Independent Television Service
Language
English
Description
A frank and honest look at black identity in America. Uses incisive storytelling and commentary from prominent black intellectuals, including Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and Cornel West. Meant to stir provocative debate and add reinforcement to a bold vision for a humanity that embraces all people. Explodes the myth that black America is monolithic.
Language
English
Description
The powerful documentary examines the life of Muhammad Ali beyond the boxing ring to offer a personal perspective on the American sporting legend. Investigating Ali's spiritual transformation includes his conversion to Islam, resistance to the Vietnam War draft, and humanitarian work. The documentary connects Ali's transcendent life story to America' struggles with race, religion, and war in the twentieth century.
"When Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad...
Language
English
Description
Frederick Wiseman's film, Ex Libris- the New York Public Library, goes behind the scenes of one of the greatest knowledge institutions in the world and reveals it as a place of welcome, cultural exchange and learning. With 92 locations throughout Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, the library is committed to being a resource for all the inhabitants of this diverse and cosmopolitan city, and beyond. The New York Public Library exemplifies the...
Language
English
Description
New York City, including its outer boroughs, during August 2017: it's a month heavy with the tension of a new President, growing anxiety over everything from rising rents to marching white nationalists, and unrelenting news of either wildfires or hurricanes on every coast. The film pivots on the question of futurity: what does the future look like from where we are standing? And what if we are not all standing in the same place? The Hottest Society...
Language
English
Description
Methamphetamine, also called "crank" counts more users than cocaine and heroin combined. Meth leaves in its wake: addiction, crime, burn victims, neglected children and toxic properties. This program measures meth's shocking impact on one Tennessee town, examining the deadly drug phenomenon, the legislation aimed at controlling the sale of meth-precursor cold medicines and the hard lessons families learn about addiction.
Language
English
Description
Nearly 60 years following the use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, the deadliest use of chemical warfare in history, the devastating aftereffects of the toxin remain lethal, demanding attention both in Vietnam and at home in America. This documentary closely follows two activists as they take on the chemical industry, and demand accountability for the pernicious legacy caused by the use of this poisonous herbicide. French-Vietnamese activist Tran...
10) La ciudad
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
An unforgettable portrait of immigrant life in a collection of four stories about love, hope, and loss: a day laborer paid to gather bricks from an abandoned lot meets a tragic end; a young man newly arrived from Mexico falls in love with a girl from his home village; a homeless puppeteer dreams of a better life for his daughter; and a seamstress is in desperate need of money to send home for her daughter's medical treatment.
11) Meet the Patels
Language
English
Description
A laugh-out-loud real-life romantic comedy about Ravi Patel, an almost-30-year-old Indian American who enters a love triangle between the woman of his dreams and...his parents.
12) Eating Alabama
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English
Description
Chronicles an Alabama couple's attempt to exclusively eat locally grown food, only to find local agriculture to be virtually nonexistent.
13) The interrupters
Language
English
Description
The moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who, with bravado, humility, and even humor, try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. Shot over the course of a year, this documentary captures a period in Chicago when it became a national symbol for the violence in America's cities.
Language
English
Description
Filmmaker Byron Hurt looks at the past and future of soul food, covering its roots in Western Africa, its incarnation in the American South, and the role it plays in the health crisis in the African American community. Examines the socioeconomics of the modern American diet, and how the food industry profits from producing cheap calories while healthy options remain expensive and hard to find.
15) Revolution '67
Language
English
Description
"Focuses on the explosive urban rebellion which erupted in Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967; a tragedy caused by similar problems that sparked race riots across America. The film takes viewers on a daily chronicle of events, including the calling in of the State Police and National Guard, their occupation of the city and use of unnecessary firepower. Final toll: 26 dead"--Container.
Language
English
Description
A documentary examining the life of Bayard Rustin, one of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. However, Rustin was forced to play a background role in landmark civil rights events because he was homosexual. This feature-length portrait unfolds both chronologically and thematically, using interviews with others, and Rustin's own voice, taken from...
17) Deaf jam
Language
English
Description
Aneta Brodski, a deaf teen living in New York City, discovers the power of American Sign Language poetry. As she prepares to be one of the first deaf poets to compete in a spoken-word slam, her journey leads to an unexpected collaboration. [From discussion guide.]
Language
Español
Description
On October 13, 1972, a young rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile, then vanished into thin air. Sixteen of the 45 passenger resurfaced, 72 days after their plane crashed. Thirty-five years later, the survivors returned to tell their story in their own words.
Language
English
Description
American culture has stereotyped black Americans for centuries. Equally devastating, the late Marlon Riggs argued, have been the definitions of "blackness" African Americans impose upon one another which contain and reduce the black experience. In this film, Riggs meets a cross-section of African Americans grappling with the paradox of numerous, often contradictory definitions of blackness.