Independent Television Service
Description
Film examining how efforts to profit from Hispanic American culture have contributed to the shaping of its contemporary identity. The documentary's focal point is comedian George Lopez, an icon and advocate for Hispanic Americans' move into the mainstream. Features conversations with members of the Hispanic American youth market. Also includes interviews with Lopez and other Hispanic Americans.
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.
Description
"A complex portrait of a city and its inhabitants, The Hottest August gives us a window into the collective consciousness of the present. The film's point of departure is one city over one month: 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...
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's struggles with race, religion, and war in the twentieth century. "When Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad...
Description
"Explore the life, career, art and legacy of the African American contralto and civil rights pioneer Marian Anderson. Best known for her concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial iin 1939, Anderson christened the Washington, D.C. landmark as a place of protest after she was discriminated against on the basis of a 'whites only' concert policy at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall. The concert became an inspiration to the...
Description
In 1861, at the outbreak of the American Civil War, a teenager from New Orleans headed to the front lines. Under the alias Harry T. Buford, he fought at First Bull Run, was wounded at Shiloh, and served as a Confederate spy. By 1863, Buford was working for the Union. But Buford harbored a secret he was really Loreta Velazquez, a Cuban immigrant from New Orleans.
Formats
Description
In the turbulent 1960s, change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored -- cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging and it sought to drastically transform the system. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is the...
10) Tower
Formats
Description
August 1st 1966 was the day our innocence was shattered. A sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the iconic University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes in what was a previously unimaginable event. TOWER combines archival footage with rotoscopic animation of the dramatic day, based entirely on first person testimonies from witnesses, heroes and survivors, in a seamless and suspenseful retelling of the...
11) My perestroika
Description
Follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times, from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.
Description
A riveting examination of masculinity, sexism, and homophobia in hop-hop culture. Delivering a self-described "loving critique" of rap music, director Byron Hurt - a former star college quarterback, longtime hip-hop fan, and now gender violence prevention educator - pays tribute to the power and creativity of hip-hop while challenging the rap industry to take responsibility for glamorizing destructive, deeply conservative sterotypes of manhood. ...
Formats
Description
When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal sterilizations in California's women's prisons, they wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes -- from inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations -- primarily targeting women of color....
Description
Award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt offers a fascinating exploration of the soul food tradition, its relevance to black cultural identity, and its continuing popularity despite the known dangers of high-fat, high-calorie diets. Inspired by his father's lifelong love affair with soul food even in the face of a life-threatening health crisis, Hurt discovers that the relationship between African-Americans and dishes like ribs, grits, and fried chicken...
Series
Formats
Description
Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind since early childhood, was a passionate advocate for change, using her celebrity and wit to champion rights for women, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty. Becoming Helen Keller examines the complex legacy of this author, advocate, lecturer, and human rights pioneer.
16) Hazing
Description
"Hazing, from award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt, offers a powerful, deeply personal look inside the culture of hazing in fraternities and sororities, sports teams, marching bands, the military, and beyond. Hurt, who belongs to a fraternity himself, talks to members of Black and historically white Greek-letter organizations and other groups that practice hazing, and gives voice to survivors of severe initiation rituals and the families of young people...
Description
"This unprecedented fim celebrates Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos, which paint hidden moments of her exuberant life during some of America's most defining moments. From her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her work with Malcolm X in Ghana to her inaugural speech for President Bill Clinton, the film takes us on an incredible journey through the life of a true American icon." --container...
18) Minding the gap
Series
Criterion collection volume 1061
Description
"The extraordinary debut from documentarian Bing Liu weaves a story of skateboarding, friendship, and fathers and sons into a coming-of-age journey of courageous vulnerability. Over the course of several years and with his camera always at the ready, Liu records the rocky paths into adulthood at the ready, Liu records the rocky paths into adulthood of Keire and Zack, two friends from his own skateboarding community in Rockford, Illinois. As he does...