The Activism, Organizing, and Social Movements Film Collection from Third World Newsreel brings together powerful documentaries and narratives that capture the spirit and impact of grassroots activism around the world. This collection highlights the voices and strategies of community leaders, organizers, and ordinary people who mobilize for justice, equity, and systemic change. Covering a wide range of issues—including civil rights, labor, immigration, gender, and environmental justice—these films provide insightful perspectives on the challenges and triumphs of building social movements. Ideal for educators, students, and community organizations, the collection inspires critical dialogue and deeper understanding of activism’s vital role in shaping society.

Third World Newsreel (TWN) licenses archival stock footage to producers and media companies, including footage of the leadership of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Party, the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, the Student Movement, the Housing Movement, Women's Liberation Movement, and other social justice movements from the late 60s and early 70s. Please initiate your inquiry by submitting a request form here:  https://forms.gle/x14PRnwjKPpYZJtT7.

Documentary, experimental, and narrative films by and about Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Our collection spans early immigration history through contemporary experiences, including the work of TWN co-founder Christine Choy (“From Spikes to Spindles”, “Mississippi Triangle”), Southeast Asian refugee narratives, Japanese American incarceration and resistance, Pacific Islander representation, and emerging AAPI filmmakers. Themes include Chinatown and urban Asian American communities, the model minority myth, transnational identity, mixed-race experiences, and Pacific decolonization. Featured titles: “From Spikes to Spindles”, “Bittersweet Survival: Southeast Asian Refugees in America”, “Resistance at Tule Lake”, “Mississippi Triangle”, “War for Guam”, “The #7 Train: An Immigrant Journey”. Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing.

Work with us to curate a package for your venue or theme.

Documentary, experimental, and narrative films by and about Black communities in the United States and across the African diaspora. Our collection spans the Black Power movement of the late 1960s through contemporary work, including rare Newsreel footage of the Black Panther Party (1967–1972), L.A. Rebellion filmmakers (Julie Dash, Barbara McCullough, Zeinabu irene Davis), and acclaimed documentarians like Camille Billops and Thomas Allen Harris. Featured titles: “A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde”, “Finding Christa” (Sundance winner), “Water Ritual #1”, “Black Panther”, “AI: African Intelligence”. Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing.

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A series of 16 shorts on how NYC communities of color view their "State of America" and what they're doing to make changes. Topics range from the continued impact of homeland security measures on South Asian and Muslim communities, to police brutality, to slavery era reparations, to the women MC movement and Domestic Workers organizing. Titles: "Among the First to Die", "Dastaar", "Fulton and Franklin", "Just Ralph", "Latino Poets Speakout", "Military Options", "Military Promises", "Rising Up: The Alams", "Saj: A Muslim in America", "She Rhymes Like A Girl", "Untold Legacy", "Voices in the Street", "Work and Respect". 

Immediately after September 11th, 2001, Third World Newsreel made a call to former workshop students and other filmmakers to help document people's reactions and concerns as well as the governmental and media activity that had followed the event. The result was a collection of short videos that presented a wide range of issues of concern to communities of color and that asked questions largely overlooked in the media at large.

CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD) is the first full-service film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean, and aims to become the reference point for producers and buyers of Caribbean-themed content.

A selection of our film catalog is available for educational streaming on our channel. 

H2ONEWSREEL is a multi-media independent distribution outlet providing the Best in Hip-Hop Media, Education and Culture. 

It acquires media projects and facilitates the creation of study guides for the education and urban entertainment markets. H2ONEWSREEL offers among the most competitive percentage agreement to independent filmmakers and split profits on a non-exclusive agreement. Formed in September 2008, H2ONEWSREEL is now releasing its titles to the international educational sector. H2ONEWSREEL is featuring documentaries including: MASIZAKHE, FREKUENSIA KOLOMBIANA, and an award-winning short series collection. Filmmakers whose projects are aligned with the H2ONEWSREEL mission will be selected to work closely with staff members on their marketing campaigns, programming and distribution goals to offer more cultivation and resources. 

H2ONewsreel is a project of The Hip-Hop Education Center, previously Hip-Hop Association (H2A) and Third World Newsreel (TWN) to provide the Best in Hip-Hop Media, Education, and Culture. 

Documentary and narrative films by and about Indigenous peoples of North America, Central America, South America, and the Pacific. Our collection centers Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty, land rights, cultural preservation, and resistance. Films address tribal nation governance, environmental justice, language revitalization, urban Indigenous communities, and the ongoing impacts of colonization. Featured titles: “The Couple in the Cage”, “Living Quechua”, “Mohawk Nation”. Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing.

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Documentary, narrative, and experimental films exploring Latine experiences in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Our collection includes foundational footage of the Young Lords Party and Puerto Rican activism (“El Pueblo Se Levanta”, 1971), contemporary immigration stories, Afro-Latine identity, and transnational narratives spanning Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean diaspora. Filmmakers include Iris Morales, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, and emerging voices exploring Chicano/a, Nuyorican, Dominican, Cuban, and broader Latine identities. Featured titles: “El Pueblo Se Levanta”, “La Cocina de las Patronas”, “Nuyorican Básquet”, “NEGRITA: Racially Black, Ethnically Latina”, “Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories”, “Invisible Roots: Afro-Mexicans in Southern California”. Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing.

Work with us to curate a package for your venue or theme.

Documentary and narrative films exploring Latine experiences in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Our collection includes foundational footage of the Young Lords Party and Puerto Rican activism ("El Pueblo Se Levanta", 1971), contemporary immigration stories, Afro-Latine identity, and transnational narratives spanning Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean diaspora. Filmmakers include Iris Morales, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, and emerging voices exploring Chicano/a, Nuyorican, Dominican, Cuban, and broader Latine identities. Featured titles: “El Pueblo Se Levanta”, “La Cocina de las Patronas”, “Nuyorican Básquet”, “Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories”, “Invisible Roots: Afro-Mexicans in Southern California”. Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing.

Documentary and narrative films exploring Latine experiences in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Our collection includes foundational footage of the Young Lords Party and Puerto Rican activism ("El Pueblo Se Levanta", 1971), contemporary immigration stories, Afro-Latine identity, and transnational narratives spanning Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean diaspora. Filmmakers include Iris Morales, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, and emerging voices exploring Chicano/a, Nuyorican, Dominican, Cuban, and broader Latine identities. Featured titles: “El Pueblo Se Levanta”, “La Cocina de las Patronas”, "NEGRITA: Racially Black, Ethnically Latina", “Nuyorican Básquet”, “Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories”, “Invisible Roots: Afro-Mexicans in Southern California”. Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing.

Independent documentaries present a much-needed visual record of social justice activism and resistance in Puerto Rico and in Puerto Rican communities in the United States. Young Puerto Ricans take to the streets to demand the end of the fiscal board imposed by the U.S. Congress, austerity measures, and the ousting of corrupt political leaders ("Drills of Liberation"). Labor documentaries on the prevalence of precarious work in Puerto Rico and the historical struggle of a group of Puerto Rican merchant marine workers who organized for better working conditions ("The Stand-by Generation" and "Salty Dog Blues"). Films about the lasting environmental effects of the U.S. Navy on the island of Vieques ("Vieques" and "Living Along the Fenceline"). Critical views of the damaging effects of urban renewal and gentrification in Nuyorican communities ("Break and Enter", "The Case Against Lincoln Center" and "Voces de Fillmore"). Legacies of the Attica prison rebellion and Puerto Rican families in Philadelphia fighting against police brutality ("Teach Our Children" and "Black and Blue"). Films on Puerto Rican visual artist Samuel Lind, Nuyorican spoken word artists La Bruja, Mariposa, and Papoleto, and a celebration of Puerto Rican folk music and Nuyorican identity ("Samuel Lind's Coastal World", "La Bruja", "Percussion, Impressions, and Reality", and "Latino Poets Speakout"). Films on the Young Lords, and Operation Move-In activist groups ("Break and Enter", "Palante, Siempre Palante!" and "El Pueblo Se Levanta").

Queer Essentials is a powerful survey of LGBTQIA+ experiences from award-winning directors in the United States and abroad and a must for educational media collections. Our ever-growing film catalog features more than 50 independent works from Richard Fung's influential Orientations (1985), to New Queer Cinema from the 90s, to documentary films about Black Lesbian writer Audre Lorde, and the work of prolific filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris. More recent films include portrayals of trans activists Mama Gloria from Chicago, Pauline Park from New York, and Hector Plascencia from California.

TWN is proud to present the work of the Bolivian indigenous media collective CEFREC/CAIB. Since 1996, CAIB (Bolivian Indigenous Peoples’ Audiovisual Council) and CEFREC (Cinematography Education and Production Center) have been at the forefront of Indigenous cinema in Latin America, producing a vast catalog of documentaries, docudramas, and fiction films for local indigenous communities. Beyond local audiences, the work of CEFREC/CAIB has been featured in numerous international film festivals outside Bolivia and is available for educational and public screenings in the United States. 

Tami Gold joined the Newsreel Film Collective in response to the political turmoil that surrounded the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, and Women’s Movements. It was during this time that she made her first film, MY COUNTRY OCCUPIED with Heather (Archibald) Lewis.

Since then, Gold has produced many critically acclaimed documentary films that have consistently been at the forefront of social issues, looking at racism, police violence, women’s rights, conditions for workers and labor organizing, violence, and discrimination against LGBT people.

Over the years Gold has been the recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Fulbright Fellowships; Tribeca Audience Award; GLAAD Media Award; Urban Visionaries Award, Museum of Television and Radio; NY/NJ Video Arts Fellowships; Excellence in the Arts Award from the Manhattan Borough President; AFI Independent Filmmakers Production Fellowship. Some of her films have been presented at MOMA, the Whitney, the Chicago Arts Institute, the Kennedy Center, the American and British Film Institutes, Sundance, Tribeca, the New York Film Festival, Slamdance, and in over 150 film festivals worldwide.

In 1988, Gold was invited to join the faculty at Hunter College, CUNY, where she developed the video production curriculum, LGBTQ Media Studies, and led student exchanges to Cuba and South Africa and directed the James Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism. 

The footage left out of the history books. Since 1968, Third World Newsreel has documented the movements demanding social justice. Our collection captures U.S. history from inside the movements: Black Power, Puerto Rican activism, women’s liberation, anti-war resistance, housing rights, immigrant communities. This footage was shot by filmmakers embedded in the movements—material that exists because they were there. 

Available for theatrical screening, educational licensing, and archival licensing. For documentary producers: license rare footage of the Black Panther Party, Young Lords, draft resistance, feminist organizing, and urban activism from the late 1960s and early 1970s. For programmers: curated retrospectives and individual titles available DCP-ready.

Work with us to curate a package for your venue or theme.

"The category of the Vietnam War film can also include representations of Southeast Asia during French colonialism, the brief decades of independence before the entrance of US troops, and the long legacy of the war in terms of refugee crisis, political unrest, genocide, PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), and protest."

Sylvia Shin Huey Chong, Oxford Research Encyclopedias