Black/African American Studies Films
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.
Afro-punk
AFRO-PUNK, the movie that sparked the movement!
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A Meat-Cooperative a.k.a 6th Street Meat Club (Newsreel #11)
Formed on the Lower East Side of New York to side step high prices, poor quality, and weight cheating of local supermarkets.
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139X (Newsreel #22)
Berkeley students organized a mass sit-in and a building take-over after the State Regents refused to allow Elridge Cleaver to teach Political Science 139X for credit.
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A Cosmic Demonstration of Sexuality
In this humorous video, five women talk about menstruation, masturbation and ejaculation.
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A Dream Is What You Wake Up From
A DREAM IS WHAT YOU WAKE UP FROM explores the role of Black families in American society.
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A Litany For Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (52)
An epic portrait of award-winning Black, lesbian, poet, mother, teacher and activist, Audre Lorde.
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A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde (90)
An epic portrait of award-winning Black, lesbian, poet, mother, teacher and activist, Audre Lorde.
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Anomaly: A Documentary Film about Multiracial Identity
A Documentary Film about Multiracial Identity
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Another Brother
Through found photographs, audiotaped interviews and archival footage, ANOTHER BROTHER tells the story of Vietnam veteran Clarence Fitch.
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Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992
With testimony from Lorde's colleagues, students and friends, this film documents Audre Lorde's lasting legacy in Germany.
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AWOL
Keisha Johnson, an African American soldier, goes AWOL in Iraq after she flees a violent incident.
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Beyond the Bricks: A New Era of Education
BEYOND THE BRICKS follows two African American students as they struggle to stay on track in the Newark public school system.
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Birth of a Nation: 4*29*1992
After criminal charges were dropped against four Los Angeles police officers accused in the brutal beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles erupted. This video offers a rare view of the rebellion that began within minutes of the verdict.
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Black & White
The power of visualizing the meaning of the words “Black & White”.
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black enuf*
A queer oddball seeks approval from Black peers despite a serious lack of hip-hop credentials. This short animated documentary takes you on a quest for belonging.
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Black Nations/Queer Nations?
A film about the 1995 groundbreaking conference on lesbian and gay sexualities in the African diaspora.
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Blaze: The Truth Through Hip Hop
The Hip-Hop Christian movement has been uplifting youth by delivering positive religious messages that are not about drugs, sex, or hate but of hope and peace.
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Bobby Seale a.k.a. Interview with Bobby Seale (Newsreel #44)
Bobby Seale, a member of the Black Panthers, talks about his treatment as a political prisoner and his involvement in the Black Liberation and anti-war movements.
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Bringin' in Da Spirit
A celebration of women who have committed themselves to midwifery amidst powerful misconceptions about the practice and virulent opposition from practitioners of Western medicine.
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Can't Jail the Revolution and Break the Walls Down
Two videos use footage compiled from over 40 social justice media productions to chronicle the perspectives of political prisoners and war within the United States.
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Chasing the Moon
This fascinating film presents the meditations of a Black lesbian grappling with the memory of an attack that makes her wary about being out on the street.
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Community Control (Newsreel #24)
In 1968, under intensive community pressure from Black and Latino communities, the State of New York chose three New York City school districts to become part of an experiment in community-run education.
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Creative Detours
A young woman moves to New York City from the Midwest to develop her writing. Distracted from her new creative lifestyle, she is soon challenged by her best friend to work harder to foster her own growth as an artist.
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Demarcations
DEMARCATIONS uses the female body as a landscape to explore memories of a rape.
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Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project
Exposes the little known story of Sakia Gunn, a 15 year old student who was fatally stabbed in a gay hate crime in Newark, NJ.
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Either Or (Newsreel #)
A short newsreel showing the grassroots organizing efforts of the East Coast Panthers as they attempted to implement community-based social programs while simultaneously battling severe harassment from local and federal authorities.
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Encounter at the Intergalactic Café
A videotape of a live performance--a mythopoetic rendering of the original encounters between African, Indigenous and European peoples in the present day "border regions".
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Extra Change
A realistic view of a 12-year-old African American girl's voyage through early adolescence, peer pressure, friendship and love.
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Fade to Black
This videotape is a meditation on contemporary race relations.
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Finding Common Ground in New Orleans
Activist and poet Walidah Imarisha traveled to New Orleans and other neighboring towns shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. Through interviews with residents, activists and city officials, Imarisha succinctly captured the pain, loss and hope of the people of New Orleans.
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Gideon's Army
Everyone deserves the best defense. They fight for it. GIDEON’S ARMY takes an inside look at the criminal justice system from the perspective of three young public defenders in the South.
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Hair-tage
This short documentary examines the decisions involved in growing and wearing dreadlocks in African-American communities.
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Heart of Harlem
HEART OF HARLEM traces the life and times of Holcombe Rucker, who founded a summer basketball league while working for New York Citys Parks Department in order to give young people a positive alternative to the streets.
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Mama Gloria
A 75-year-old Black trailblazing transgender activist who started a charm school for homeless trans youth and is now aging with joy and grace.
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Ọya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa!
Media artist Seyi Adebanjo tells a tale not often heard about gender and indigenous Yorùbá spirituality.
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What is a Line?
Weaving a narrative of a jilted lover with footage of a train in motion, this video is a darkly comedic study of the physical, psychological and emotional traumas jilted lovers go through.
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Whatever It Takes
WHATEVER IT TAKES follows the amazing first year of a cutting-edge public high school in NYC’s South Bronx.
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High School Rising (Newsreel #38)
An analysis of how the schools by using the tracking system, exploit and oppress people in terms of class origins and how students can begin to organize.
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Saints Rising
Saints Rising is a documentary presenting the voices of New Orleans years after Hurricane Katrina and the breech of the levees.
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The #1 Bus Chronicles
"The #1 Bus Chronicles" uses a small sociological microcosm – a bus stop on an industrial highway in New Jersey – to intimately portray some of the most marginalized lives in America today - the ‘working poor’, the recently incarcerated, and immigration asylum seekers.
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Work and Respect
New updated version includes footage of New York State Governor David Paterson signing the 2010 Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights.
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Voices of the Gods
This documentary captures the rich legacy of ancient African religions practiced in the United States.
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Blueprint for My People
This short film illuminates the African-American experience by lyrically interweaving spoken-word narration of Margaret Walker’s epic poem, “For My People” with contemporary images and rare 19th century cyanotypes (blue photographic prints known as “blueprints”) of African Americans.
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Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification
An original and visionary work, this cathartic film links the present with the ancestral past.
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The Throwaways
THE THROWAWAYS is a timely and provocative look at the impact of mass incarceration and police brutality on black males in America. Recommended by Video Librarian Magazine.
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To Build a Monument
Three Black queer individuals reflect on their connections to their ancestors. Inspired
by Sakia Gunn's legacy, the film meditates on grief, death, queerness and ancestorhood.
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Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing And The Fight For Fairness
A documentary that connects the Lesbian and Gay Marriage Equality movement with the Black Civil Rights Movement.
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Three Queer Mice
This short youth-produced animation exposes homophobia to the tune of "Three Blind Mice".
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Take Your Bags
A very different look at the Middle Passage
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I'm Free Now, You Are Free
A short documentary about the reunion and repair between Mike Africa Jr and his mother Debbie Africa—a formerly incarcerated political prisoner of the MOVE9.
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Little Brother: Manchild in the Promised Land (Chapter 5)
Filmed in Tucson, Arizona, the young men discuss life in the Southwest and the current state of race relations.
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Little Brother: Things Fall Apart (Chapter 1)
This first chapter of LITTLE BROTHER begins a series of films where Black boys start the conversation on a topic they rarely get to discuss: Love.
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Little Brother: The Fire Next Time (Chapter 4)
Young African Cherokees present a candid discussion on love, tribe, family, and race.
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Nas: Time Is Illmatic
NAS: TIME IS ILLMATIC delves deep into the making of Nas’ 1994 debut album, Illmatic, and the social conditions that influenced its creation.
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The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn
The 20-year journey of an unlikely band of activists who take an ancient music from the hills of Haiti and reinvent it on the streets of Brooklyn.
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Black Panther a.k.a. Off the Pig (Newsreel #19)
A compelling document of the Black Panther Party leadership in 1967.
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America a.k.a. Amerika (Newsreel #)
Against the background of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, AMERICA documents the development of the anti-war movement on the home front.
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Mississippi Triangle (110 minutes)
This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and whites live in a complex world of cotton, labor, and racial conflict.
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Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles
A powerful document of a community vigil for Islan Nettles, a Transgender Womyn of Color who was beaten to death in 2013.
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She Rhymes Like a Girl
Toni Blackman and the FreeStyle Union are challenging the male-dominated world of Hip-Hop and empowering women to speak their minds in freestyle workshops.
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Scene Not Heard
Shot in Philadelphia, this documentary features the work of female Hip-Hop artists Lady B, Schoolly D, Rennie Harris, Bahamadia, and Ursula Rucker.
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I.S. 201 and Report from Newark (Newsreel #10)
Nine months after the riot. Malcolm X Memorial Services held at I.S. 201 in New York, March 1968, and scenes from Newark, March 1968.
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