Narratives of Modern Genocide

Ilse

April 2017 •English

When Ilse Cruz was a toddler, she and her mom immigrated from Mexico to Chicago in search of better opportunities. Now a passionate dancer and ambitious high school student, Ilse hopes to go to college and one day visit the family she left behind. However, her undocumented status pushes these dreams further out of reach. Halfway through her senior year, Ilse learns her DACA permit qualifies her for a special document that allows her to return to Mexico. Through a life-changing trip, Ilse reconnects with her family and Mexican roots – and her legal re-entry to the U.S. fast-tracks her application process for permanent residency. Six months after she graduates from high school, Ilse obtains her green card – mere weeks before Donald Trump takes office. While Ilse’s mother rejoices in these unexpected events for her daughter, her own fate grows ever more uncertain.

Amá

December 2018 •English

Amá is a feature length documentary which tells an important and untold story: the abuses committed against Native American women by the United States Government during the 1960’s and 70’s: removed from their families and sent to boarding schools, forced relocation away from their traditional lands and involuntary sterilization. ​The result of nine years painstaking and sensitive work by filmmaker Lorna Tucker, the film features the testimony of many Native Americans, including three remarkable women who tell their stories - Jean Whitehorse, Yvonne Swan and Charon Aseytoyer - as well as a revealing and rare interview with Dr. Reimart Ravenholt whose population control ideas were the framework for some of the government policies directed at Native American women.

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.

Hummingbirds

February 2023 •English

Best friends Silvia and Beba record their lives as they dance, make music, and face an uncertain immigration process in Texas near the Mexican border.

Ricochet

May 2021 •English

When a young woman is shot by an undocumented immigrant on Pier 14 in San Francisco, the incident ignites a political and media furor that culminates in Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States. In the eye of this storm, two public defenders fight to reveal the truth.

Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers

March 2007 •English

During the last half-century, Cambodia has witnessed genocide, decades of war and the collapse of social order. Now, documentary filmmaker Rithy Panh looks at an irreparable tragedy that is less visible, yet no less pervasive: the spiritual death that results when young women are forced into prostitution. Angry and impassioned, PAPER CANNOT WRAP UP EMBERS presents the searing stories of poor Asian women whose lives were violated and their destinies destroyed when their bodies were turned into items of sexual commerce.

Drive-by Shooting

February 1994 •English

With a movie camera mounted in the passenger seat of his car, Andy Anderson drove around filming his local neighbourhood of Fort Worth, Texas. The procession of sunny lawns and quiet houses has a day-dreamy innocence, however on the soundtrack, a narrator recites from the police records of over 600 crimes committed in the area. Domestic violence, petty theft, drug related assault; the list of vicious and hapless actions unfolds randomly, "a woman said her husband punched her in the face when he asked her for ten dollars and she didn't have the money. theft; two lawnmowers.." In a powerful counterpoint of sound and image Drive By Shooting creates a two hour-long surveillance film that misses all the action, yet evokes a sense of vulnerability on the streets and violence behind closed doors.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

August 1991 •Polish

Józef Gębski's film is a documentary reconstruction of the crime committed by NKVD officers against Polish officers imprisoned in Starobielsk and Kharkov in 1940. Accounts of historians and prosecutors are juxtaposed with the testimony of the then heads of the central and regional NKVD board.

25,000

January 2024 •English

A video project meant to highlight the human cost in Palestine.

Les Pépites

October 2016 •French

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.

God Sleeps in Rwanda

August 2005 •English

A powerful documentary about five women whose lives have been irrevocably altered by the Rwandan genocide. With the country left nearly 70% female in the wake of the massacres, "God Sleeps In Rwanda" is a lucid portrait of the much larger change affected by women in the East African country.

Tarnation

October 2003 •English

Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.

Sky and Ground

November 2017 •English

Three generations of the Nabi family flee their home in Aleppo and try to make it to safety in Germany where some members of the family have already settled. Along the way they suffer countless setbacks and heartache.

America; I Too

March 2017 •English

Three arrested and detained undocumented immigrants must navigate the system to fight impending deportation.

I Was a Soldier

April 1970 •English

Three young Texans try to adjust to small-town life after experiencing the emotional toll of combat in the jungles of Vietnam.

The Decline of the Century: Testament L.Z.

February 1994 •Croatian

An epic documentary of rise and fall of Ustasha regime in Croatia.

Cusp

November 2021 •English

In a Texas military town, three teenage girls confront the dark corners of adolescence at the end of a fever dream summer.

Amerikanuak

November 2010 •Basque

A documentary about Basque inmigrants who went to USA looking for work and a better future. Basically, Amerikanuak talks about feeling homesick, about struggling in a different country to make a decent living and about being part of a comunity.

Broken Rainbow

May 1985 •English

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.