Catalog Search Results
Pub. Date
1998.
Language
English
Description
Mention the game Mah-Jongg to a woman who plays it and something very special happens. Her eyes light up, she smiles and may laugh, and then she begins to speak. Even someone at first shy or reluctant to speak suddenly come alive with impassioned stories of her life, and of the bonds that develop between the women who meet ritually every week, sometimes more, to play, to escape, and most importantly, to be together until all hours of the night. Ask...
Pub. Date
2003.
Language
English
Description
An incendiary mix of documentary, poetry, storytelling, drama, and performance, Every Child is Born A Poet explores the life and work of Piri Thomas (b. 1928) the Afro-Cuban-Puerto Rican author of the classic autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets (1967). The film traces Thomas' path from childhood to manhood in New York City's Spanish Harlem, El Barrio, from the 1930s through the 1960s; his parents' immigrant experience, home life during...
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
An Afro-Chinese-Jamaican Harlem family seeks their Chinese grandfather who was forever separated from their mother - his 3-year-old half-Chinese, half-Jamaican daughter - in 1920. Samuel Lowe returned to China in 1933 with a Chinese wife and 6 children. After a 91-year separation, his Black Chinese grandchildren journey to China where they find Samuel Lowe's 300 Chinese descendants and the entire clan in reunited. The film takes viewers to Harlem,...
Pub. Date
2002.
Language
English
Description
You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the Mississippi hill country bluesmen - farmers and laborers first, musicians second - men who, year after year, congregated on back porches and in tiny juke joints to drink and sing and play guitar. YOU SEE ME LAUGHIN' takes us on the road and into the homes of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford, Cedell Davis, Johnny Farmer and Asie Payton - musicians who've...
5) The Swenkas
Pub. Date
2004.
Language
English
Description
In post-Apartheid South Africa there's a small group of working Zulu men who every Saturday night leave their grimy overalls behind and wear their best Carducci or Pierre Cardin suits to impress the weekly selected judge. The men are called the Swenkas, and they have run this fashion show for so many years that no one remembers exactly when - or even why - it all began. The youngest Swenka, Sabelo, is in the most turbulent time of his life. He has...
Pub. Date
2012.
Language
English
Description
In the rugged canyon lands of Northern Arizona, Navajo and Hopi cross-country runners from two rival high schools put it all on the line for tribal pride, triumph over personal adversity, and state championship glory. Win or lose, what they learn in the course of their seasons, will have a dramatic effect on the rest of their lives...Focusing on five teens living on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, Racing the Rez unfolds over two years of careful,...
Pub. Date
1997.
Language
English
Description
I am the future of Black America. "Can't nobody steal my shine"- Tupac Shakur in his last interview, one of the many exclusive pieces of footage featured in 'Thug Immortal". From his early appearances on record with Digital Underground to his popular and influential solo albums, Tupac Shakur was a rap phenomenon, and one of the pioneers of gangster rap. Though often attacked by the media (and Dan Quayle) for his "thug" lifestyle, Tupac's life and...
Pub. Date
1975.
Language
English
Description
This a re-discovered and restored documentary shot in 1975 in Cape Verde at the time of independence by pioneering video artist Anthony D. Ramos. This was some of the earliest video work by Ramos, who received a 1975 grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities for travel to Cape Verde and a sony color 1/2" reel to reel video camera Ramos, a Cape Verdean American, traveled to the islands of Sao Tiago, Fogo and Sao Vicente, and was the only...
Pub. Date
2012.
Language
English
Description
Three world renowned masters tell of the blood and treachery of Capoeira in its early days after slavery. A young man gets off the ghetto streets of Salvador Brazil and redeems his life by teaching Capoeira to other troubled youths. In their stories the surprising history and essential truth of Capoeira as a modern self defense art form is revealed.
Pub. Date
2001.
Language
English
Description
Young Marcelo Ayala leaves his home in Mexico to join his brothers in the Kentucky Bluegrass...Thousands of Latinos seeking better possibilities have been migrating to Midwestern states like Kentucky, with jobs in the tobacco, manufacturing and horseracing industries. But as these Latino communities have swelled, so too has the xenophobia and discrimination facing them...BEYOND THE BORDER, follows the classic immigrant experience with Marcelo Ayala,...
12) The Spirituals
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
A musical art form, the American Spiritual, was born out of the folk songs of slaves. Melodies of backbreaking work were hummed, sung, and passed on throughout the Deep South over fields of cotton, greens, cowpeas, yams, rice, peanuts, and okra. Sorrow songs were used to console and transmit secret information. With defiance, sorrow, and anger, the songs traveled, after being hummed in to the ear of the next arranger...Few of these spiritual treasure...
13) Gut Renovation
Pub. Date
2012.
Language
English
Description
In 1989, together with a group of female friends, Su Friedrich rented and renovated an old loft in Williamsburg, an unassuming working-class district of Brooklyn. In 2005 this former industrial zone was designated a residential area and the factories, manufacturers and artists' lofts were priced out by property speculators lured by tax breaks. Friedrich spent five years documenting with her camera the changes in the area between East River and the...
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Working the Boat: Masters of the Craftis a six-part webisode hat captures the golden years of Local 1329 of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). Local 1329 was founded in Providence,.Rhode Island in 1933 by Manuel Q. Ledo, a Cape Verdean community leader. Featured in the webisode are museum-quality photographic portraits of the interviewees taken by Liane Brandon, award winning independent filmmaker and photographer.
15) The Return
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
Before World War Two, Poland's 3.5 million Jews made the country the epicenter of the Jewish world. Today less than 20,000 Jews live there. Due to the Holocaust and ensuing Soviet era, Poland's remaining Jews hid their identity from their children. With the fall of Communism in 1989 a young generation of Jews began learning their long-buried ancestry. The Return focuses on four women in their 20's who face the unique challenge of trying to create...
16) Sacred Stick
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
"Before there was light, before there was earth, the game was played." - Oren Lyons..Sacred Stick examines the historical, cultural, and spiritual aspects of lacrosse. From the ancient Maya to the world famous Iroquois Nationals team, this program explores a uniquely Indigenous sport that, like Native peoples themselves, adapted and endured within the dominant culture. As lacrosse surges in popularity, it has now become the fastest growing sport in...
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
In an era of increased global mass migration what does it mean to be an American? In this conversational piece, Filmmaker Lourdes Lee Vasquez unlocks additional never before seen footage filmed during her original 7 year journey. The Immigration Paradox - Encore delves into some of the ideological and historical precedents that have led up to now. It brings to light often omitted and over looked historical facts such as the Doctrine of Discovery,...
Pub. Date
2005.
Language
English
Description
Melvin Van Peebles will always be known as the man who not only changed the face of black cinema, but independent cinema forever, when he made his groundbreaking (and taboo breaking) film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." But's he's always been a lot more than that, as a playwright, actor, author, stage performer, musician and who knows what else he's done in his 80 years. And he's likely not through yet...But how did a guy who grew up on the hard...
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
This film takes us inside the world of cricket and the daily life of Montreal's Parc Extension - one of Canada's poorest yet most vibrant immigrant neighbourhoods...Little known in French Canada (Quebec), cricket has hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. For the immigrant cricket players in Parc-Ex, cricket is a buffer, an arena in which they can find success, dignity, and community recognition as they slowly integrate into Quebec society. As we...
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The bloody attacks of protestors in Selma in 1965 led to the historic protection of all Americans' right to vote. The film explores a cherished family story of Selma and the current state of voter suppression in America...Fifty one years ago, the nation watched in horror as bloody images of police attacks on civil rights protestors in Selma, Alabama aired on television. John Witeck was a sophomore at the University of Virginia when he saw the graphic...
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