DOCUMENTARIES WITH A POINT OF VIEW
P.O.V. Film Archive
September 15 - October 15 is Hispanic Heritage month! Started in 1968 (as Hispanic Heritage Week), the now month-long observation recognizes the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the United States. September 15th is the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Gautemala, Honduras and Nicaragua; Mexico and Chile also celebrate their independence days in September. Today, there are more than 44 million people in the U.S. who are of Hispanic origins.
You can celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by learning more about Hispanic culture, and what better way than to watch P.O.V. documentaries? On September 16th, P.O.V. will be airing Calavera Highway by Renee Tajima-Peña and Evangeline Griego. "Calavera" means "skeleton" in Spanish, and when brothers Armando and Carlos Peña set off to carry their mother's ashes to south Texas, their road trip turns into a quest for answers about a strangely veiled past.
Watch the trailer:
Here are some other Hispanic-themed films from the P.O.V. Archives:
Made in L.A.
Made in L.A. follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a trendy clothing retailer. Compelling, humorous and deeply human, the film is a story about immigration, the power of unity and the courage it takes to find your voice.
Al Otro Lado
The proud Mexican tradition of corrido music — captured in the performances of Mexican band Los Tigres del Norte and the late Chalino Sanchez — provides both heartbeat and backbone to this rich examination of songs, drugs and dreams along the U.S./Mexico border. Al Otro Lado follows Magdiel, an aspiring corrido composer from the drug capital of Mexico, as he faces two difficult choices to better his life: to traffic drugs or to cross the border illegally into the United States.
Maquilapolis [city of factories]
Just over the border in Mexico is an area peppered with maquiladoras: massive factories often owned by the world's largest multinational corporations. Carmen and Lourdes work at maquiladoras in Tijuana, where each day they confront labor violations, environmental devastation and urban chaos. In this lyrical documentary, the women reach beyond the daily struggle for survival to organize for change, taking on both the Mexican and U.S. governments and a major television manufacturer.
Farmingville
The shocking hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers catapult a small Long Island town into national headlines, unmasking a new front line in the border wars: suburbia. For nearly a year, Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini lived and worked in Farmingville, New York, so they could capture first-hand the stories of residents, day laborers and activists on all sides of the debate. This timely and powerful film is more than a story about illegal immigration. Ultimately it challenges viewers to ask what the 'American dream' really means.
Discovering Dominga
When 29-year-old Iowa housewife Denese Becker decides to return to the Guatemalan village where she was born, she begins a journey towards finding her roots, but one filled with harrowing revelations. Denese, born Dominga, was nine when she became her family's sole survivor of a massacre of Maya peasants. Two years later, she was adopted by an American family. In Discovering Dominga, Denese's journey home is both a voyage of self-discovery and a political awakening, bearing searing testimony to a hemispheric tragedy and a shameful political crime.
The Sixth Section
The Sixth Section opens a surprising window on immigration in the twenty-first century. Following a group of Mexican immigrants from the tiny desert town of Boqueron who now work in upstate New York, the film documents their struggle to support themselves — and their hometown 2000 miles to the south. To do this, the men form a 'union' that raises money in the form of weekly donations of $10 or $20 from each of its members in New York. In the past few years the group has brought electricity, an ambulance and, most dramatically, a 2,000-seat baseball stadium to Boqueron. The Sixth Section is an intimate portrait of how 'The American Dream' is being redefined by today's immigrants.
Señorita Extraviada
Someone is killing the young women of Juarez, Mexico. Since 1993, over 270 young women have been raped and murdered in a chillingly consistent and brazen manner. Authorities ignore pleas for justice from the victims' families and the crimes go unpunished. Most disturbingly, evidence of government complicity remains uninvestigated as the killings continue to this day. Crafting a film that is both a poetic meditation and a mystery, Señorita Extraviada is a haunting investigation into an unspeakable crime wave amid the disorders and corruption of one of the biggest border towns in the world.
In 2005, P.O.V. aired Jessica Yu's film In the Realms of the Unreal. The film is the astounding tale of outsider artist Henry Darger, who, unbeknownst to anyone, had created a 15,000-page novel and hundreds of illustrations that have inspired artists and viewers since their discovery. Three years later, Darger continues to fascinate and astound, and last month, Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger opened at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.
Dargerism is curated by Brooke Davis Anderson, the director and curator of the Contemporary Center at the American Folk Art Museum. Three years ago, we worked with Brooke on one of our favorite website features — an interactive audio tour through several of Darger's works for the P.O.V. In the Realms of the Unreal website. Now Brooke has been kind enough to answer some of our questions about the show at the Folk Art Museum, and Darger's continued hold on our imaginations.
Henry Darger:
6 Episode 3 Place not mentioned. Escape during violent storm, still fighting though persed for long distance. Zoom into the image. © Kiyoko Lerner. Image used by permission of the American Folk Art Museum.
P.O.V.: Tell us about the show you just curated at the American Folk Art Museum — Dargerism, Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger.
Brooke Davis Anderson: The Dargerism show illustrates how Henry Darger has been influential to eleven contemporary artists over the last 25 years. The show examines how one artist has played a role in contemporary discourse in the art world, but one of the underlying themes of the show is also the self-taught artist's movement from the periphery of the discourse to the center. In a way, I'm trying to be playful with this show: I'm suggesting that if so many artists are influenced by Darger, then he can no longer be considered to be on the margins of art history.
The eleven contemporary artists in the show are very diverse — they work in painting, sculpture, video, drawing, photography, etc., and Darger's influence on them are integrated into each artist's oeuvre. In fact, this is the first time the Folk Art Museum has highlighted academically trained artists, and it's also the first time we have exhibited video and contemporary photography.
In terms of Darger's influence, some artists are very taken by the roles girls and women play in the work of Darger. They respond to Darger's powerful Vivian girls by creating their own mythological figures. Justine Kurland, for example, portrays Tom Sawyer-like girls; Amy Cutler forces the girls she portrays into work situations, which harkens back to Darger in subtle ways.
Other artists, like Trenton Doyle Hancock and Yun-Fei Ji, were released to become storytellers when they discovered Darger's work. Both were in graduate school and feeling that their work was too narrative, but then they saw Darger's 15,000 page novel and the journeys of his characters! Yun-Fei Ji said "Darger took the monkey off my back..." while Doyle Hancock said that Darger's work gave him "the permission" to pursue narrative art.
Read more after the jump...
One of the things that always strikes me as I watch documentaries is that the stories don't end as the credits start to roll. After they've given us a glimpse into their lives, documentary subjects go on living, usually out of the spotlight — and we, the viewers who have come to care about them, are often left wondering: "What happened next?"
At P.O.V., we face this question again and again. The most popular part of our websites for our films are the "Update" sections, where we check in with the films' subjects to see what they've been up to since the production wrapped up. Updates find many of the characters conquering personal demons or returning to a private life after being documented in a film. Yesterday, however, saw one of the characters in the 2005 P.O.V. film Street Fight, in the news: Sharpe James, the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey was convicted on five counts of fraud and faces up to eight years in prison.
Street Fight was director Marshall Curry's first feature-length film.
The Academy Award-nominated Street Fight, by Marshall Curry, is a riveting look at the 2002 mayoral elections in Newark, New Jersey. Cory Booker, then a 32-year-old upstart challenger full of youthful energy and ideals, ran against four-time Mayor Sharpe James. The fast pace of the film shows the campaigns as they devolve into dirty tricks and intimidation. One of the most dramatic moments in the film comes when the film crew — and director Marshall Curry himself — becomes a target of Mayor James' supporters: the mayor himself approaches the camera and has his security shut down the filming.
Booker lost the 2002 mayoral election to James, who served his fifth term as mayor of Newark from 2002-2006. Both men entered the 2006 race, but James soon dropped out. Later in 2006, newspapers reported that he was the target of a federal investigation for corruption and spending city money on personal entertainment.
The news came yesterday that the former mayor has been convicted of fraud for conspiring to sell city property to his then-girlfriend, who quickly flipped the city lots for hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. Both James and his former girlfriend were convicted, and the sentencing is scheduled for July 29, 2008. It was a stunning blow for James, who had been the mayor of Newark for 20 years.
For more about Sharpe James' conviction and his tarnished legacy in Newark, watch and read the coverage from The Star Ledger.
Having watched the acrimony of the 2002 mayoral elections in Street Fight, I can only wonder what Cory Booker thinks of his predecessor now. Does he finally feel vindicated because James' misuse of power in office has been brought to light and justice has been served? Or does he have more understanding of the ways in which power can corrupt, now that he has served as mayor for two years? Cory Booker is serving as the 36th mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He is up for reelection in 2010.
Yance Ford, P.O.V.'s series producer, muses on Tongues Untied, a landmark P.O.V. film — and one of the most controversial. The film has just been released on DVD by Strand Releasing.
Brother to Brother. Brother to Brother.
Brother to Brother. Brother to Brother.
Five men recite this phrase in staccato rhythm during the hypnotic opening of the film Tongues Untied (P.O.V. 1991) by Marlon Riggs, which is being released this week on DVD. I watched the film for the umpteenth time as I prepared to write this post and found myself nostalgic (again) for the days when black men of all orientations addressed each other as "brother" — rather than "nigger" or "nigga" — or however you spell it. Riggs ends the film with the statement "Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act." He was right then and he remains so. But I digress.
If, on July 16th, 1991, you were living in a market where your local PBS station hadn't refused to air the program, you would have witnessed what is still the most sage analysis of blackness, gay identity and racism ever captured on film. Tongues Untied aired during the vitriolic culture wars of the 90s (as opposed to the Internet-fuelled semi-polite culture wars of the new century) and quickly became the whipping boy of the late Senator Jesse Helms. Helms infamously called the film "Tongues United" while ranting against it, PBS, the NEA and homosexuals from the Senate floor.
Riggs never backed down from these and the many other attacks he faced, and defended not only his right to make his work and have it aired on PBS, but to have the tax dollars of gay Americans (no pun intended) considered in the discussion of what deserves public funding. A month after the broadcast, Riggs wrote in Current Magazine:
Paradoxically, the Tongues Untied censorship hysteria has helped re-kindle an essential public debate: who is to have access to so-called "public" media and on what terms? Who should represent "minority" perspectives and experience? Above all, who has the authority to draw the thin line between innocuous "diversity" and unacceptable "deviance"?
Sixteen years and two wars later, we still haven't answered these questions, and Riggs' landmark film remains a relevant as ever.
Riggs' essay for Current can be read in its entirety here. The dvd is available at Strand Releasing. It's also part of the P.O.V. 20th Anniversary Collection.
March is National Women's History Month, so why not curl up with some films from the P.O.V. archives that celebrate amazing, courageous women from around the country?
The women showcased in these three P.O.V. films — an African-American Congresswoman running for president; a Christian teenager from Lubbock, Texas; and an Asian-American architect — are very different from each other in age, race, background, and almost everything else. But what they have in common is the determination to stand up for their vision, and to share that vision with all those around them.
CHISHOLM '72 — Unbought & Unbossed
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she became the first black woman to run for president. She championed the causes of the poor, the young, minorities, gays, women, and other marginalized Americans. Despite strong, and sometimes bigoted opposition, Shirley Chisholm struck a populist progressive chord with many Americans, and carried over 151 delegates to the 1972 Democratic Convention, where she spoke from the main podium.
Chisholm '72
In 2008, when either Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton will make history as the first African American or first woman Democratic candidate for the President of the United States, let us remember Shirley Chisholm, who said, "I ran because somebody had to do it first. I ran because most people thought the country was not ready for a black candidate, not ready for a woman candidate. Someday — it was time in 1972 to make that someday come."
Read more after the jump...
Who says Valentine's Day has to be all about flowers and candy? We can all name feature films about romance and passion, but real life is so much more nuanced. There are so many nonfiction films that show "real" love stories about people from all walks of life in real relationships that it can be hard to keep track, so in keeping with the spirit of Valentine's Day, here's a roundup of some P.O.V. staffers' favorite documentaries about love:
Anne del Castillo, our director of development and special projects, loves Speedo: A Demolition Derby Love Story by Jesse Moss. "Speedo is just a regular guy who, like everyone else, has big dreams. We see him trying to balance family obligations with personal ambitions, and come to find that his efforts pay off, and sometimes there is a happily ever after."
Irene Villaseñor, Youth Views manager, admires Southern Comfort by Kate Davis and Elizabeth Adams. "It's a bittersweet love story between a transexual man and a transsexual women living in Georgia. Lola and Robert meet and fall deeply in love during the last year of Robert's life before he dies of ovarian cancer. The film also reveals how transphobia impacts their lives — Robert shares how dozens of doctors refused to treat him out of fear for how others would respond to a transgendered patient being in their care. What the film says about love is that no matter what the conditions are in your life, it is still possible to be in a close and loving relationship. From a universal love for humankind perspective, the film shows that it's not enough for transgendered people to have access to the medical technology that enables them to change genders, but access to quality care and treatment for medical issues that arise after their transition, as well."
Read more staff picks after the jump....
The Education of Shelby Knox premiered on P.O.V. in 2005
I ran into Shelby Knox, a passionate young activist, recently in Manhattan. We first got to know each other in 2005 when P.O.V. broadcasted The Education of Shelby Knox. Still one of our most requested films by communities across the country — the film follows Shelby, a Southern Baptist high school student from a politically conservative family in Texas, as she pledged abstinence until marriage and became the Lubbock Youth Council's most vocal proponent of comprehensive sex education.
Shelby and I spent a lot of time together that year. Along with filmmakers Marion Lipshutz and Rose Rosenblatt, she reviewed a discussion guide that helps educators and community organizers organize successful screenings of The Education of Shelby Knox. She also attended a number of events my department co-organized with high school teachers, school boards, youth groups and GLBT organizations to draw attention to and foster conversations about the debate concerning sex education in America's high schools.
One of the things that P.O.V. filmmakers do well is putting a human face on contemporary social issues. Through their storytelling, audiences don't just learn about the issues, they also deepen their understanding by seeing someone deal with the consequences of public policies. Shelby, Reverend Ed Ainsworth, and the pregnant students at her school were affected by the outcomes of the abstinence vs. comprehensive sex education debate as they played out in the Texas public school system.
If you're looking for a story of music, love, art and family this holiday season, look no further than Leah Mahan's Sweet Old Song.
Cuddle up with Sweet Old Song
The film tells the story of acclaimed musician Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong, who is renowned for a lifetime of jazz, blues, folk and country music. Armstrong's roots in America's musical past, his accomplished musicianship, and his sly and charming personality led the National Endowment for the Arts to honor him as a "national treasure." But when Armstrong met Barbara Ward, a sculptor 30 years his junior, a new chapter of his life and art unfolded. Sweet Old Song is the story of Armstrong and Ward's courtship and marriage — a unique partnership that has inspired an outpouring of art and music. This creative work draws on nearly a century of African American experience, beginning with Armstrong's vivid stories and paintings of his childhood in a segregated town in Tennessee.
Read the complete synopsis after the jump...
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
Every Mothers Son recalls accusations of police brutality during New York's Giuliani years
When Amadou Diallo died in a hail of police gunfire in his New York apartment building's vestibule while reaching for his wallet, there was widespread public outrage. Many New Yorkers believed Diallo's death was an egregious example of police negligence or criminal misconduct aimed at poor and minority communities. Others, including then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the police leadership, suggested the killing was a tragic yet unavoidable accident in the dangerous job of policing the city's mean streets. Despite differing accounts of police actions and motives, one thing was certain: the young Amadou, a West African studying in the U.S., was guilty of nothing more than coming home at the same moment a squad from the NYPD's Street Crimes Unit happened to be passing his building.
I thought of Every Mother's Son a few weeks ago while listening to NPR's excellent "On the Media" program. On their November 30 broadcast, a reporter from Arkansas talked about his frustration with the national media and their coverage of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Arkansas Times reporter Max Brantley complained that "Huckabee's ethical history isn't making the news as much as his folksy conservative bona-fides," saying that he and other local reporters "have some insights that the rest of the world maybe hasn't tuned into yet."
As we approach the primary phase of the 2008 presidential election starting later this week in Iowa, I want to recommend this film that aired on P.O.V. in 2004 that recalls the history of another presidential hopeful. Every Mother's Son takes a look at events that occurred during Rudolph Guiliani's term as mayor of New York City, before he became "America's mayor."
Read the complete synopsis after the jump...
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
Speedo: A Demolition Derby Love Story is a bang-up choice for your DVD player.
Looking for a quirky "demolition-derby love story" for your holiday movie rental list? Try Jesse Moss' Speedo!
This award-winning documentary looks at the promising racing career and troubled family life of Ed "Speedo" Jager, one of the nation's top demolition-derby drivers. Trapped in a failing marriage, Speedo channels life's frustrations onto the track, hoping to parlay his talents into a "real" racing career. The film captures Speedo's collisions and confrontations during one tumultuous year as he struggles to achieve his dreams on the track and succeed as a husband, a father and a man. When he falls for Liz, a racetrack official from New Jersey, his life takes a surprising turn.
Here's the complete synopsis:
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
The Sweetest Sound by Alan Berliner (P.O.V. 2001)
What's in a name? Alan Berliner — whose films, including Nobody's Business and Wide Awake, have always focused on his own family and identity — tackles the subject of his own name in The Sweetest Sound. Over the years, he'd seen a plethora of Alan, Alain and Allen Berliners. There's even another filmmaker — a Belgian who made Ma Vie en Rose — named Alain Berliner!
Our Alan, the "original" Alan, goes on a quest to discover the power and mystery of names in the film. Along the way, he takes a look at the historical origin of names, their social roles and the way names were changed for American immigrants. He also invites a dozen Alan Berliners to his home for a dinner party, in hopes of learning what they all share in common.
We all have a unique bond to our names, and to me, it's fascinating to watch someone else's relationship to his name in The Sweetest Sound. While Berliner found the world full of other Alan Berliners, I've never met anyone else with my name. Since the dawn of Google, I have — at times — wished that my name was "Jane Smith" or "Jennifer Lee." I like my rather unique name, but I have no name-dopplegangers to hide behind, and my name will never allow me to fade into electronic anonymity. Berliner's meditation on identity is smart and entertaining, and will have you and your family talking about your own names and heading to the computer to see who else shares them.
Incidentally, P.O.V.'s website for The Sweetest Sound spawned one of our most popular features ever: Find out how common your last name is in America in the Last Name Popularity Index. I was surprised to find out that my last name, Xu, a very common name in China, was ranked as high as 4,838 in America. Can you the guess what the top ten last names in America are?
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
Hot fun in the wintertime: Mel Stuart's Wattstax
If you're someplace cold this holiday, and are already looking forward to warmer weather, check out Mel Stuart's live concert film Wattstax (P.O.V. 2004), filmed in the summer of 1972 in L.A.'s open-air Memorial Coliseum. The benefit concert, staged by the legendary Stax recording label, on the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots, drew 90,000 people for an incredible musical lineup. As time went by, it became known as the Black Woodstock.
The P.O.V. Wattstax website includes a 1972 primer with a little context on the film for those too young to remember, a roundtable on the cultural and musical currents in the film, and soundtrack samples. Check it out!
Here's the full synopsis:
Freelance photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has won the 2007 UNICEF photo of the year award for her striking portrait of a 40-year-man and his 11-year-old bride in Afghanistan.
Portrait of soon to be wed Faiz Mohammed, 40, and Ghulam Haider, 11, at her home in a rural village of Damarda in Ghor province © Stephanie Sinclair
Sinclair was featured prominently in the 2004 P.O.V. documentary, War Feels Like War, which documented the lives of reporters and photographers who circumvented military media control to get access to the real Iraq War. We interviewed Sinclair on the P.O.V. website later that year to find out more about her work.
Freida Lee Mock's Academy Award® winning documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision premiered on P.O.V. in 1996. It was 25 years ago today that the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. On this anniversary date, we take a look back at the film, which follows a decade in the life of this visionary artist. Freida Lee Mock returns to P.O.V. on December 12th, 2007 with her new film about another extraordinary artist: Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
Visionary artist Maya Lin. By Adam Stoltman
On November 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. It was one of the most bitterly disputed public monuments in American history. Only 21 when her design for the Washington, D.C. Vietnam Veterans Memorial was chosen in 1981, Maya Lin has never shied away from controversy.
Her starkly simple slash of polished black granite inscribed with the 57,661 names of those who died in Vietnam was viciously attacked as "dishonorable," "a scar," and "a black hole," but Lin remained committed to her vision, and the Memorial, a moving tribute to sacrifice and quiet heroism, was built as planned. Since then, Lin has completed a succession of eloquent, startlingly original monuments and sculptures that confront vital American social issues.
Read more and watch an interview with filmmaker Freida Lee Mock after the jump...
