Sing! Fight! Sing! Fight! From LeRoi to Amiri

The Color Purple

December 1985 •English

An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.

The Tulsa Lynching of 1921: A Hidden Story

May 2000 •English

Documents the race riot of 1921 and the destruction of the African-American community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With testimony by eyewitnesses and background accounts by historians.

A Farra do Circo

November 2013 •Portuguese

This documentary highlights the evolution of Brazil's Circo Voador venue from homespun artists' performance space to national cultural institution.

This Beggar's Description

July 2006 •English

It's a sensitive, moving doc chronicling the life of Tétrault's brother Philip , a Montreal poet, musician and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. A promising athlete as a child, Philip began experiencing mood swings in his early 20s. His extended family, including his daughter, share their conflicted feelings love, guilt, shame, anger with the camera. They want to make sure he's safe, but how much can they take?

Daybreak Express

January 1953 •English

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Noble Sissle's Syncopated Ragtime

October 2018 •English

Combining footage unseen since WWI with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible journey that spans "The Harlem Hellfighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural development.

Mirror

March 1975 •Russian

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Finding Forrester

December 2000 •English

Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.

A Life Together: Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon

December 1993 •English

Performance and conversation with husband-and-wife poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon at a New Jersey festival, in their Wilmot (N.H.) hometown and their Eagle Pond farmhouse.

The Language of Trees

January 1983 •Spanish

An exploration on Paz's poetry by Paz himself, his childhood, his ideas about love and the nature of art

Song

April 2014 •Finnish

Song is a story of the last Finnish rune singer and his pupil, and the comforting power of singing.

Congo Cabaret

March 2018 •English

Harlem, 1926. A “sweetman” Zeddy, living off a woman, brings a country girl he’s trying to impress to a gay-owned cabaret. There he meets a friend, Jake, whose girlfriend, Congo Rose, is the singer there. Drama swirls around the characters as Zeddy confronts the cabaret owner, about his sexuality. Congo Rose, seeking to reignite her man’s fading interest, puts on a performance, with her Pansy Dancer, of a Bessie Smith song that seduces the whole room, especially Zeddy.

Gerry Weil: Una historia de jazz

June 2025 •Spanish

Retratação

October 2019 •English

Fernando Lemos, a Portuguese surrealist artist, fled from dictatorship to Brazil in 1952 searching for something better. The movie follows the last moments of his journey and the struggle for the preservation of his legacy, trying to fulfill his last great desire: to be a good dead man.

The Story Within the Story: Gary, Indiana

Invalid date •English

A small urban city with a gargantuan wealth of history, contributions, and changes. From the steel industry, music, politics, education, and sports; Gary, Indiana has made its mark on the region, state, and country. With all of the richness found in this jewel in northwest Indiana, why has it declined economically and will it become "City of the Century" as it was previously?

Sénac, Jean. Algérien, Poète

January 2011 •French

Jean Sénac, born in Béni Saf in Algeria in 1926 and died in Algiers in 1973, is today considered one of the great French writers and poets and the only one of his reputation to have accompanied the Algerian revolution before November 1954. part of all the debates and got involved, very early and with immense enthusiasm, in a work of commitment which ended badly. His poetry, his sexual preferences and his political lyricism work against him: rejected as much by the Pieds Noirs as by the FLN activists then by the power in place in Algiers, Jean Sénac was assassinated in 1973 at his home in Algiers, in circumstances never clarified.

3 Minutes with a 12 Piece Band

March 2024 •English

An exploration of the individual components that make up a jazz improvisation, told in 13 parts.

L'Arbre et le Soleil

January 1990 •French

This film is dedicated to Mas-Félipe Delavouët, the poet discovered by Lawrence Durrell, who wrote 14,000 verses in Provençal over a period of thirty years, and who died on November 18, 1990. "The sky, history and Mediterranean and Provençal myths are the inexhaustable wellspring of this man rooted down there, near Salon-de-Provence" (J.-D. Pollet). "Mas-Félipe Delavouët wrote five books in Provençal, 14,000 verses. A sort of "Odyssey". Of myths. What is stunning in him is that he always talks of disappearances. Cities, works, men, writings, television, etc., everything has to disappear. In order to be reborn. No pain. A sort of hand-to-hand of man and nature. During the filming, I would simply throw out some words... For example, one time I said "creation" and he said: "creation doesn't exist..., creation is before me..., I can only read creation"; this sentence describes Delavouët perfectly (J.-D. Pollet, 1989 and 1993).

Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives

February 2003 •English

When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. Over 70 years later, the memories of some 2,000 slave-era survivors were transcribed and preserved by the Library of Congress. These first-person anecdotes, ranging from the brutal to the bittersweet, have been brought to vivid life in this unique HBO documentary special, featuring the on-camera voices of over a dozen top African-American actors.

Luiz Villas-Boas: A Última Viagem

March 2024 •Portuguese