FILMAKERS LIBRARY

Multiculturalism & Immigration

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GENOCIDE IN ME
This intensely personal film traces the filmmaker’s search for identity within the culture of her Armenian parents and in the context of the larger multicultural society in which she lives. Weaving together archival footage and interviews with elderly survivors of the Genocide, it creates a deeply felt portrayal of a holocaust that the Turks deny. (more)

Admission Impossible
Documents the change in Australia from the time it became a nation in 1901, with its unspoken "White Australia" policy, to becoming the multi-ethnic society it is today. (more)

The Amish: Not to be Modern
An exclusive portrait of a rarely-filmed religious community that separates itself from the world. It captures the day-to-day life of a people who have preserved their rural traditions. (more)

Amish Riddle
This view of the Amish shows a dynamic people who have modified their rules so that they can prosper in commercial enterprises. Modern conveniences, such as telephones, that they shun at home they use in their businesses. (more)

Anatomy of A Springroll
 This charming film shows how the filmmaker, an immigrant from Vietnam, found a new life in America while preserving his cultural tradition through cooking, eating and sharing the rich and varied food of his homeland. First in trilogy, with Pins and Noodles and A Wok in Progress. (more)

And Thereafter
This multi-festival film is a portrayal of the fortitude of an immigrant "war bride" in America. Seventy-six-year-old Young-Ja Wike is one of the 10,000 Korean women who married American G.I.s. after the war. For them marriage was the only escape from the crushing poverty of post-war Korea. (more)

Between Two Worlds: the Hmong Shaman in America
Hmong refugees have been transplanted from mountain villages in Laos to cities in the U.S. The film shows how they practice their ancient shamanic rituals in urban America. (more)

Blue Collar & Buddha
A sensitive study of a community of Laotian refugees in Rockford, Illinois, who are torn between preserving their cultural identity and adapting to their new life. (more)

Celebration: A Caribbean Festival
This joyous, upbeat film explodes with the color, music, and pride of Carnival in America's largest Caribbean community, in New York. (more)

The Chinatown Files.
The first film to reveal the horrific impact of the McCarthy era on the Chinese-American community. (more)

Covered Girls
Muslim-American girls are lively and full of fun -- despite wearing the traditional "hijab". How do they fare after 9/11? (more)

Days of Awe
A sympathetic and lyrical portrait of the Orthodox Jews of New York City, filmed as they observe the most important holidays of the year with prayer, song, ecstatic dancing and celebration, which speak to the history and meaning of their customs. (more)

Despair.
The first documentary to consider depression, the pervasive mood disorder, from multi-ethnic viewpoints. Psychiatrists, social workers and spiritual leaders emphasize the significance of recognizing cultural differences in clinical treatment. (more)

The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez.
A 15-year-old brought up by a Mexican family while his mother was incarcerated in the U.S. as a Puerto Rican nationalist, finally comes to know his mother. (more)

El Chogui
A Mexican immigrant dreams of a better life for himself and his family (more)

Fighting Grandpa
 A sensitive and probing portrayal of Korean immigrant grandparents and their marriage through the brilliant use of home movies, photographs, and interviews. (more)

For Jackson: A Time Capsule from His Two Grandmothers
Seven-year-old Jackson has light skin and curly hair ­ and a remarkable heritage from both sides of his family. In this inspiring film, his two grandmothers from different racial, cultural and religious backgrounds, look back over lives to pass along to him their acquired wisdom. (more)

Geronimo: His Story
A portrait of what it’s like to be an "illegal alien." Geronimo came to the U.S. not knowing a word of English, went to school by night, and sent money home to his family in Mexico. When he returns home for a visit, one sees how hopeless life is for those who have remained in his village. (more)

The Golden Cage: A Story of California’s Farmworkers
The film chronicles the experiences of Mexican farmworkers and their isolation in a land of plenty. Historical footage and interviews trace the history of the United Farmworkers Union. (more)

The Guestworker
When President Bush and some members of Congress proposed guest worker programs as part of new immigration reform legislation, it was as though nothing like this had existed before. Yet since 1986, thousands of Mexican men have legally entered the United States to work here, because of the little known H-2A guestworker program (more)

Hardwood: A Black Family's Story
Former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis fathered two sons. One was with a white woman with whom he was in love but felt he couldn't marry in the racial climate of the sixties. The other was with a black woman with whom he had an unhappy marriage. Hubert Davis, the film director, was the mixed-race son who for many years did not know his father. This film movingly explores the pain of sons growing up with an absent father and its effect on their mothers. (more)

Hatred
This wide ranging documentary travels from Berlin to Harlem to the Middle East and Australia to investigate the connection beween the hatred that leads to mass violence and the hatred we all feel from time to time.(more)

High School of American Dreams
A portrait of the International High School in New York City where recent immigrants from 43 countries create the most multicultural classroom imaginable. The film shows how cultural and racial differences can be reconciled within an educational system. (more)

Home from the Eastern Sea
This is the story of the immigration of Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos to America. The film explores history through the personal stories of representative families. (more)

Honor Bound
 During World War II, a unit of second generation Japanese immigrants was fighting bravely on the European front. Their regiment became the most highly decorated in American history. However, at home, their families were being interned. (more)

In the Land of Plenty
This is a poignant portrait of the migrant farm worker from Mexico in the strawberry fields of Watsonville, CA. Undocumented, they have no way to protect themselves from exploitation. (more)

Little Brother, Little Sister
Some people have very big hearts! We meet an Australian couple who have adopted several Ethiopian orphaned children. We see how they help the children overcome the pain of their past as they adjust to a new country. (more)

Living In America: A Hundred Years of Ybor City
This film celebrates the long and rich tradition of Latin culture in a multicultural community in Florida which was founded on the cigar industry. (more)

The Living Tree
Filmmaker Flora Moon was born in Indiana of parents who had fled Red China. Because of her family's efforts to avoid scrutiny during the Cold War era of the 1950's they tried hard to blend in with their surroundings and little mention was made at home of their Chinese past. Flora was grown when she learned about her family history and her Chinese roots.(more)

Made in China
Lisa Hsai grew up in Illinois, a typical American in an assimilated household. Chinese food was her only tie to her heritage. She takes us on her voyage to China where she is mistaken for a native citizen, but discovers her Asian roots. (more)

The Main Stream
Humorist Roy Blount, Jr takes an offbeat journey down the Mississippi River, the literal and figurative Main Stream of America. Blount's unpredictable odyssey celebrates the full range of American diversity and eccentricity -- from a wedding ceremony at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, to a rodeo at America's toughest prison in Angola, Louisiana. (more)

Makolet
This is a portrait of a kosher Middle Eastern grocery store in the traditionally Sephardic section of Brooklyn. It has become the social headquarters for expatriate Middle Eastern customers—the sounds of many languages mingle. (more)

Mirjana: One Girl's Journey
Having suffered during the Serbian invasion of Croatia, Mirjana, a high school student, was happy to find refuge with relatives in California. But once here, she found it hard to forget the family she left behind. (more)

The Mischievous Ravi
With gentle humor, this short fiction film captures the plight of a young man caught between the traditional ways of his immigrant Indian parents and the freer lifestyle of his American peers.(more)

Moko Jumbie: Traditional Stilt Walkers
This unique film shows the art, craft, dance and history of the moko jumbie, which means "dancing spirit", as they appear at street festivals in New York City. (more)

Monkey King Looks West
 Three classically-trained Chinese opera artists keep alive their revered art form in New York by performing operas in their time off from work. (more)

A Most Unlikely Hero
This inspiring film chronicles Capt. Bruce Yamashita¹s fight against racial discrimination in the Marine Corps. A third-generation American of Japanese ancestry, he sought to qualify as an officer in the Marine Corps. After a horrendous nine week training program where he endured racial slurs and humiliations, he was denied the commission. His five-year battle brought national attention to the Marine Corps¹ policy against minorities. (more)

Motherland Series:

A Genetic Journey
Descendants of slaves are now able to explore their African ancestry through DNA research. We meet several who have made emotional connections. (more)
and
Moving On
Two years after filming A Genetic Journey, this film follows where that award-winning film left off. It looks at how discoveries about their own history have affected the participants in the earlier ground breaking investigation. Shot in the UK, USA, Africa and Jamaica, this very moving film continues three soul-searching journeys that raise fundamental questions about who we are. (more)

Moving Mountains
 This is an intimate look at the Yiu Mien, South Asian refugees who originally settled in the Pacific Northwest. They had to leave Laos because of their involvement with the CIA. Their adjustment to modern American life has its problems. (more)

Mundo Milagroso
In Texan communities along the Rio Grande, there is a vibrant mixture of Spanish Catholicism and Indian mysticism. Various saints and religious figures appear to the believers in the shape of everyday objects. (more)

My American Girls: A Dominican Story.
This POV film is a lively portrait of a Dominican family in New York, who must straddle two cultures.(more)

My Mother Thought She Was Audrey Hepburn.
This is a funny, sometimes irreverent statement about growing up Asian-American in a white society. Suzanne's mother unwittingly fostered a "Chinese self-hatred" which her daughter had to overcome. (more)

Natives
This multi-festival film captures the xenophobia of a number of Americans living in California along the U.S.-Mexican border. (more)

None of the Above
 This is a documentary about people of mixed racial heritage, based on the filmmaker’s own search for identity and community. We are given an inside view of the emotional reality of being racially unclassifiable in a society obsessed with race. (more)

North of 49
The burning of a Sikh temple in upstate New York is the starting point of this film about arson, forgiveness and healing in the post 9/11 world. (more)

Pins and Noodles
The second film in the Springroll trilogy, this chronicles the filmmaker’s search through Asia for a cure for devastating allergies, which compromise his primal enjoyment of food. (more)

A Portrait of Mr. Pink
This film captures Mr. Pink, a unique and creative individual, who moved from Jamaica to Britain in the fifties. Inspired by a mixture of dreams, memories of childhood and his religion, he adorned his Victorian mansion to recreate the vivid colors of the Carribbean. (more)

Precious Cargo.
Operation Babylift in 1975 helped thousands of South Vietnamese children to escape to America where they were adopted . Now in their mid -20's, the adoptees return to their birthplace in search of their roots. (more)

Seoul II Soul
Korean American filmmaker Hak J. Chung, explores his roots by documenting his very engaging family. His father is a black veteran of the Korean War. His mother was a Korean war bride. (more)

The Shot Heard Round the World.
When a young Japanese exchange student was shot to death on Halloween by a suburban homeowner, the world was horrified by another tragic event resulting from racism and the U.S. gun culture. (more)

Skin Deep: The Science of Race.
This CBC film addresses the question of whether there is a genetic definition of race or whether the basis for racism and prejudice is really only based on skin color. (more)

So Far From India
Mira Nair's portrait of a family split between two worlds. The husband has come to America to seek his fortune, while his despairing wife is left ashamed and dependent on her in-laws for support. (more)

A Sound Education.
Dr. Chen Ho Yun is a gifted violinist who teaches violin after school to young people in South Central L.A. This charming film shows children from the ghetto taking pride in their accomplishment in learning a challenging instrument.(more)

Soundmix
This inspiring film brings together five extraordinary teenage musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds who are reinvigorating American musical traditions. (more)

Spirit Doctors
In the Mexican American community around the Rio Grande, folk healing is still an established practice. This film follows three healers, or curandera, as they use a variety of spiritual and herbal techniques. (more)

The Split Horn
Seen through the eyes of his 14-year-old daughter, a Hmong Shaman, grapples with life in America. (more)

The Struggle for Identity
This powerful video focuses on issues of race, culture and identity in families in which there have been transracial adoptions (more)

That Old Gang of Mine
 Using archival footage and interviews, the filmmaker creates a multi-layered portrait of growing up in New York’s El Barrio in the ‘30s and ‘40s (more)

Thunderbird Woman: Winona LaDuke
This is an inspiring portrait of Winona La Duke, a unique and dynamic activist and member of the Anishinaabe tribe from the White Earth reservation in Northern Minnesota. A published author, she was named one of America's fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age by Time Magazine.(more)

Turbans
An award-winning short drama of an Asian Indian immigrant family torn between their traditions and assimilation (more)

Under the Willow Tree
Using old photographs and interviews, this film tells the remarkable tale of the courageous Asian women who left their families and all that was familiar to settle in the New World and marry men they had never met. The men had come to build the transcontinental railroad. The film is a testimony to the strength, resourcefulness and dignity of these women. (more)

Viva Bengali
This charming film contrasts ideas of marriage, courtship and divorce between generations and cultures. It follows Hindu Smita Acharyya and Catholic Remi Boudreau who, in order to escape the complications of a large, family wedding, decided to elope to Las Vegas. But they can¹t escape, and are married again, in a Bengali style wedding arranged by Smita¹s mother. (more)

Waging A Living
Waging A Living chronicles the day-to-day battles of four low-wage earners struggling to make work pay their bills. Shot over a three-year period in the northeast and California, this observational documentary captures the dreams, frustrations and accomplishments of a diverse group of people who strain to live from paycheck to paycheck (more)

Walking the Line
Walking the Line offers a harrowing view of the chaos, absurdity and senseless deaths of Mexican illegals along the U.S. - Mexico border because some American citizens are taking the law into their own hands. (more)

Whose Children Are These?
This film examines the harrowing experiences of three Muslim-American teenagers effected by Special Registration, a post-9/11 security measure.(more)

With Us or Against Us
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the late 1970’s, many Afghans fled, leaving behind homes, possessions and sometimes family members. Those Afghans who took refuge in the United States came to treasure the freedom and economic opportunities offered by their new country. After September 11th, these Afghan-Americans found themselves caught in a cultural crossfire as their adoptive homeland was at war with their native land. (more)

Who Killed Vincent Chin?
Nominated for an Academy Award this documentary makes a powerful statement about racism in working class America. Twenty-seven year old Vincent Chin was brutally murdered in a fight with a Detroit auto worker, who was at first let off with a suspended sentence and a small fine. The Chinese American successfully community rallied for justice. (more)

A Wok in Progress
The third in the Springroll trilogy, this film interweaves a love of food with cultural and psychic survival (more)

Yellow Tale Blues
The producers of Who Killed Vincent Chin? turn their cameras on their own families to make this inventive documentary on ethnic stereotypes. Clips from Hollywood movies reveal nearly a century of disparaging images. (more)

 

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