Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Inequalities / Class Relations / All Films

Dollars and Dreams

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Dollars and Dreams is a documentary film focused on the pursuits and challenges of numerous West African immigrants as they confront the idea of the American Dream and the reality of the New York experience. Including additional perspective from scholars, authors, and community leaders, the film creates a vibrant portrait of African achievement throughout the city, while exploring the complicated issues African immigrants face as they balance their deep connections to Africa and their enthusiastic commitments to America.

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Down the Project

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Down the Project
Buy Now: $320.00

Sixty years ago, the "projects" were considered to be the most desirable housing stock for low-to-low-middle-income Americans. Today, this same housing has become stigmatized, beset by financial and social problems, and may be phased out.

This film, made in the 1980s, remains the classic portrait of a government program besieged on all sides. In two 30-minute sections, the film presents a concise social history of a housing movement and its opponents, then examines the social dilemmas of the developments these forces produced. Spokespeople include residents, public housing advocates from the 1930s, developers, administrators and politicians.

Down The Project: The Crisis of Public Housing presents the story of two projects that housed working families, both white and black, in the 1940s. In later years, crippled by lower budgets and the needs of poorer populations, they came to be regarded as eyesores, as danger zones. How did these changes occur? How did public housing begin? Which forces lobbied for it and against it? How do the people living in this housing see it?

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A Month in the Life of Ephtim D.

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:50:00 GMT

A Month in the Life of Ephtim D.
Buy Now: $320.00

This documentary takes a rare and intimate look at the life of a 73-year-old pensioner currently living in Bulgaria following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. We follow Ephtim D. from the meager dinner table where he and his wife dine on some bread with a little margarine and garlic, to the park where he walks his dog and meets his friends.

Ephtim is a life-long Communist. He and his friends still attend Socialist party meetings in Sofia. It is difficult for a Westerner to understand why people in Eastern Europe would not embrace their freedom but still reminisce about the "good old days" under communism. When we see how difficult life is today for Ephtim and his wife, we believe their memories of a better situation in earlier years.

With painstaking precision, Ephtim and his wife must account for literally every penny in order to survive. We know exactly how they spend their $66 monthly government pension - which barely keeps them alive. Were it not for the fact that they own their tiny apartment, their circumstances would be dire.

The filmmaker, Asen Balikci, has been an innovator in the field of ethnographic film and film in education for many years. He was responsible for the production of the Netsilik Eskimo Film Series made to accompany the Man: A Course of Study curriculum in the 1960s. When he retired from his academic post at a Canadian university, he moved back to his home country of Bulgaria to apply his media skills to facilitate communication and education both inside and outside the country.

A Month in the Life of Ephtim D. is an excellent, realistic portrayal which provides a wealth of information for those studying Economics, the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, International Politics, Government, Aging and Ethnography.

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Miyah

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Miyah
Buy Now: $295.00

This is an intimate portrait of a Javanese woman who works as a servant and a cook for a prominent family in Jakarta, Indonesia. While there are many aspects of her life that are specific to circumstances pertinent to Indonesia, Miyah also presents us with a more universal picture.

Women all over the world will be able to identify with the strong single parent who is approaching middle age, who must struggle with the day to day problems of making a living to support not only her own children but also her aging parents. Miyah is one of millions of women who live their lives with a kind of quiet dignity that deserves our respect and admiration.

An informative program for use in women's studies, Asian studies, family and kinship, economics and development.

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The Newcomers

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

The Newcomers
Buy Now: $295.00

The Newcomers is a film about economically threatened Appalachian people in transition. Fresh as the day it was made in 1963, the issues of immigration and migration and learning how to live with people who are different from one's self are as challenging and critical as ever.

The filmmaker George Stoney writes, “The Newcomers was made for a church audience. I suspect that that church audience shared my middle-class attitude towards 'hillbillies.' It was a re-enacted documentary but the family represented had gone through the experience of being newcomers in a community... It involves Appalachians recalling their own experiences of relocation to urban cities to find work. Over the years I have heard from a number of people whose families were in the original cast, so they seem to feel a certain sense of pride in the documentation...

But, for me, being exposed to them I felt was exposing myself to people I had always held in contempt. Getting to know them changed my attitude and I hope it also did for the middle class audience we made the film for. I suspect those class attitudes exist today and I hope that this film can continue to help change those attitudes.”

The Newcomers is used courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church.

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Race or Reason

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Race or Reason
Buy Now: $320.00

“If you get involved in the community when growing up, and adults listen, you'll feel empowered and never forget it.” — Betty Puleston

In 1969-70, when race riots were sweeping across America in the wake of the civil rights movement, Bellport, a small town on Long Island, NY, was caught in the storm. The town was divided between its poor African-American and Puerto Rican population and affluent whites. The local high school became the scene of angry confrontations, resulting in its temporary closure and a police presence.

The house of community resident Betty Puleston was being used as a meeting place where black, white and Latino students could air their grievances. To help out, she gave the students two port-a-pac video cameras following a concept introduced by the National Film Board of Canada. The hope was that media could be used to facilitate dialog. That hope was realized, as the students recorded their concerns and felt empowered by being able to question adults in their community.

Thirty years later, these same students regroup to view the tapes. Despite the crude production values of these early black and white tapes, the images clearly reveal the passion of the young activists who felt that minority rights could no longer be ignored. We learn that the students have gone on to lead productive lives -- a social worker, lawyer, community organizer and a policeman are among them.

This film will introduce today's youth to the civil rights problems of the 70's, where suburban schools, even in the North, did not employ African-American teachers nor teach black history. It will inspire students, learning that they can make a difference as their predecessors did, and it will show how effective media can be to facilitate conflict resolution.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Margaret Mead Film Festival, 2002

Museum of Modern Art, George Stoney Retrospective screening, 2009

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Roma Stories

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Roma Stories
Buy Now: $320.00

In Japigia, a neighborhood in the periphery of Bari, Italy, a small community of Roma (Gypsies) carve out an existence in an illegal, ramshackle encampment. The local church has offered them a piece of land with prefabricated houses, but the town hall is preventing this offer due to their own plans for a future a railway station. Continually in danger of evacuation and making a living primarily by begging for money, the Roma still manage to foster a strong community and lively social atmosphere.

Living for a one year within the community, the filmmakers extract both the emotional and anthropological details from this vibrant microcosm which remains largely hidden and ignored by its own city. Seventeen-year-old Dorina is released from an institute for minors and soon married amid much negotiating and festivities. Dainef waits for the arrival of his daughter from Romania. Young Aida dreams of becoming a model, and eleven-year-old Laura would rather go beg with her mother than go to school. Aida is taken away by Serbian Roma, and her father must decide how to take action. And throughout are the songs which were written over the course of the filming - poetic illustrations of their lives and problems on a contentious and desolate land, but a still a land where one is born, grows up, and dreams.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival, Taiwan, 2013

Second Prize, International Art Gispy Competition of Lanciano, 2003

Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, Canton, China, 2003

Documentary & Ethnographic Film Festival of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2003

First Documentary Film Festival of Le Mans, France, 2003

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Seed and Earth

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Seed and Earth
Buy Now: $295.00

Made by a team of distinguished filmmakers/anthropologists, Seed and Earth is a film about everyday life in rural West Bengal, India. It follows the daily schedule of the families of two brothers who live side by side and cooperate in many daily activities. We see how gender and age determine work, ritual and leisure activities.

Janta is a prosperous, multicaste village that derives its livelihood from agriculture. Rice, the main crop, is cultivated in small plots. The working day starts early with men ploughing and women beginning preparations for cooking. The ritual cycle of the village moves from brief daily prayers to big village-wide celebrations lasting several days. Seasonal worship of the gods and numerous life cycle rituals complete the sacred year. Eating, washing, gossiping, visiting — the fabric of daily life is captured eloquently on film with no intrusive narration.

This DVD features a secondary audio track containing ethnographic notes written & spoken by Lina & Ákos over relevant sequences.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Honorable Mention, Society of Visual Anthropology Film and Video Festival, Washington, 1995

award of merit, Sinking Creek Film and Video Festival, 1996

Director's Choice, Black Maria Film Festival, 1996

Prix Planet Cable, Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 1996

Best of Festival, Windy City International Documentary film Festival, Chicago, 1996

Director's Choice Award, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1996

Finalist, National Short Film and Video Competition, USA Film Festival, Dallas, 1996

Bronze Apple Award, National Educational Media Network Competition, 1996

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Brownsville Black and White

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Brownsville Black and White
Buy Now: $320.00

This poignant and powerful documentary explores the complex history of interracial cooperation, urban change, and social conflict in Brownsville, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, from the 1930s to the 2000s. A case study of the tragedy of urban American race relations, the film recounts the transformation of Brownsville from a poor but racially harmonious area made up largely of Jews and blacks to a community made up almost entirely of people of color.

In the 1940s Brownsville was famous for its grass-roots integration. But it later achieved notoriety for one of the most divisive and bitter black-white confrontations in American history, the 1968 Ocean Hill Brownsville School War, in which the African-American (and Hispanic) community battled the predominantly white and Jewish Teachers Union.

Brownsville Black and White examines some of the most troubling and perplexing issues facing America and its cities and raises a multitude of discussable questions. The film will provoke reflection, analysis, and debate in a variety of courses in sociology and social issues, American history and American studies, African American studies, urban studies, race relations, cultural anthropology, Jewish Studies, and education.

"BROWNSVILLE, the last work of renowned populist filmmaker, Richard Broadman (1947-2000), features poignant personal testimony, painstakingly researched archival images and striking contemporary footage. The humane guiding spirit of its director makes it a rare treat." – Jewish Film Institute

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