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Content

Social Justice


Social Justice



CAPTURING THE FLAG

Directed by Anne de Mare

Four friends travel to Cumberland County, NC--posterchild for voter suppression in 2016--intent on proving that the big idea of American democracy can be defended by small acts of individual citizens.

In 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court invalidates the part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring certain states to submit changes in voting laws to the Justice Department for approval. Almost immediately, certain states take voter suppression measures such as enacting voter ID laws, redrawing district boundaries, and repealing same-day registration.

Three months before the 2016 election, a group of volunteers across the country mobilizes to work on voter protection - to observe elections and to assure that all those who wish to vote are legally allowed to do so. Laverne Berry, Steven Miller, and Claire Wright head to North Carolina. What they find at the polls serves as both a warning and a call to action for anyone interested in protecting the "One Man, One Vote" fundamental of our democracy.

Dealing with themes that are constantly sensationalized and manipulated by the media - Left vs. Right, North vs. South, Black vs. White - CAPTURING THE FLAG offers instead deeply personal, often surprising perspectives on the 2016 Presidential Election and its aftermath.


DVD / 2018 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 76 minutes

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POWER TO HEAL: MEDICARE AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION

Directed by Charles Burnett & Daniel Loewenthal

The untold story of how the twin struggles for racial justice and healthcare intersected: creating Medicare and desegregating thousands of hospitals at the same time.

POWER TO HEAL tells a poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. Central to the story is the tale of how a new national program, Medicare, was used to mount a dramatic, coordinated effort that desegregated thousands of hospitals across the country in a matter of months.

Before Medicare, disparities in access to hospital care were dramatic. Less than half the nation's hospitals served black and white patients equally, and in the South, 1/3 of hospitals would not admit African-Americans even for emergencies.

Using the carrot of Medicare dollars, the federal government virtually ended the practice of racially segregating patients, doctors, medical staffs, blood supplies and linens. POWER TO HEAL illustrates how Movement leaders and grass-roots volunteers pressed and worked with the federal government to achieve justice and fairness for African-Americans.


DVD / 2018 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 56 minutes

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TRIBAL JUSTICE

Directed by Anne Makepeace

Documents an effective criminal justice reform movement in America: the efforts of tribal courts to return to traditional, community-healing concepts of justice.

TRIBAL JUSTICE is a feature documentary about a little known, underreported but effective criminal justice reform movement in America today: the efforts of tribal courts to create alternative justice systems based on their traditions. In California, the state with the largest number of Indian people and tribes, two formidable Native American women are among those leading the way. Abby Abinanti, Chief Judge of the Yurok Tribe on the northwest coast, and Claudette White, Chief Judge of the Quechan Tribe in the southeastern desert, are creating innovative systems that focus on restoring rather than punishing offenders in order to keep tribal members out of prison, prevent children from being taken from their communities, and stop the school-to-prison pipeline that plagues their young people.

Abby Abinanti is a fierce, lean, elder. Claudette White is younger, and her courtroom style is more conventional in form; but like Abby, her goal is to provide culturally relevant justice to the people who come before her. Observational footage of these judges' lives and work provides the backbone of the documentary, while the heart of the film follows offenders as their stories unfold over time, in and out of court. These other stories unfold over time, engaging viewers with the dedication of the judges, the humanity of the people who come before them, and a vision of justice that can actually work.

Through the film, audiences will gain a new understanding of tribal courts and their role in the survival of Indian people. The film will also inspire those working in the mainstream legal field to consider new ways of implementing problem-solving and restorative justice, lowering our staggering incarceration rates and enabling offenders to make reparations and rebuild their lives.


DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 87 minutes

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INCARCERATING US

Directed by Regan Hines

Exposes America's prison problem and explores various criminal justice reforms.

Incarcerating US exposes America's prison problem and explores ways to unshackle the "land of the free" through vital criminal justice reforms. With 2.3 million people behind bars, the U.S. has the largest prison population in the history of the world.

Through dramatic first-hand accounts, expert testimony, and shocking statistics, Incarcerating US asks fundamental questions about the prison system in America: What is the purpose of prison? Why did our prison population explode in the 1970s? What can make our justice system more just?

The film begins with a brief overview of U.S. prisons and the flawed policies that fueled unprecedented overincarceration. In many cases, these laws exacerbate problems they were designed to solve. Through both empirical evidence and the eyes of those tragically affected by the system for committing minor crimes, we see the failures of two major initiatives: the War on Drugs and mandatory minimum sentences.

Incarcerating US tells the story of America's broken criminal justice system through the eyes of those who created it, those who have suffered through it, and those who are fighting to change it. After decades of failures, now is the time to unshackle the land of the free.


DVD / 2016 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 84 minutes

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HAND THAT FEEDS, THE

Directed by Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

Shy sandwich-maker Mahoma Lopez unites his undocumented immigrant coworkers to fight abusive conditions at a popular New York restaurant chain.

At a popular bakery cafe, residents of New York's Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma Lopez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.

Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one roller-coaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in back rooms, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his coworkers will never be exploited again.


DVD / 2014 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 84 minutes

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DETROPIA

Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

A vivid portrait of Detroit, America's first major post-industrial city, as it struggles to deal with the consequences of a broken economic system.

Detroit's story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century...the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future.


DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 86 minutes

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YOU'VE BEEN TRUMPED

Directed by Anthony Baxter

In this David and Goliath story for the 21st century, a group of proud Scottish homeowners take on a celebrity tycoon. At stake is one of Britain's very last stretches of wilderness.

American billionaire Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland, best known to movie-lovers as the setting for the 1983 classic film LOCAL HERO. And like the American oil tycoon played by Burt Lancaster, he needs to buy out a few more locals to make the deal come true. In a land swimming with golf courses, Trump is going to build two more - alongside a 450-room hotel and 1,500 luxury homes. The trouble is, the land he has purchased occupies one of Europe's most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, described by one leading scientist as Scotland's Amazon rain forest. And the handful of local residents don't want it destroyed.

After the Scottish Government overturns its own environmental laws to give Trump the green light, the stage is set for an extraordinary summer of discontent, as the bulldozers spring into action. Water and power is cut off, land disputes erupt, and some residents have thousands of tonnes of earth piled up next to their homes. Complaints go ignored by the police, who instead arrest the film's director, Anthony Baxter. Local exasperation comes to a surreal head as the now "Dr." Trump scoops up an honorary doctorate from a local university, even as his tractors turn wild, untouched dunes into fairways.

Told entirely without narration, YOU'VE BEEN TRUMPED captures the cultural chasm between the glamorous, jet-setting and media savvy Donald Trump and a deeply rooted Scottish community. What begins as an often amusing clash of world views grows increasingly bitter and disturbing. For the tycoon, the golf course is just another deal, with a possible billion dollar payoff. For the residents, it represents the destruction of a globally unique landscape that has been the backdrop for their lives.

Funny, inspiring and heartbreaking in turns, YOU'VE BEEN TRUMPED is both an entertaining, can't-believe-it's-true tale and an environmental parable for our celebrity driven times. A moving score features music from jonsi, the internationally acclaimed musician and frontman of Sigur Ros. The film also offers a rare and revealing glimpse of the unfiltered Donald Trump, as he considers standing as a candidate for President of the United States.


DVD / 2012 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 95 minutes

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BETTER THIS WORLD

Directed by Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega

The story of two young Texans accused of intending to firebomb the 2008 Republican National Convention reveals the workings of the post 9/11 security state.

How did two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas wind up arrested on terrorism charges at the 2008 Republican National Convention? BETTER THIS WORLD follows the journey of David McKay (22) and Bradley Crowder (23) from political neophytes to accused domestic terrorists with a particular focus on the relationship they develop with a radical activist mentor in the six months leading up to their arrests. A dramatic story of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal, BETTER THIS WORLD goes to the heart of the War on Terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America.


DVD / 2011 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 89 minutes

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HOT COFFEE: IS JUSTICE BEING SERVED?

Directed by Susan Saladoff

Tells the truth about the McDonald's hot coffee case and exposes the influence of corporate America on our civil justice system.

Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman put it on one of his Top Ten lists. More than 15 years later, the McDonald's coffee case continues to be cited as a prime example of how citizens use "frivolous" lawsuits to take unfair advantage of America's legal system.

But is that an accurate portrayal of the facts? First-time filmmaker and former public interest lawyer Susan Saladoff uses the infamous legal battle that began with a spilled cup of coffee to investigate what's behind America's zeal for tort reform. By following four people whose lives were devastated by the attacks on our courts, this thought-provoking documentary challenges the assumptions Americans hold about "jackpot justice."


DVD / 2011 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 86 minutes

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IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT

Directed by Marshall Curry

The Academy Award-nominated story of the radicalization of an environmental activist, from his involvement in and later disillusionment with Earth Liberation Front sabotage, to his eventual arrest by the FBI and incarceration as a domestic terrorist.

In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front-- a group the FBI has called America's "number one domestic terrorism threat."

For years, the ELF--operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership--had launched spectacular arsons against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment: timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses, and a $12 million ski lodge at Vail, Colorado.

With the arrest of Daniel and thirteen others, the government had cracked what was probably the largest ELF cell in America and brought down the group responsible for the very first ELF arsons in this country.

IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, directed by Marshall Curry (Street Fight), tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of this ELF cell, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its members.

Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thriller, the film interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism.

Drawing from striking archival footage -- much of it never before seen -- and intimate interviews with ELF members, and with the prosecutor and detective who were chasing them, IF A TREE FALLS explores the tumultuous period from 1995 until early 2001 when environmentalists were clashing with timber companies and law enforcement, and the word "terrorism" had not yet been altered by 9/11.


DVD / 2011 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 85 minutes

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SPLIT ESTATE

Documents the devastating effect that oil and gas drilling is having on the health of families and the environment in the Rocky Mountain West.

Imagine discovering that you don't own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine another shocking truth: you have little or no recourse to protect your home or land from such development. SPLIT ESTATE maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health.

Exempt from federal protections like the Clean Water Act, the oil and gas industry has left this idyllic landscape and its rural communities pockmarked with abandoned homes and polluted waters. One resident demonstrates the degree of benzene contamination in a mountain stream by setting it alight with a match. Many others, gravely ill, fight for their health and for the health of their children.

SPLIT ESTATE zeroes in on Garfield County, Colorado, and the San Juan Basin, but the industry is aggressively seeking new leases in as many as 32 states. They are even making a bid to drill in the New York City watershed, which provides drinking water to millions.

As our appetite for fossil fuels increases despite mounting public health concerns, SPLIT ESTATE cracks the sugarcoating on an industry that assures us it is a good neighbor, and drives home the need for alternatives -- both here and abroad.


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2009 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 76 minutes

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AMERICAN OUTRAGE

Directed by George Gage and Beth Gage

Two elderly Western Shoshone sisters, the Danns, put up a heroic fight for their land rights and human rights.

Carrie and Mary Dann are feisty Western Shoshone sisters who have endured five terrifying livestock roundups by armed federal marshals in which more than a thousand of their horses and cattle were confiscated -- for grazing their livestock on the open range outside their private ranch.

That range is part of 60 million acres recognized as Western Shoshone land by the United States in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, but in 1974 the U.S. sued the Dann sisters for trespassing on that land, without a permit. That set off a dispute between the Dann sisters and the U. S. government that swept to the United States Supreme Court and eventually to the Organization of American States and the United Nations.

AMERICAN OUTRAGE asks why the United States government has spent millions persecuting and prosecuting two elderly women grazing a few hundred horses and cows in a desolate desert? The United States Bureau of Land Management insists the sisters are degrading the land. The Dann sisters say the real reason is the resources hidden below this seemingly barren land, their Mother Earth. Western Shoshone land is the second largest gold producing area in the world.


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 56 minutes

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LET'S MAKE MONEY

Directed by Erwin Wagenhofer

Erwin Wagenhofer's incredible odyssey tracking our money through the worldwide finance system.

LET'S MAKE MONEY follows the trail of our money through the worldwide finance system.

What does our retirement savings have to do with the property blow-up in Spain? We don't have to buy a home there in order to be involved. As soon as we open an account, we're part of the worldwide finance market--whether we want to be or not. We customers have no idea where our debtors live and what they do to pay our interest fees. Most of us aren't even interested, because we like to follow the call of the banks to "Let your money work.'' But money can't work. Only people, animals or machines can work.

The film starts at the Ahafo mine in Ghana, West Africa, where vast areas are being blasted open. Gold is extracted from the rock in a tedious process, then smelted and flown directly to Switzerland. The spoils are divided up proportionally: 3% for Africa, 97% for the West. The mine was opened with the assistance of the World Bank.

"I don't think the investor should be responsible for the ethics, the pollution or anything the company in which he has invested produces. That's not his job. His job is to invest and earn money for his clients." - Mark Mobius, president of Templeton Emerging Markets

"In the end it's always the so-called man or woman on the street who's left paying the bills." - Hermann Scheer, winner of the alternative Nobel Prize and a member of German Parliament


DVD / 2008 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 107 minutes

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DIAMOND ROAD

Directed by Nisha Pahuja

Examines every facet of the diamond trade from the prospectors to the miners, cutters, jewelers, smugglers and dealers, and advocates for fair trade.

Every year 24 tons of diamonds are teased from the heart of the earth. Once mined they begin their year-long journey through the "pipeline," a vast network encompassing five continents and a diverse cast of characters. By the end of their journey these tiny bits of carbon will have made multi-millionaires of some and virtual slaves of others.

Boring deep into the diamond world, Diamond Road seeks to understand the multiple meanings this object has for a few of the fascinating people who are part of the diamond pipeline - international prospector, impoverished miner, child cutter, celebrity jeweller, smuggler, high-end dealer. Interwoven with their stories is the determined pursuit of one industry leader to bring fairness and transparency to this secretive world. What results is a multi-layered portrait of a stone which is steeped in a history of intrigue, conflict, love and hope.


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2007 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 3 hours

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WATER FRONT, THE

Directed by Liz Miller

The story of Highland Park, Michigan, and the larger issues of water privatization and human rights.

What if you lived by the largest body of fresh water in the world but could no longer afford to use it?

With a shrinking population, the post-industrial city of Highland Park, Michigan is on the verge of financial collapse. The state of Michigan has appointed an Emergency Financial Manager who sees the water plant as key to economic recovery. She has raised water rates and has implemented severe measures to collect on bills. As a result, Highland Park residents have received water bills as high as $10,000, they have had their water turned off, their homes foreclosed, and are struggling to keep water, a basic human right, from becoming privatized.

The Water Front is the story of an American city in crisis but it is not just about water. The story touches on the very essence of our democratic system and is an unnerving indication of what is in store for residents around the world facing their own water struggles. The film raises questions such as: Who determines the future of shared public resources? What are alternatives to water privatization? How will we maintain our public water systems and who can we hold accountable?


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2007 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 53 minutes

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BLACK DIAMONDS: MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL & THE FIGHT FOR COALFIELD JUSTICE

Directed by Catherine Pancake

Examines the escalating drama in Appalachia over mountaintop removal mining.

BLACK DIAMONDS charts the escalating drama in Appalachia over the alarming increase in large mountaintop coal mines. These mammoth operations have covered 1200 miles of headwater streams with mining waste; demolished thousands of acres of hardwood forest; and flattened hundreds of Appalachian mountain peaks.

Citizen testimony and visual documentation interwoven with the perspectives of government officials, activists, and scientists create a riveting portrait of an American region fighting for its life -- caught between the grinding wheels of the national appetite for cheap energy and an enduring sense of Appalachian culture, pride, and natural beauty.

The film includes testimony from Julia Bonds, WV citizen-turned-activist, who received the 2003 Goldman Award (the nation's largest environmental activist award); Ken Hechler, former WV Secretary of State; William Maxey, former Director of WV Division of Forestry; and the many citizens of West Virginia.


DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 72 minutes

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HOMELAND: FOUR PORTRAITS OF NATIVE ACTION

Tells the inspiring story of four battles in which Native American activists are fighting to preserve their land, sovereignty, and culture.

Having brutally occupied the homeland of Native Americans, the invading Europeans forced the indigenous population onto reservations-land that was specifically selected because of its apparent worthlessness.

To add salt to wounds that are still open, multinational energy companies and others are coming back to extract the hidden mineral wealth of the reservations, and are leaving a trail of toxins that, if unchecked, will make the land unlivable for centuries to come.

But Native American activists are fighting back, and their inspirational stories are chronicled in "HOMELAND: Four Portraits of Native Action" against the backdrop of some of the country's most spectacular landscapes.

~ Gail Small, an attorney from the Northern Cheyenne nation in Montana, is leading the fight to protect the Cheyenne homeland from 75,000 proposed methane gas wells that pollute the water and threaten to make much of the reservation unsuitable for farming or ranching.

~ Evon Peter is the former chief of an isolated Alaska community of Gwich'in people, who are working against current efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

~ Mitchell and Rita Capitan founded an organization of Eastern Navajo people in New Mexico whose only source of drinking water is threatened by proposed uranium mining.

~ And Barry Dana, the former chief of the Penobscot Nation in Maine, is battling state government and the paper companies that have left his people unable to fish or swim in or harvest medicinal plants from the river on which they've depended for 10,000 years.

With the support of their communities, these leaders are actively rejecting the devastating affronts of multinational energy companies and the current dismantling of 30 years of environmental laws. They are dedicated to forcing change-to save their land, preserve their sovereignty and ensure the cultural survival of their people.

Framed by the ecological and spiritual wisdom of Winona LaDuke, HOMELAND presents a vision of how people all over the world can turn around the destructive policies of thoughtless resource plundering and create a new paradigm in which people can live healthier lives with greater understanding of, and respect for, the planet and all of its inhabitants.


DVD (Color) / 2005 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 88 minutes

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IN SEARCH OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

Directed by Judy Jackson

The first film about a crucial new commitment to the international rule of law: the International Criminal Court.

This is the first film about a crucial new commitment to the International Rule of Law-so victims will no long suffer without being heard, and war criminals will be punished.

Sixty years ago, with the Nuremberg charter, the world first said "Never Again." But these proved empty words for the victims of the Cold War years. The Superpowers couldn't agree on a universal code to punish war criminals. Tyrants ruled with impunity.

So the voices of their victims have echoed down through the decades, refusing to be silent, even in death. Joined by relatives who are unable to move on, until they know how their loved ones died. Different languages from different places, but with the same universal theme-begging to be delivered from the torment of living somewhere between life and death. Telling us that they will be able, finally, to rest, when we find out how they died. Insisting we listen.

It is because of these voices that International Justice has been reborn. In 2002 the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague. So far 100 countries have signed on to the Court's mandate. However, the world's remaining superpower, the United States is strongly opposed.

The new Court is already busy. It is investigating crimes against humanity in Darfur. It has issued indictments against leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda who abduct children and force them to fight. And a militia leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo faces charges of recruiting children as young as 8 to fight for him.

For the first time war criminals are being forced to listen. The victims' voices now haunt them, telling them they will not be silent until justice is done.


DVD (Color) / 2005 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 66 minutes

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LIFE 5: SREBRENICA - LOOKING FOR JUSTICE

Directed by Amanda Felton

Examines the massacre at Srebrenica on its 10th anniversary.

In July 1995 Serbian forces entered the mainly Muslim town of Srebrenica in North-east Bosnia. Twenty thousand refugees, mainly women and children fled to the UN base at Potocari, but thousands were ultimately handed over to the Serbs. The Serbian troops separated men and boys from women and small children. Most of the women were then bussed out; others were raped, tortured and murdered. The men were taken away to be slaughtered, their bodies dumped in mass graves.

Forensic scientists are still uncovering the truth about what really happened at Srebrenica. The perpetrators of the massacre went to enormous lengths to hide the evidence; former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military subordinate General Ratko Mladic-both indicted for war crimes-have evaded capture for ten years. But there is now a bigger political process at work as all sides try to move towards a better and more secure a better future for the Balkans. One reason for this new determination is the prospect of the Balkan States joining the EU.


DVD (Color) / 2005 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 23 minutes

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SILENT KILLER: THE UNFINISHED CAMPAIGN AGAINST HUNGER

There are still a billion hungry people in the world. Fifteen thousand children -- the equivalent of five times the victims of the World Trade Center bombings -- die each day of hunger. Yet it doesn't have to be this way. We can end hunger -- if we make a commitment to doing so. SILENT KILLER shows how it can be done.

Hosted by National Public Radio's Scott Simon, the film begins in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, where razor-thin Bushmen use the Hoodia cactus to fend off hunger. But now, a drug firm has patented the Hoodia's appetite-suppressant properties and is using it to make a diet product for obese Americans and Europeans. Hoodia is a metaphor for a world where some people die from too much food, but millions more die from too little.

We discover how serious the problem is in Kenya as we meet Jane Ininda, a scientist who is trying to make agriculture more productive in her country, while her own brother, Salesio, barely survives the drought, poor soils and pests that constantly threaten his crops. Through powerful stories, we come to understand the dimensions of the hunger crisis.

At the World Food Summit in Rome, we learn how activists have been working to end hunger since President John Kennedy declared war on it in 1963. But today, America's commitment to food security is less clear. In fact, world financial commitments to hunger research have been declining in recent years.

But SILENT KILLER does not leave viewers feeling helpless. A visit to Brazil finds a nation energized by a new campaign called FOME ZERO -- Zero Hunger. In the huge city of Belo Horizonte, we meet a remarkable leader and see how, under the programs she supervises, the right to food is guaranteed to all. In the countryside, we are introduced to the Landless Peasants' Movement, which is giving hope to millions of hungry Brazilians.


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2005 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 57 minutes

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HOME OF THE BRAVE

Examines the case of Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman murdered in the civil rights movement.

Home of the Brave is about the only white woman murdered in the civil rights movement and why we hear so little about her. Told through the eyes of her children, the film follows the on-going struggle of an American family to survive the consequences of their mother's heroism and the mystery behind her killing.

Viola Liuzzo was a 39-year-old Detroit teamster's wife and mother of five, who joined thousands of people converging in Selma, Alabama for the march on Montgomery, led by Martin Luther King in 1965. But shortly after the historic Voting Rights March had ended, she was shot in the head and killed by a car full of Klansmen, while driving on a deserted highway.

Liuzzo's death came at a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, when President Johnson had been fighting an uphill battle to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress. Her murder is attributed by historians of the era as providing the final piece of leverage that won Johnson approval of the Act in Congress, which forever changed our political landscape.

Why do we not know the story of Viola Luizzo, while nearly everyone has heard of Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney -- the three rights workers killed the year before in Mississippi? The reasons are complex, and won't be found in history books. Immediately following her murder, Liuzzo became the target of a smear campaign, mounted by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, as a means of diverting attention from the fact that a key FBI informant was in the car with Liuzzo's killers. This discrediting of her name -- mostly based on her gender and wholly unfounded -- succeeded in erasing Viola Liuzzo from our cultural memory. After delving through thousands of pages of government documents and filming interviews with leaders in the fields of politics, history and forensics psychology, the filmmakers shed a new light on this complicated, buried story.

Parallel to the Civil Rights struggle for which Viola lost her life is the present-day journey of her five children. Mary, the middle daughter, decides to retrace her mother's road trip from Detroit to Selma with the filmmakers. In the mid-60s she was an angry kid in the midst of a personal rebellion with her mother. The trauma of her sudden death caused her to bury any memories of her mother. Instead, she found herself reliving only the details of her gruesome death and its tumultuous aftermath. Now as an adult, she's ready to bring her back into consciousness. What she finds in Selma is both surprising and profoundly healing.

Her brothers Tony and Tommy, who as boys felt the weight of it all on their shoulders, were eventually hit the hardest. Theirs is a path routed in turmoil, resulting largely from repeated failed attempts to vindicate their mother and seek justice their family. Their lives have been torn apart by what they see as a betrayal of their government, and after decades of fighting, they've each resigned themselves to their own form of refuge, which disconnects them from their sisters and the rest of the world.


DVD / 2003 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 75 minutes

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ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

A rousing account of the 2002 World Social Forum that will inspire activists everywhere.

What if 51,000 people from 131 countries put their heads together to discuss what is wrong with the world and how to work together to change it? In early 2002, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, public officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, indigenous nations, farmers, and labor -- including 11,000 young people -- gathered for the World Social Forum. Called in response to the elite gathering of the World Economic Forum in New York, this week of workshops, panel discussions, and high-spirited demonstrations was inspirational for those attending.

The international event, covered extensively by the media in other parts of the world, was virtually ignored by the US press. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE presents a sampling of the issues and events at this enormous and creative gathering. Amongst the speakers featured are Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Kevin Danaher, Wolfgang Sachs, and Rigoberta Menchu. This documentary impression of the gathering gives hope to US activists that, despite the media blackout, the movement for social justice is alive and well around the world.


DVD (Color) / 2002 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 24 minutes

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DROWNED OUT: WE CAN'T WISH THEM AWAY

An Indian family chooses to stay at home and drown rather than make way for the Narmada Dam.

Resettlement site or stay at home and drown.

The people of Jalsindhi in central India must make a decision fast. In the next few weeks, their village will disappear underwater as the giant Narmada Dam fills.

Bestselling author Arundhati Roy joins the fight against the dam and asks the difficult questions. Will the water go to poor farmers or to rich industrialists? What happened to the 16 million people displaced by fifty years of dam building? Why should I care?

DROWNED OUT follows the Jalsindhi villagers through hunger strikes, rallies, police brutality and a six-year Supreme Court case. It stays with them as the dam fills and the river starts to rise...


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2002 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 75 minutes

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LIFE: THE SUMMIT

The UN General Assembly meets to review progress on social justice worldwide.

The 1995 Copenhagen Social Summit promised action on poverty, employment and social integration -- pledging governments to deliver greater social justice to the world's six billion inhabitants. But in the five years since Copenhagen, the gap between the rich and the poor actually widened, while development assistance from the industrialized donor countries went into sharp decline.

In June 2000 heads of state held a special session of the UN General Assembly to review progress on the Social Summit. Government leaders gathered in Geneva -- the city where Jean Jacques Rousseau first conceived the idea of a 'social contract' -- for what was to become known as the 'Justice Summit.'

This program brings together some key players in the debate -- from both developing and developed countries: Eveline Herfkens, Minister for Development Cooperation in the Dutch government; Nitan Desai, Under Secretary General for Economic & Social Affairs and Faith Innerarity from the Jamaican government delegation, as well as the heads of UN agencies from around the world.


DVD (Color) / 2000 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 24 minutes

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MAN WE CALLED JUAN CARLOS, THE

Chronicles the violent history of Guatemala and life of Wenceslao Armira, a Mayan father, farmer, teacher, guerilla, priest and champion of human rights.

Wenceslao Armira, the man we called "Juan Carlos," was a farmer, teacher, guerilla, priest-and father of two children murdered by death squads.

This film is the extraordinary story of an 'ordinary' Mayan from the highlands of Guatemala, who, in unexpected ways, affected the lives of the filmmakers for over 25 years, as they recorded his life. A very personal story, it explores the intersection of disparate lives, North and South, through coincidence and timing, across borders, and history. The life of "Juan Carlos" raises difficult questions about all of our connection to human rights, and social justice, and how we choose to make a difference in the world.


DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2000 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 52 minutes

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