Related Films
The daughter of two Mexican immigrants reveals how much she saw of her parents' lives as a child — and the inspiration she drew from their struggles.
Avery is one of three children adopted by a Jewish lesbian couple in Brooklyn. Though it may not look typical, Avery’s is like most families—until she writes to her birth mother.
What is it like to be torn from your Chinese foster family, put on a plane with strangers and wake up in a new country, family and culture?
Though apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994, economic injustices between blacks and whites remain unresolved — and the most potentially explosive issue is land.
The Academy Award-nominated Hardwood is a deeply personal filmic journey by director Hubert Davis, the son of former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis. Mel, now a coach for young basketball players in Vancouver, fell in love at first sight with Hubert's mother, a white woman, at a time when racism seemed to make their union impossible.
A young Korean girl grows up with an American family: but years later, Deann Borshay Liem discovers that her Korean mother is still very much alive.
All Films in This Topic
A one-hour collection of documentary shorts by established and emerging filmmakers, including: Big Birding Day, Flawed, Miss Devine, No More Questions, Six Weeks and Tiffany.
In Finland, the sauna is a national obsession - a place to come together and sweat out not only the grime of contemporary life, but also grief, hopes, joys and memories.
In Zimbabwe, de facto dictator Robert Mugabe has unleashed a "land reform" program aimed at driving whites from the country through violence and intimidation.
The story of a long-distance relationship with a man whose profession - plastic surgery - gives the woman plenty of fodder.
Her passport said she was Cha Jung Hee. She knew she was not. So began a 40-year deception for a Korean adoptee who came to the United States in 1966.
What is it like to be torn from your Chinese foster family, put on a plane with strangers and wake up in a new country, family and culture?
Though apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994, economic injustices between blacks and whites remain unresolved — and the most potentially explosive issue is land.
Scaredycat takes as a point of departure the beating of the filmmaker at the hands of a gang of young men who called themselves "The Portland Riders."
Rocky Otoo is the sassy teenage daughter of Ghanaian parents. After she rebels against her mother's rule in the Bronx, she flees to her father, a chief in Ghana.
Ella Es el Matador (She Is the Matador)
Two women matadors in Spain have a passion for bullfighting and are determined to pursue their dreams. What is it like for women to enter into this male-dominated arena?
Go behind the scenes at the Patina V Mannequin Factory in City of Industry, Calif., where the artistry, craft and marketing that go into creating “the ideal woman of the moment” — in plastic. (7 minutes)
Watch the film online »
This Academy Award-nominated film chronicles Thavisouk Phrasavath and his family’s escape from Laos after the Vietnam War. In America, they find a different kind of war.
Renowned sculptor John Houser has a dream: to build the world's tallest bronze equestrian statue for the city of El Paso, Texas.
First-time filmmaker Katrina Browne makes a troubling discovery — her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history.
Revolution '67 is an illuminating account of events too often relegated to footnotes in U.S. history — the black urban rebellions of the 1960s.
In April 2000, Alex White Plume and his Lakota family planted industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota after other crops had failed. But when federal agents raided the White Plumes' fields, the Lakota Nation was swept into a Byzantine struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights and common sense.
Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
Traumatized by physical injuries and brutal losses in Sierra Leone's civil war, a group of refugees fight back with the only means they have — music.
Set during the violent ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, No More Tears Sister explores the price of truth in times of war. The film recreates the courageous and vibrant life of renowned human rights activist Dr. Rajani Thiranagama.
The Academy Award-nominated Hardwood is a deeply personal filmic journey by director Hubert Davis, the son of former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis. Mel, now a coach for young basketball players in Vancouver, fell in love at first sight with Hubert's mother, a white woman, at a time when racism seemed to make their union impossible.
In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman to run for president. Her wit, spirit and charisma reminds all Americans of their power as citizens.
Few American icons are as well known for their popular kitsch as the hula dance. From old Hollywood movies to entertainment for tourists, the hip-swaying girls in grass skirts and colorful lei have long masked an ancient cultural tradition.
In 1998 James Byrd, Jr., a black man, was chained to a truck and dragged to death by three white men. Two film crews, one black and one white, document the aftermath of the murder.
During his 60-year career as an activist, Rustin formulated many of the strategies that propelled the movement. But his open sexuality forced him to remain in the background.
There are over one million Gypsies living in America today, and most people don’t know anything about them. It is one man’s obsessive pursuit of justice and dignity that led filmmaker Jasmine Dellal into their hidden thousand-year-old culture.
Witness the testimony of Greg Withrow, once a fanatical rising star in the white supremacist movement, as he struggles with the legacy of hatred handed down across generations.
A selection of hypnotically engaging short films by and about women offers vivid and lyrical pictures of joy, endurance and inspiration.
She Shorts: Two or Three Things But Nothing For Sure
One of a selection of hypnotically engaging short films by and about women offers vivid and lyrical pictures of joy, endurance and inspiration.
She Shorts: Repetition Compulsion
One of a selection of hypnotically engaging short films by and about women offers vivid and lyrical pictures of joy, endurance and inspiration.
One of a selection of hypnotically engaging short films by and about women offers vivid and lyrical pictures of joy, endurance and inspiration.
"Everybody has a Barbie story...but the stories are really about us," says reporter turned filmmaker Susan Stern as she rips the roof off Barbie's "Dreamhouse" and explores the history and fantasy behind this unlikely cultural icon.
Charlene Teters, a Spokane Indian, evolves from mother and student into a leading voice against the merchandising of Native American sacred symbols as sports mascots.
While chronicling his mother's recent struggle to become a Southern Baptist pastor, filmmaker Steven Lipscomb uncovered a whirlwind of change and a rising tide of opposition to women as senior church leaders.
Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself
Yvonne Welbon presents a witty and original coming-to-terms with race, culture and self. A six year stay in Taiwan transforms her understanding of what it means to be an African American and illuminates her connection to her Honduran-born grandmother.
A raw and revealing video diary by a Cambodian-born teenager who now lives in San Francisco's inner city.
They were leaders of the Young Lords Party, the militant Puerto Rican civil rights organization based in New York. Today, many are notable mainstream journalists, including Juan Gonzalez, Felipe Luciano and Pablo Guzman. Iris Morales makes history come alive as veterans of the movement recall their fight for equality, jobs, health care, and education.
The story of how the Chippewa Indians of Northern Wisconsin have struggled to restore the centuries- old tradition of spearfishing, and the heated opposition they have encountered.
The unpredictable trials of blind horse-woman Diane Starin who wonders "if America is ready for a blind girl who isn't a goody two-shoes."
"Sa-I-Gu", Korean for April 29, opens a window on Korean American women in Los Angeles whose stores — and lives — were devastated in the aftermath of the Rodney King Trial.
Personal perspectives on both sides of the camera are revealed when Michal Avaid, directing a three-woman Israeli/Palestinian film crew, travels throughout the West Bank to collect women's stories.
Who's Going To Pay For These Donuts, Anyway?
When Japanese-American filmmaker Janice Tanaka reaches out to find her father — interned during WWII and separated form his family for decades — her discoveries both haunt and redefine her life.
From Amos 'n' Andy to Nat King Cole, from Roots to The Cosby Show, blacks have played many roles on primetime television. Brilliantly weaving clips from classic TV shows with commentary from TV producers, black actors and scholars, Marlon Riggs blends humor, insight, and thoughtful analysis to explore the evolution of black/white relations as reflected by America's favorite addiction.
Abortion has been at the center of one of the most dramatic and wrenching debates of our times. But the social forces and the changing lives behind the rhetoric are rarely explored. Julie Gustafson's groundbreaking film draws complex portraits of individuals on both sides of the controversy in a small town in Pennsylvania, where very different life experiences have shaped conflicting values and beliefs.
Filmmakers Pamela Cohen, Catherine Ryan and Monona Wali profile a female guerrilla leader in El Salvador's rebel army.
"Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied rises above the 'deeply personal' — far above it — in exploring what it means to be black and gay."
For 99 years, the residents of Salamanca, N.Y. have rented the land under their homes for an average of $1/year form the Seneca Indians, under the terms of a lease imposed by Congress. Now, as the lease is about to expire, a century of bad business must be renegotiated. Chana Gazit and David Steward's film captures the unfolding drama as the survival of an American town and justice for the Senecas appear to be in conflict.
Artist Estell Peck Ishigo went with her Japanese American husband into an internment camp during World War II, one of the few Caucasians to do so. Vividly recreated from Ishigo's own memoirs, photos and paintings, Days Of Waiting reveals the shattering relocation experience from an "outsider's" perspective.
Gary, a 39 year-old successful animation artist and devout Christian, is pursuing a lifelong dream — to become a woman. Metamorphosis is a candid, non-sensational and sometimes humorous journey of nearly three years as Gary prepares physically and emotionally for sex reassignment surgery. Along the way, the film raises provocative questions about what really makes us men and women.
On a hot summer night in Detroit, Ronald Ebens, an autoworker, killed a young Chinese-American engineer with a baseball bat. Although he confessed, he never spent a day in jail. This gripping Academy Award-nominated film relentlessly probes the implications of the murder in the streets of Detroit, for the families of those involved, and for the American justice system.
Two filmmakers interview men in a witty montage of free-wheeling encounters. Pornographers, corporate executives, a funeral parlor director and Santa Claus are among those who reveal more than they intended. A surprisingly candid view of men's feelings towards women 15 years after the birth of the women's movement.
Explore
A Conversation with Eve Ensler: Femicide in the Congo
Playwright and activist Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and founder of V-Day, and activist Christine Schuler Deschryver talk about the horrors of sexual violence and its aftermath in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Related Film: Lumo
Doc Soup: Announcing the #tweetmydoc Pitch Winner: 'Your Name Is My Name'!
Tom Roston profiles 'Your Name Is My Name's Osata Dixon (@YourName_MyName), who distilled a documentary pitch into 104 compelling characters. Join a #tweetmydoc Twitter chat with Dixon Thursday at 12 PM Eastern.
Documentaries Raise Awareness about Domestic and Gendered Violence
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Guest blogger Heather McIntosh of Documentary Site rounds up a list of related documentary viewing.
Project VoiceScape: Meet Filmmaker Julia Levy
Teen filmmaker Julia Levy, of Seattle, Wash., was awarded a Project VoiceScape grant this year. Her documentary The Fifth Star, about women's suffrage in Washington, is being completed under the mentorship of Rose Rosenblatt and Marion Lipschutz (Live Free or Die, The Education of Shelby Knox).
POV's 24th season on PBS continues with POV Short Cuts, a one-hour collection of documentary shorts by established and emerging filmmakers. Watch it on the PBS mobile app now, or on TV this Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 10 PM.
Flawed Short Films
A woman begins a long-distance relationship with a man whose profession — plastic surgery — gives her plenty of fodder. Available through Aug. 23, 2015.