African American Studies: Films
Streaming Films
- Academic Video Online• Good for primary sources
Documentary Films on DVD/Streaming
- Bin Yah: There's no Place like Home Uses the testimonies of African American residents of small communities around Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, to explore the culture and history of these communities, many established by freed slaves and home to generations of their descendants, the importance of land and the concept of home. Residents are shown practicing their traditional sweetgrass basket making originally brought from West Africa.
- The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 Mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement, Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them, the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews.
- Blacking Up: Hip-Hop's Remix of Race and Identity (Online Only) The ambitious and hard-hitting documentary Blacking Up: hip-hop's remix of race and identity looks at the popularity of hip-hop among America's white youth. It asks whether white identification is rooted in admiration and a desire to transcend race or if it is merely a new chapter in the long continuum of stereotyping, mimicry and cultural appropriation? Does it reflect a new face of racial understanding in white America or does it reinforce an ugly history? Against the unique backdrop of American popular music, Blacking up explores racial identity in U.S. society.
- Bronx Princess Bronx princess follows headstrong 17-year-old teenager Rocky's journey as she leaves behind her mother in New York City to reunite with her father, a chief in Ghana, West Africa. Filmed over the tumultuous summer between high-school and college, Bronx princess tells Rocky's coming-of-age story. By confronting her immigrant parents' ideas of adulthood, Rocky reconciles her African heritage with her dream of independence.
- The Central Park Five Chronicles America's complicated perceptions of race and crime through the story of the "Central Park 5"--A group of minority teenagers wrongfully convicted and jailed for brutally raping a white woman in New York.
- Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans Long ago during slavery, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor co-habitated, collaborated, and clashed to create much of what defines New Orleans culture up to the present day.
- The First Amendment Project A collection of short films focusing on the first amendment and the perceived loss of basic constitutional rights throughout American society.
- The Guerrero Project In 1827 the pirate Spanish slave ship Guerrero sank off the Florida Keys, with 561 African prisoners aboard. Join modern-day treasure hunters and archaeologists competing to locate the wreck and uncover the significance this lost ship holds for society today.
- Mumia, Long Distance Revolutionary This videodisc focuses on Mumia Abu-Jamal's prolific career in journalism from his early days a writer for the Black Panther newspaper and reporter for NPR, to his radio broadcasts from prison after being incarcerated and placed on death row.
- The New Black This award-winning documentary boldly examines the controversial and challenging issues facing African American communities on gay civil rights, campaigns for/against marriage equality and in particular the role of faith institutions. The film makes a compelling case that the fight for LGBT rights in Black communities is an extension of the Black Freedom Struggle
- Resolved Two inner-city seniors defy convention by emphasizing relevance and personal experience over their opponents' strategy of merely reciting the facts, in their quest to win the National Tournament of Champions.
- Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968 Everyone remembers the four white students slain at Kent State University in 1970, but most have never heard of the three black students killed in Orangeburg, South Carolina two years earlier. This stirring investigative documentary restores that bloody tragedy to the history of the Civil Rights Movement after years of official denial.
- Silent Choices Illustrates the abortion issue through the lives of African American women, with both interviews and dramatic content. Features the personal experiences of several such women, some of whom chose to have abortions, and some who are staunchly pro-life. The film also brings in others active in the African American community on abortion issues, as well as juxtaposing African American viewpoints to those of white Americans, all combined and contrasted with the larger economic, political, and social pressures that are faced by the African-American community in general.
- Up from the Bottoms: The Search for the American Dream African-American residents of Muskegon, Michigan tell stories of migrating from the old south to the prosperous north during the war years and beyond.
- Wattstax Documents the concert that came to be known as 'the Black Woodstock,' held on the anniversary of 1965 Watts Riot, and had 100,000 in attendance.
- Welcome to Shelbyville Set in the heart of America's Bible Belt, Welcome to Shelbyville focuses on a small Southern town as they grapple with rapid demographic change and issues of immigrant integration. The film captures the complexity of the African American, Latino, white, and Somali subjects as their lives intertwine against the backdrop of a crumbling economy and the election of a new president.
Feature Films on DVD
- 12 Years a Slave It is 1841, and Northup, an accomplished, free citizen of New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Stripped of his identity and deprived of all dignity, Northup is ultimately purchased by ruthless plantation owner Edwin Epps and must find the strength within to survive. Filled with powerful performances by an astonishing cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, and newcomer Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave is both an unflinching account of slavery in American history and a celebration of the indomitable power of hope.
- Antwone Fisher Antwone Fisher, 25, is a gentle, soft-spoken African American seaman in the Navy. Unless he feels he's been disrespected--which prompts furious, violent outbursts that put him on the brink of a dishonorable discharge. Ordered to see a psychiatrist, eventually the story of his childhood in a foster home, where he was both beaten and sexually abused, comes out. Dr. Davenport argues that Antwone needs to deal with his past, find his family, and attain closure. For Antwone, the journey proves agonizing and freeing, as he puts his past behind him and graduates into responsible manhood.
- Boyz in the Hood Three friends struggle to survive in South Central Los Angeles where friendship, pain, danger and love form a true picture of life in the 'hood in this critically acclaimed, action-filled story.
- The Color Purple The heart-wrenching story of a young black girl in the early 20th century who is forced into a brutal marriage and separated from her sister.
- Do the Right Thing Traces the course of a single day on a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. It's the hottest day of the year, a scorching 24-hour period that will change the lives of its residents forever.
- Driving Miss Daisy Set in Atlanta in the 1950's, a textile factory owner insists on hiring an ever-patient chauffeur for his aging head-strong mother. The Jewish woman and her African American driver eventually build a relationship over many years.
- Glory Story of the first Black regiment to fight in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
- He Got Game A prisoner is granted a furlough in hopes of persuading his estranged son, the country's top high school basketball player, to attend the governor's alma mater.
- Hoop Dreams Follows the high school careers of two men as they pursue their dream of playing professional basketball.
- Malcolm X Screen version of the life of Malcolm X, who through his religious conversion to Islam, found the strength to rise up from a criminal past to become an influential civil rights leader.
- Murder in Mississippi In 1964, members of the Ku Klux Klan murdered three civil rights workers who had traveled to the South to encourage African-American voter registration. Examines the last three weeks in the lives of the slain activists.
- Pariah Alike is a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents and younger sister in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. She has a flair for poetry, and is a good student at her local high school. Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity--sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.
- Passing Strange A young man leaves behind his mother and life in a Los Angeles neighborhood and sets out on a journey of self-discovery in Europe during the 1970s in order to find his purpose in life through his music. A theatrical stage production of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.
- Roots An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", in which Haley traces his African American family's history from the mid-18th century to the Reconstruction era.
- To Kill a Mockingbird Two children in a small southern town are thrust into an adult world of racial bigotry and hatred when their lawyer father chooses to defend a black man unjustly accused of raping a white girl. When a Southern white woman accuses a black man of rape, the outcome of the trial is a foregone conclusion and no lawyer except Peck will defend him. Peck's defense costs him friendships but earns him the respect of his two children.
- The Watermelon Man A 1970 comedy concerning a bigoted white man who is permanently turned black and must now contend with a shocked wife, his kids, angry neighbors, cold shoulders at the office and a back seat on the bus.
Subjects: African & African American Studies
- Last Updated: Feb 14, 2024 11:51 AM
- URL: https://libguides.gvsu.edu/aas
