Racist Trees

Nine from Little Rock

January 1964 •English

The Arkansas school integration crisis and the changes wrought in subsequent years. This film profiles the lives of the nine African-American students who integrated Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the fall of 1957. The film documents the perspective of Jefferson Thomas and his fellow students seven years after their historic achievement. Central to this story is their quiet but brave entrance into Little Rock High, escorted by armed troops under the intense pressure of the on looking crowd. We learn first hand their impressions of the past and present and their hopes for the future. Their selfless heroism broke the integration crisis and pioneered a new era. This film went on to win an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short in 1964.

A City Decides

January 1956 •English

A City Decides chronicles the events that led to the integration of the St. Louis public schools in 1954. An Oscar-nominated short documentary from 1956.

The Secret Policeman

October 2003 •English

Undercover reporter Mark Daly reveals racism among police recruits in Manchester, England.

The Blues: Another Story of France

September 2016 •French

This documentary charts 20 years of the French national soccer team, Les Bleus, whose ups and downs have mirrored those of French society.

One Book at a Time

July 2020 •English

Sarah Kamya is a school counselor in New York City. She began the project Little Diverse Libraries on June 3rd and has already raised over $13,000, supported black owned bookstores, and has distributed 775 books to Little Free Libraries across all 50 states. Sarah is helping educate communities while most importantly amplifying and empowering black voices.

100 Per Cent White

July 2000 •English

A decade after taking a series of photographs of skinhead members of a far-right group for his book Public Enemies, Leo Regan returns to three members of the gang to see what has happened to them in the intervening years.

The Shadow of Hate: A History of Intolerance in America

June 1995 •English

The film expresses the history of oppression, discrimination, violence and hate in America. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America

October 2020 •English

Discover how the advent of the automobile brought new mobility and freedom for African Americans but also exposed them to discrimination and deadly violence, and how that history resonates today.

Algeria 1943: A Colony Under Vichy Control

January 2022 •French

World War II, June 1940. France has fallen and suffers the relentless boot of Nazi Germany. But Algeria, the prized French colony in North Africa, remains part of the territory controlled by the Vichy regime of Marshal Pétain. A strict colonial order is maintained: the French of European origin rule, while local Jews are stripped of French citizenship and discrimination against the mainly Muslim population increases.

Seattle Freeway Revolt

January 2020 •English

In the 1950s, Seattle had plans to build one of the densest networks of freeways in the world. It would have displaced thousands, especially the poor and people of color. Over the next two decades, a broad coalition of communities came together and halted these plans. Testimonies from that era are juxtaposed with interviews of activists who participated in the revolt, giving a picture of what Seattle could have been had the people not stood up to the highway lobby and their representatives.

Ramps to Nowhere

September 2018 •English

A film about the cross coalition of communities that stopped a planned network of freeways from being built in Seattle in the late 60s and early 70s. It weaves together archival material with the filmmaker's personal narrative about living next to freeways, and features interviews with participants from the freeway revolt.

Pornotropic

September 2020 •French

When French writer Marguerite Duras (1914-96) published her novel The Sea Wall in 1950, she came very close to winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt. Meanwhile, in Indochina, France was suffering its first military defeats in its war against the Việt Minh, the rebel movement for independence.

The Man Card

October 2020 •English

For years, right-wing politicians and pundits have repeatedly criticized the left for playing “the race card” and “the woman card.” This new film turns the tables and takes dead aim at the right’s own longstanding – but rarely discussed – deployment of white-male identity politics in American presidential elections. Ranging from Richard Nixon’s tough-talking, law-and-order campaign in 1968 to Donald Trump’s hyper-macho revival of the same fear-based appeals in 2020, "The Man Card" shows how the right has mobilized dominant ideas about manhood and enacted a deliberate strategy to frame Democrats and liberals as soft, brand the Republican Party as the party of “real men,” and position conservatives as defenders of white male power and authority in the face of transformative demographic change and ongoing struggles for racial, gender, and sexual equality.

Black Power Salute

July 2008 •English

A film about one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, the moment when the radical spirit of the 1960s upstaged the greatest sporting event in the world. Two men made a courageous gesture that reverberated around the world, and changed their lives forever. This film is about Tommie Smith and John Carlos' protest at the 1968 Olympics.

Bad Axe

November 2022 •English

A real-time portrait of 2020 unfolds as an Asian-American family in Trump’s rural America fights to keep their restaurant and American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and generational scars from the Cambodian Killing Fields.

The Truth lies in Rostock

January 1993 •German

July '64

July 2004 •English

A historic three-day race riot erupted in two African American neighborhoods in the northern, mid-sized city of Rochester, New York. On the night of July 24, 1964, frustration and resentment brought on by institutional racism, overcrowding, lack of job opportunity and police dog attacks exploded in racial violence that brought Rochester to its knees. Combines historic archival footage, news reports, and interviews with witnesses and participants to dig deeply into the causes and effects of the historic disturbance.

China: The Uighur Tragedy

February 2022 •French

A relentless chronicle of the tragedy of the Uighurs, an ethnic minority of some eleven million people who live in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, speak a Turkic language and practice the Muslim religion. The Uighurs suffer brutal cultural and political oppression by Xin Jinping's tyrannical government: torture, disappearances, forced labor, re-education of children and adults, mass sterilizations, extensive surveillance and destruction of historical heritage.

All the Way Home

January 1957 •English

A white family has just put their house on the market and are soon showing it to an interested black family. The neighbors begin to gossip and soon the white family becomes the target of harassment and threats by bigoted residents in the community, who do not want a black family in the neighborhood.

Trapped: Cash Bail In America

October 2020 •English

Every year, millions of Americans are incarcerated before even being convicted of a crime - all because they can't afford to post bail. How did we get here? “Trapped: Cash Bail in America” shines a light on our deeply flawed criminal justice system and the activists working to reform it. This new documentary explores the growing movement to end the inherent economic and racial inequalities of cash bail while highlighting victims impacted by an unjust system, the tireless campaigners fighting for criminal justice reform, and a bail industry lobbying to maintain the status quo.