Third World Newsreel

This documentary examines the re-settlement of South-East Asian refugees in the United States in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The film begins with a montage of riveting footage depicting the devastating effects of the war. It then unveils the mixed reception given Vietnamese refugees in the United States, from battles with local fishermen in Monterey, California, to conflicts in Philadelphia where their arrival in the city's poorest neighborhoods kindled resentment in the Black community. The film also explores their struggle to cope with life in the U.S. and maintain their identity.

They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90s, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in North Korea, filmmakers Takagi and Choy reveal the personal, social and political dimensions of one of the last divided nations on earth. The film was also the first US project to get permission to film in both South & North Korea.

The film looks back at the life of a man named Oda and other Japanese Americans through the decades as they face great challenges and joys living in the United States.

They're called bar women, hostesses, or sex workers and "western princesses." They come from poor families, struggling to earn a decent wage, only to be forced into the world's oldest profession. They're the women who work in the camptowns that surround U.S. military bases in South Korea. In 40 years, over a million women have worked in Korea's military sex industry, but their existence has never been officially acknowledged by either government. In The Women Outside, a film by J.T. Orinne Takagi and Hye Jung Park, some of these women bravely speak out about their lives for the first time. The film raises provocative questions about military policy, economic survival, and the role of women in global geopolitics

The film looks at men and women of color in the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1938-1975. Through chronicling the lives of these men and women who, with a median age of 82, are beset with a host of life-threatening illnesses, the movie tells how they navigated issues of racism, disparities in the workplace, gender and familial relations.

This film exposes the daily humiliation regularly faced by women in U.S. prisons using firsthand accounts of inmates at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women and the Correctional Institute for Women at Riker's Island, New York.

As students take to the streets in New York and Berkeley, the state violence that follows illustrates Chicago Mayor Daley's thesis that the police are there "to preserve disorder".

During the winter of 1969, the New York Transit Authority increased the public transportation fee fare from 20 cents to 30 cents--a 50% increase. Infuriated riders scrambled under turnstiles and through exit doors, refusing to pay the fare. In THE WRECK OF THE NEW YORK SUBWAYS riders and subway workers denounce the terrible conditions and constant fare increases. The film analyzes the vicious cycle of bonding the Transit Authority, which profits the banks at the expense of the taxpayers.

Filmed in Palestine by Newsreel, WE ARE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE shows the refugee camps of the Middle East, the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Movement and Israel's relation ship to the Western imperialism. There is footage of the guerrillas in training, and interviews with Palestinian leaders and militants who work in many programs of the liberation struggle of the time.

This film documents a play given at the March 28th, 1969 abortion rally by some very angry women. A beauty contestant is primed by her mother, her teacher, her boyfriend, an ad man, and a capitalist for the roles she must fulfill to be a successful winner.

In this moving film, the personal testimonies of Guatemalan Indians, peasants, and guerrillas are dramatized to provide the narration for a powerful overview of the history of U.S. destabilization of democracy in Central America.

This short film offers a rare look at Noam Chomsky in the late 1960s as he speaks candidly about the war in Vietnam and articulates critiques that have an eerie resonance in the present day. Includes a draft-refusal demonstration, and material about the indictments against Benjamin Spock, William S. Coffin Jr and others.

A film by Hugh King and Lamar Williams - a powerful mix of archival material, news clips and documentary footage chronicles impassioned community response to decades of deadly force against people of color by members of the Philadelphia police force. Community leaders, politicians, police officers, survivors of police brutality and sympathizers unravel a pattern of biased violent police behavior from the tenure of Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo to the bombing of Osage Avenue. This documentary is a testimony to long-standing tensions between police and people of color in communities throughout the United States.

Art, dance, music and poetry became a vital necessity for the liberated areas of South Vietnam in their daily efforts to survive the bombings and napalming of the Vietnam War. In this moving film, teenagers in the NLF liberated zones make beautiful puppets from the remains of downed U.S. warplanes. They work their puppet shows in dramatic ballet form. Armed with these puppets, they travel through the countryside, performing for village children even as U.S. planes circle overhead.

Ragusa utilizes the female form as the terrain to examine recollections of a rape. The filmmaker emphasizes the manner by which identity and exoticism are played out on the level of the female body.

Shot in 1969, this film documents the building anger of draftees in the U.S.military, and the growth of the anti-war movement within the military. Soldiers are interviewed and seen as they face brutalizing treatment and indoctrination in bootcamp, military training that made the war atrocities of the Vietnamese War all too possible as "just following orders". The film blasts the U.S. presence and forsees its future in Vietnam, while comparing the South and North Vietnamese armies and their reasons for fighting.

In two 30 minute programs that combine footage from over 20 sources, this tape focuses on educating and organizing disadvantaged communities to act on environmental issues and conditions affecting them. Part I shows how techniques used during the Civil Rights movement can be applied to deal with issues such as urban waste dumping near poor communities, fighting for clean water and air, and toxic dumping in Africa by U.S. chemical companies. Part II targets issues and organizing among Native and Mexican communities in the South West, Latinos facing homelessness in urban areas, and indigenous Amazonians fighting against the destruction of their environment by cattle ranchers.

Three black families, observed in their daily lives, their thoughts, values, and aspirations expressed on the soundtrack, and their different approaches to the struggle for survival in contemporary society and their methods of coping with the contradictory stresses placed on the individual in the family environment.

This raw, gutsy portrait of New York's Chinatown captures the early days of an emerging consciousness in the community. We see a Chinatown rarely depicted, a vibrant community whose young and old join forces to protest police brutality and hostile real estate developers. With bold strokes, it paints an overview of the community and its history, from the early laborers driving spikes into the transcontinental railroad to the garment workers of today.

The career of iconic and influential poet and writer Audre Lorde is seen up until death.