendolyn Dungy, Executive Director, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA)
"What's Race Got To Do With It?...Everything if you are a person of color! Students of different racial identities share their experiences of race and class. A great resource for college student educators who want to understand and act." - Greg Roberts, Executive Director, American College Personnel Association
"Recent years have seen a troubling decline in respect among, and trust of, individuals and groups who differ from one another. This timely film presents a number of ingenious, promising approaches to restoring these needed qualities." -Howard Gardner, Author of Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet, Harvard University
"It really shows that students who think deeply about this can truly be transformed in some way. I can imagine using it with students very easily. A very powerful educational piece for use with first-year students...and all undergraduates as well." - Mary Stuart Hunter, Director, National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition
Breaking the cycle of Roma poverty and persecution.
The Roma have an exotic image: musicians, actors, artists, and sometimes beggars. Europeans called them `Gypsies' because they thought they came from Egypt. But Romani people have lived in Europe for over a thousand years, and they originally came from India, not Egypt.
Roma communities in Europe have been subjected to centuries of persecution and racism. They are one of the most excluded groups in the world. They are denied the chance to work, proper housing, healthcare and their children refused a decent education. A new initiative-the Decade of Roma Inclusion-was launched in 2005 in a concerted attempt to help break the desperate cycle of poverty in which so many Roma live.
Review
"The visual impact of the gripping documentaries in the Life 5 series make them extremely powerful teaching tools for university, and indeed, other classrooms. In succinct episodes they raise and contextualise some of the most critical issues in the world today. These episodes are produced in an extremely objective manner and allow an audience easily to come to grips with an array of complex problems. They ought to be an indispensable part of the teaching curriculum." - Dr. Jeremy Sarkin, Visiting Professor of International Human Rights, Tufts University
Tells the gripping story of the race for mayor of Newark, N.J., where elections are won and lost in the streets.
STREET FIGHT chronicles the bare-knuckles race for Mayor of Newark, NJ between Cory Booker, a 32-year old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law School grad, and Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent and undisputed champion of New Jersey politics.
Fought in Newark's neighborhoods and housing projects, the battle pits Booker against an old style political machine that uses any means necessary to crush its opponents: city workers who do not support the mayer are demoted; "disloyal" businesses are targeted by code enforcement; a campaigner is detained and accused of terrorism; and disks of voter data are burglarized in the night.
Even the filmmaker is dragged into the slugfest, and by election day, the climate becomes so heated that the Federal government is forced to send in observers to watch for cheating and violence.
The battle sheds light on important American questions about democracy, power and -- in a surprising twist -- race. Both Booker and James are African- American Democrats, but when the mayor accuses the Ivy League educated Booker of not being "really black" it forces voters to examine how we define race in this country. "We tell our children to get educated," one Newarker says, "and when they do, we call them white. What kind of a message does that send?"
STREET FIGHT tells a gripping story of the underbelly of democracy where elections are not about spin-doctors, media consultants, or photo ops. In Newark, we discover, elections are won and lost in the streets.
Reviews
"The best American political documentary since 1993's THE WAR ROOM" The Washington Post
"It's a hard fast film that needs airing now... Street Fight is briskly edited, imaginatively scored by James Baxter and vastly entertaining... Even if you know the outcome, Street Fight will keep you on the edge of your seat." Variety
"Engrossing...Pulls no punches." The New York Times
"Extraordinary...Marshall Curry...has hit the documentary jackpot." David Denby, The New Yorker
"Unpretentious and absorbing...Street Fight has enough cultural crosscurrents to fill out a novel." Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
"Riveting drama." Curry is one of "25 New Faces of Independent Film, 2005" Filmmaker Magazine
"Curry's film is genuinely smart and rousing." New York Newsday
"Marshall Curry's Street Fight packs a wallop...riveting..." Indiewire
"This is a fascinating story... A wonderful documentary." Tavis Smiley Show, PBS
"You won't wanna' miss Street Fight" ABC News: The Note
"A riveting expose!" Time Out
"Street Fight, which took the [Hot Docs] festival's prize for Best International Documentary, avoids dryness entirely... It was the most riveting film I saw in the entire festival, in and out of competition." FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics)
"Street Fight is a real life Spike Lee movie (that would be the best work of Spike's career...) A more complex version of Rocky... It is the rare documentary that commands -- not demands -- that you take action." David Poland's The Hot Button
"Riveting documentary, in which an idealistic reformer comes to grips with machine politics and dirty tricks." The New York Daily News
"It was exceptional." Crooks and Liars
"Perhaps the most significant Tribeca Film Festival award is that given by the audience. And so it is time to pay attention to Street Fight... [Curry] couldn't have dreamed up a more compelling subject." The New York Sun
"An incredible film by Marshall Curry... entertaining." Bloomberg News
"Engrossing nonfiction -- a grimly funny account of bloody-knuckled democracy... the political version of a slasher picture." The Star Ledger
A "compelling David versus Goliath story... Street Fight is this year's political thriller." Center Stage with Mark Gordon, KXLU
"Street Fight is a must see documentary for anyone with even a passing interest in American politics... It's fascinating to see the drama unfold." The Portland Mercury
"The film is a lesson in street-level politics that can not be learned in civics class." Tribeca Trib
"Street Fight is a riveting account of the most brutal of contact sports: politics...First-time documentarian Marshall Curry emerges from the fray with a film that raises vital questions about the health of our democracy." Museum of TV and Radio, NYC
A critics pick: (4 stars) "Prepare to get seriously pissed off... [a] sharp, infuriating documentary." Toronto Eye
A "fascinating, disturbing documentary... a ballot-box bloodbath." San Antonio Current
"Few documentary films achieve epic climaxes worthy of a Shakespearean drama, but Street Fight does." SilverDocs Film Festival
"Curry's film is a jaw-dropping example of rough and tumble politics that places the audience at the center of this dramatic fight." Tribeca Film Festival
"A truly exceptional piece of filmmaking...a tight and coherent narrative that has universal appeal...One could argue that Curry stumbled into a gold mine when he ventured from his Brooklyn home to Newark, but not anyone could have taken such a complicated and colorful campaign and produced something thus focused and, dare I say, sharp." Politics NJ
A "tough look at issues of race, class and corruption." Vancouver Straight
"Winner of the [Toronto Hot Docs Festival] Best International Documentary prize, Marshall Curry's film is both a fight story worthy of a UFC match and a penetrating examination of racism, bossism and privilege in American municipal politics" Dose
[Street Fight is a] "terrific fly-on-the-wall documentary" Toronto Metro
"Eye-opening...This film demonstrates chillingly how down-and-dirty politics happen at the local level as well as nationally." The Martha's Vineyard Times
"...very insightful." Word Magazine
(4 stars) "Absolutely vital viewing...A scary look at how race and class divisions are perhaps most venomous when they afflict the same race and class...[It's] not too much to call Street Fight a microcosm of a crippling national disease." Film Freak Central
"Go see this film...This is powerful stuff." Blog T.O.
"Hats off to Marshall Curry for making this courageous film... Street Fight is a film every American and every Black American needs to see." Diversity in Business
"A fascinating documentary." Cincinatti Enquirer
"3 1/2 Stars... a telling behind-the-scenes chronicle... Highly recommended." Video Librarian
"Highly Recommended. Curry constructs a portrait of a unique and complicated political landscape in a way that conveys both the importance and the intensity of political engagement... expertly conveys the stakes at hand... [Street Fight] crystallizes how such tactics cripple the discourse needed to address issues that affect too many African American communities, such as poverty and corruption... although Curry presents many things that are wrong with the corrupt leadership in Newark, he never loses focus of the hope that many of its residents have for their community... This riveting film would be appropriate in any library collection. Street Fight offers dramatic tension that parallels even the best feature films about political intrigue, and as such would make a great addition to public libraries and curriculum-based collections alike. It would provide an engaging centerpiece for discussions concerning race issues, politics, and community development." Meghann Matwichuk, Morris Library, University of Delaware for Educational Media Reviews Online
Note
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature, Academy Awards®
Nominee for IDA Award, International Documentary Awards Competition
Awards
National PBS Broadcast on "POV"
Audience Award, Tribeca Film Festival
Jury Prize, Best International Documentary, & Audience Award, Hot Docs Film Festival Audience Award, SilverDocs Film Festival
Gold Hugo for Best Program, Chicago International Television Awards
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA)
Human Rights Watch International Travelling Film Festival
International Documentary Film Festival of Montreal
Racism and hate are two very powerful emotions that are prevalent in American society. People come into contact with them every day because of their appearance, ethnicity, occupation or sexual preference. Organizations have been founded on these two emotions alone, organizations that breed intolerance. Discover the different types of racism and hate. Find our what you can do to put a stop to the unhealthy social epidemic.
Learning Objectives:
1) Students will learn the definitions of racism, discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes.
2) Students will learn about various forms of discrimination such as slavery, genocide, sexism, and lookism.
3) Students will find out about hate groups
4) Students will learn how to combat racism and discrimination
Professor James Sheehan shows how all cultures have exhibited exclusionary tendencies, many of which were based on biological distinctions that in the broadest sense could be termed "racism."
In the autumn of 1965, sharecroppers Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter enrolled the youngest eight of their thirteen children in the public schools of Drew, Mississippi. Their decision to send the children to the formerly all white schools was in response to a "freedom of choice" plan. The plan was designed by the Drew school board to place the district in compliance with the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, essential since without compliance, the district would no longer be eligible for financial support from the Federal government. Given the prevailing attitudes, Blacks were not expected to choose white schools. This proved true for all but the Carters.
THE INTOLERABLE BURDEN places the Carter's commitment to obtaining a quality education in context, by examining the conditions of segregation prior to 1965, the hardships the family faced during desegregation, and the massive white resistance, which led to resegregation.
In the epilogue, the film poses the dilemma of "education vs. incarceration" - a particular threat to youth of color.
While the town of Drew is geographically isolated, the patterns of segregation, desegregation, and resegregation are increasingly apparent throughout public education systems in the United States.
Reviews
"Required viewing!" - Southern Changes
"Exceptional! Spellbinding! An essential purchase for all libraries." - Catholic Library World
"Editor's Choice! (Four Stars!) Highly Recommended! Excellent! Combines interviews... most poignantly and eloquently, Mae Bertha herself), compelling black-and-white archival footage, and additional commentary from other activists, the white school secretary, and fellow white students to limn a powerful portrait...The film makes it clear that Drew is a microcosm for what is happening in many other places." - Video Librarian
"The film vividly demonstrates historical agency and the personal and institutional impact of historical events, as blacks and whites from the Delta reflect on their experiences with de-segregation and re-segregation. The Carter children's subsequent divergent paths suggest the benefits and costs of the burden of their experience." - American Historical Association
"Highly Recommended! A powerful oral history and visual record of... the visible signs of racism, the effect on individuals and institutions, and the consequences of personal and administrative decisions on the lives of the people involved and the society as a whole." - Educational Media Reviews Online
"One of the best video histories of the desegregation era ever produced. An excellent example of how documentaries on the 1960s should be done. Captures on film what it means to be a courageous individual. The magisterial clarity with which this dramatic story... is told keeps the viewer's attention throughout. Indispensable to students... because the actual participants take center stage - one would be hard pressed to find this caliber of work in any other single story of this era." - Professor Curtis Austin, University of Southern Mississippi, Assistant Director of the Center for Oral History
"Asks us to reconsider our emphasis on so-called "correction" over actual education. The failures of the former are obvious; isn't it time we tried the latter?" - Julian Bond, former Georgia Assemblyman and currently a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at American University
"The real story here is the effects of segregation, desegregation, and resegregation and how society has failed to educate all its children. Recommended!" - Library Journal
Award
2004 John E. O'Connor Film Award, American Historical Association
Post-apartheid South Africa is the best example of people struggling to overcome tribalism.
South Africa is struggling to overcome the legacy of racism and tribalism that plagues so many countries. Against a backdrop of ongoing violence, a new breed of South Africans are struggling to create a real democracy. Is the rest of the world prepared to relinquish its own tribes? Is there enough time?
Reviews
"THE TRIBAL MIND looks at the danger of maintaining a we-they system (what Dyer calls Tribalism) which often leads to violence, if not outright war and genocide. To illustrate his argument that it is possible to change the "tribal mind," the film examines post- Apartheid South Africa." - Online Journal of Peace & Conflict Resolution
"An outstanding effort, sure to inspire both serious thinking and fruitful debate. Highly recommended." - EDITOR'S CHOICE, Video Librarian, March/April 1996
"This is a fascinating series...deeply concerning by definition, but unable by circumstance to offer the quick-fix solution we all want." - The West Australian
"While many may see programs about overpopulation and other unpleasantries as depressing and futile, this series provides a glimmer of hope." - Niagara Falls Review
Award
Silver Apple, National Educational Media Network Competition
This beautiful drama observes the psychological effects of racism on two children of Japanese women and American servicemen. Thirty-one year old Kate, the daughter of a Japanese/white mixed marriage visits her childhood friend, Ted, a Japanese-Black American. Together they confront the memory of her mother's tragic story in this telling, emotionally nuanced journey into the complexity of US racism.
Review
"One of the most original and intriguing films about the generational effects of racism. The story is told with delicacy and conviction." - Claire Aguilar, UCLA Film and Television Archive
Teens all across the country and around the world are doing what they can to combat racism. This program travels along with "Kids to Korea," a program that breaks down stereotypes in which urban teens meet Korean teens and learn about their culture. We see the differences as well as the similarities. We also visit Washington state to check out "The Seattle Young People's Project," organized by students who are challenging their school board to establish a multicultural curriculum. In New York City, the culturally diverse James Madison High School shows how teens work as peer educators in workshops that fight prejudice and reduce violence. Celebrities David Alan Grier, Henry Rollins and Run DMC also speak out against racism.
DVD (With English Subtitles) / (Grades 6-12, College) / 30 minutes