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Advancing and Advocating for Social Justice & Equity

Films Screened at the 2012 NAME Multicultural Film Festival

 

Anne Braden: Southern Patriot (77 min.)

Director: Anne Lewis/ Appalshop Productions. www.appalshop.org.

For six decades Anne Braden (1924-2006) fought for civil rights in America. Born into a white middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky and raised in Alabama, her work on newspapers in Alabama and Kentucky provided disturbing stories of the effects of racism and segregation to help facilitate change.

 

The Apollos# (6 min.)

Part of the Citizen Youth Activist Mini Film Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

Meet the trailblazing students who, over 20 years ago, fought to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday.

 

Article of Faith* (10 min.)

Part of the Racial Justice Film Mini-Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

A portrait of Sikh American activist Sonny Singh as he organizes NYC Sikh youth to combat harassment in their schools.

 

By-Standing: The Beginning of An American Lifetime* (5:56 min.)

Part of the Racial Justice Film Mini-Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

Spoken word artist Kelly Tsai raises her voice against war and complacency.

 

Exiled in America# (9:23 min.)

Part of the Citizen Youth Activist Mini Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

A look at immigration in the U.S., focusing on detention and deportation from the point of view of those who are affected most–children.

 

A Girl Like Me*(7:08 min.)

Part of the Racial Justice Film Mini-Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

A young filmmaker addresses standards of beauty imposed on today’s black girls.

 

Homecoming# (5:30 min.)

Part of the Citizen Youth Activist Mini Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

When coming out makes Ron a target, he finds a school where respect and acceptance are taught alongside English and Math.

 

I Am Sean Bell* (11 min.)

Part of the Racial Justice Mini Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

Young boys reflect on the Sean Bell tragedy, speaking out about their fears and hopes as they approach manhood.

 

Immersion*(12 min.)

Part of the Racial Justice Mini-Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

Moises, a ten year old student, struggles to communicate in his new school with limited access to his native language.

 

Into the Current: Burma’s Political Prisoners (83 min.)

Directed by Jeanne Hallacy. Media Library. www.yayzanlan.org/

Tells the story of Burma’s unsung heroes—its prisoners of conscience – and the price they pay for speaking truth to power in a military dictatorship. Using footage secretly shot in Burma, the film uncovers the stories and sacrifices of “ordinary” people of exceptional courage and the leaders who inspire them.

 

The Learning (98 min.)

Directed by Ramona Diaz. Women Make Movies. www.wmm.com/

One hundred years ago, American teachers established the English-speaking public school system of the Philippines. Now, in a striking turnabout, American schools are recruiting Filipino teachers. This film tells the story of 4 Filipina women who reluctantly leave their families to teach in the US, following them as they take their place on the frontline of the No Child Left Behind Act.

 

Living in Two Worlds (24 min.)

Producer: Richard Hersley. First Nation Films. www.firstnationfilms.com

Tells how native people see themselves – their past, present and their future. Young native people explore the meaning of being a native in a modern world while traditional elders highlight the past and the meaning of being managers of the land. This very moving and likeable film is a must see for all who want to catch a candid glimpse of native people as they really see themselves and as they struggle to maintain their identity as they live in two worlds––the old and the new.

 

Maestra (34 min.)

Directed by Catherine Murphy. www.maestrathefilm.org

Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island – and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.

 

Precious Knowledge (60 min.)

Director: Ari Luis Palos. Producer: Isabel McGinnis. Independent Television Services. www.preciousknowledge.com

Tells the stories of students in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School. While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of high school, Tucson HS’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a national model of educational success, with 100% of enrolled students graduating from high school and 85% going on to attend college. The filmmakers spent a year in the classroom filming this innovative social-justice curriculum, documenting the transformative impact on students who become engaged, informed, and active in their communities. The film includes comments by NAME President, Christine Sleeter and she will lead a discussion, following the screening.

Rights and Wrong (135 min.)

A film by Corine Huq. Women Make Movies. www.wmm.com

By returning to the roots of Islam and understanding how societies have found justification for their treatment of women within Islamic sources, this film debunks myths about women and Islam. Renowned Muslim feminist scholars and journalists detail how from early on very different understandings of the Qur’an lead to vastly different translations, with enormous repercussions for women living in different Islamic societies around the world. The film alternates between the history of Mohammad and issues facing Muslim women today—from the wearing of the veil, to praying in the mosque, and attitudes towards domestic violence and honor killings. It also looks at how feminism works within Islam in the modern era.

 

Satya, A Prayer for the Enemy (28 min.)

An Ellen Bruno Film. www.brunofilms.com

Since the Chinese invasions of Tibet in 1950, more than one million people have been tortured, executed or starved to death for their role in demonstrations against the Chinese occupation. Tibetan Buddhist nuns have taken the lead in this resistance by fearlessly staging courageous demonstrations for religious freedom and independence. Satya focuses on the personal testimonies of these nuns.

 

Slavery By Another Name (90 min.)

Director: Sam Pollard. California Newsreel. www.californianewsreel.com

Challenges one of our country’s most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. It recounts that following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, keeping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in bondage, trapping them in a brutal system that would persist until the onset of World War II.

 

Slip of the Tongue# (4:06 min.)

Part of the Citizen Youth Activist Mini-Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

“What’s your ethnic make-up?” A young man makes a pass at a beautiful stranger and gets an eye opening schooling on race and gender.

 

Somethings Moving*(7:14 min)

Part of the Racial Justice Film Mini-Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

Deals with Native Americans sent to boarding schools and the impact of that on the children in their adult lives.

 

SOSÚA: Make a Better World (55 min.)

Directed by Peter Miller and Renee Silverman. Willow Pond Films www.willowpondfilms.com

Tells the story of Jewish and Dominican teenagers in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood, who together with the legendary theater director Liz Swados, put on a musical about the Dominican Republic’s rescue of 800 Jews from Hitler. Weaves together this little-known Holocaust story with a behind-the-scenes portrait of the making of the theater production. In a neighborhood where Jews and Latinos live side by side but rarely interact, the theater project brings its young actors on an extraordinary journey of discovery of what unites them – both in the past and in the present.

 

Standing on My Sisters Shoulders (60 min.)

By Joan & Robert Sadoff and Laura J. Lipson. Women Make Movies www.wmm.com

In 1965, when three women walked into the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C., they had come a very long way. Neither lawyers nor politicians, they were ordinary women from Mississippi, and descendants of African slaves. They had come to their country’s capital seeking civil rights, the first black women to be allowed in the senate chambers in nearly 100 years. A missing chapter in our nation’s record of the Civil Rights movement, this powerful documentary reveals the movement in Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s from the point of view of the courageous women who lived it – and emerged as its grassroots leaders.

 

Stand Up for Justice (30 min.)

Written and Directed by John Eskai. Visual Communications and Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress. www.vconline.org

Tells the story of Ralph Lazo, a 17 year old Mexican American student at Belmont High School in Los Angeles who devises a remarkable plan to support his Japanese American friends confined at Manzanar concentration camp during World War II.

 

There Once Was an Island (56 min.)

Director/producer: Brian March. Producer: Lyn Collie. On the Level Productions. www.thereoncewasanisland.com

What if your community had to decide whether to leave their homeland forever and there was no help available? This is the reality for the culturally unique Polynesian community of Takuu, a tiny low-lying atoll in the South Western Pacific. As a terrifying tidal flood rips through their already damaged home, the Takuu community experiences the devastating effects of climate change first hand.

 

Teens Talk Racial Privilege(25 min.)

www.teenstalkcultures.com

Teens of different races and ethnicities discuss their experiences with White privilege. Resource appropriate for middle and high school teachers who are introducing their students to the concept of White privilege.

 

Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North (56 min.)

Director/producer Katrina Browne Ebb Pod Productions LLC. infor@tracesofthetrade.org

Tells the story of the film maker’s forefathers, the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Given the myth that the South is solely responsible for slavery, viewers will be surprised to learn that Browne’s ancestors were Northerners. It follows Browne and family members on a remarkable journey which brings them face-to-face with the history and legacy of New England’s hidden enterprise.

 

Walking Home# (4:03 min.)

Part of the Citizen Youth Activist Mini Film Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

 

For the walkers, talkers and those who say nothing.

White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books. (52 min.)

Director/Producer: Jonathan Gayles. California Newsreel. www.newsreel.org

In a serious, lively and humorous manner, the film examines the degree to which some of the first Black superheroes generally adhered to and were burdened by stereotypes about Black men. However we also witness how some images shifted to reflect the changing times.

 

Will I Be Next?# (5:23 min.)

Part of the Citizen Youth Activist Mini Film Festival: 6 Short films from www.mediathatmattersfest.org

Chicago youth explore the effects of gun violence in their neighborhoods and demand change.

Notes on Mini Festivals:

* Racial Justice Film Festival: 6 Short films from Media That Matters. Friday afternoon. 53:17 minutes total running time. All films in this category deal with Racial Justice. www.mediathatmattersfest.org

# Citizen Youth Activist Mini Film Festival: 6 Short films from Media That Matters Film Festival. Saturday morning. 35:25 minutes total running time. These films deal with Citizen Youth activists. www.mediathatmattersfest.org