Urban Studies Film Collection
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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.More Information -
Boom: The Sound of Eviction
In the early 2000s, San Francisco's dot-com boom brought a disastrous tidal wave of gentrification, which changed the city's landscape forever.More Information -
Break and Enter a.k.a. Squatters (Newsreel #62)
In 1970, several hundred Puerto Rican and Dominican families reclaimed housing left vacant by the city.More Information -
Democracy in Dakar
This film explores the transformative role of Hip-Hop in politics in Senegal during the 2007 presidential election campaign.More Information -
El Culebrero, La Muerte de un Colombiano y el Acordeonista Que No Esta
This video presents the transient aspects of the gay Colombian experience in New York City.More Information -
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.More Information -
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.More Information -
The Wreck of the New York Subway (Newsreel #47)
During the winter of 1969, the New York Transit Authority increased the public transportation fee fare from 20 cents to 30 cents--a 50% increase. Infuriated riders scrambled under turnstiles and through exit doors, refusing to pay the fare.More Information -
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Home
This series of shorts documents the lives of Beiruti women.More Information -
Work and Respect
New updated version includes footage of New York State Governor David Paterson signing the 2010 Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights.More Information -
Walking Home
For the walkers, talkers and those who say nothing.More Information -
Voices of Chinatown: Here to Stay
Fifth-generation shopkeepers Mei Lum and Gary Lum speak to how their work exists as everyday resistance to gentrification and creates sustained community in the heart of New York City.More Information -
Living the Hiplife
Shot in Accra, Ghana, this documentary follows the birth of Hiplife music, a mix of various African musical forms and American Hip-Hop.More Information -
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.More Information -
Favela Rising
Through Hip-Hop music and Afro-Brazilian dance, musician Anderson Sá rallies his community to counteract the violent oppression enforced by teenage drug armies and sustained by corrupt police.More Information -
The Case Against Lincoln Center (Newsreel #17)
More than 20,000 Latino families were displaced to make way for Lincoln Center, home to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Symphony.More Information -
Mill-In a.k.a. The Christmas Mill-In (Newsreel #6)
To raise the consciousness of New Yorkers, anti-war demonstrators took to the streets on fashionable Fifth Avenue on Christmas Eve.More Information -
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.More Information -
Race Against Prime Time
An award winning documentary about TV news and racial conflict in Miami.More Information -
Rezoning Harlem: The Battle over Harlem's Future
A shocking exposé of how a group of ordinary citizens, passionate about the future of their legendary neighborhood, are systematically shut out of the city’s decision-making process.More Information -
Saints Rising
Saints Rising is a documentary presenting the voices of New Orleans years after Hurricane Katrina and the breech of the levees.More Information -
Sanctuary: An Expression of Conscience
Refugees of the Salvadoran Civil War flee persecution and death only to be denied sanctuary under the U.S. Refugee Act.More Information -
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.More Information -
The # 7 Train: An Immigrant Journey
Every day 500,000 people from 117 different countries ride a subway that runs from Flushing to Times Square, going through Queens, the most culturally diverse region in the United States.More Information -
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.More Information -
The Friends
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-born and raised.More Information -
Taxi-vala/Auto-Biography
A look at the complexities of migration, displacement, economic empowerment, and the pursuit of the elusive "American dream" within New York's growing South Asian communities.More Information -
Su-Casa Senior Media Production Workshop Films: 2020 Films
A series of short videos made by Mandarin-speaking seniors living in Flushing, Queens, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The videos showcase their filmmaking abilities and their strength and willingness to share their fears and sorrows during the health crisis.More InformationSold out -
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.More Information -
Lincoln Hospital (Newsreel #35)
When a city-run health clinic in the South Bronx fails to meet the needs of the city, local residents and health workers force a strike and then run the clinic themselves.More Information -
Percussion, Impressions and Reality
Interviews and performances by Puerto Rican musicians in New York illustrate how traditional music has served as mode of resistance of cultural domination.More Information -
El Pueblo se Levanta aka The People Are Rising (Newsreel #63)
Faced with racial discrimination, deficient community services, and poor education and job opportunities, Puerto Rican communities in New York City began to address these injustices by using direct action.More Information
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