African-American Studies

3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets | Director: Marc Silver  
Year of production: 2015| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

On Black Friday 2012, four African-American teenagers stopped at a gas station to buy gum and cigarettes. One of them, Jordan Davis, argued with Michael Dunn, a white man parked beside them, over the volume of music playing in their car. The altercation turned to tragedy when Dunn fired 10 bullets at the unarmed boys, killing Davis almost instantly. The seamlessly constructed, riveting documentary film 3 1⁄2 MINUTES, TEN BULLETS explores the danger and subjectivity of Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense laws by weaving Dunn’s trial with a chorus of citizen and pundit opinions, alongside the wrenching experiences of Jordan Davis’ parents.

America to Me | Director: Steve James  
Year of production: 2018| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself) examines racial, economic and class issues in contemporary American education in the multipart unscripted documentary series “America to Me.” Poignant and funny, epic and intimate, “America to Me” spends an academic year at Chicagoland’s elite Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF), allowing its students, families, faculty and administration to tell stories of the pressures and challenges teens face today in their own words.

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Shipwrecked America | Director: Alexandra Kandy Longuet  
Year of production: 2016| Country of production: Belgium, France | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the most violent storm in the history of the United States, ravages New Orleans. The city’s entire population is displaced. In the land of opportunity, the disaster seems to provide an opportunity for a city’s rebirth on a fairer basis. But against all expectations and despite the Obama presidency, the Crescent City turns into a ground zero for imposing economic shock therapy, intensifying drastically the economic, social and racial inequalities that existed before. This is the portrait of a city that became the US laboratory and reveals the divisions of a whole country.

Sisters in the Struggle | Director: Dionne Brand   Ginny Stikeman  
Year of production: 1991| Country of production: Canada | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

Sisters in the Struggle features black women who are active in community organizing, electoral politics, and labour and feminist activism. They share their insights and personal testimonies on a legacy of racism and sexism. The analyses they present link their struggles with the ongoing battle against pervasive racism and the systemic violence faced both by women and by people of colour.

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice | Director: Deborah Riley Draper  
Year of production: 2016| Country of production: USA | Language: English, German (with full English subtitles available)

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice delves into the climate surrounding the courageous 18 African American athletes who carried the weight and hopes of an entire movement on their shoulders as they boarded a ship to Berlin Olympic Games in 1936 – a Nazi propaganda pageant that did not welcome their participation and considered them second class citizens. Their heroic turn at the Games became a seminal precursor to the Civil Rights Movement.
Narrated by executive producer and Hollywood actor Blair Underwood.

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy | Director: Barak Goodman  
Year of production: 2000| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

Powerful Oscar nominated documentary about when fate places people in the wrong place at the wrong time and when fear and suspicion fuel injustice. The once-famous case of the nine Scottsboro Boys is the tale of such a dramatic miscarriage of justice that started in the early 1930s: nine poor young black men, charges of white rape, a fancy New York Jewish defense lawyer, an all-white Alabama jury, sentences of death culminating in a dogged international (Communist inspired) campaign to free the “Scottsboro Boys”.

Romeo Is Bleeding | Director: Jason Zeldes  
Year of production: 2015| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

ROMEO IS BLEEDING is a documentary film following Donté Clark, a young poet in Richmond, CA, a community that struggles with gun violence stemming from a turf war spanning across multiple generations.
Donté transcends the violence in his hometown by writing poetry about his experiences. Using his voice to inspire those around him, he co-founded an arts organization called RAW Talent, where like-minded youth from both sides of Richmond mount Te’s Harmony, an urban adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, with the hope of starting a meaningful dialogue about violence in the city.