Film Library

Visual artist/muralist, Sydney G. James, addresses the status of Black women in society, police brutality, family and community through bold brushstrokes and hues that evoke the complexities of Black reality, joy, pain, and resilience. Inspired by personal experiences, current events and her hometown of Detroit, she invites conversations with family members and fellow artists as she creates a new work on canvas and transforms vacant walls into creative spaces.

Three women forge a friendship by swimming daily at sunrise through the winter in Lake Michigan to cope with the pandemic.

A decision delayed for decades allows a Kansas City family to finally unify when they do something that countless African Americans before them could not do—choose their own last name.

For more than a hundred years, movie makeovers have promised audiences that with a little help, any ugly duckling can transform into the belle of the ball. Featuring clips from nearly a hundred films, MAKEOVER MOVIE immerses us in the candy-colored and kinetic world of the makeover montage. Alongside these iconic images, women of color and queer women reflect on the racialized, heteronormative, and contradictory beauty standards at the core of the movie makeover.

La Singla was born deaf and learned to dance flamenco without listening to music. At age 17, she revolutionized flamenco, but before turning 30 years old, she disappeared from the stage. Fifty years later, the time has come to tell her story.

Blending 40 years of home movies, raw film archive, and intimate present-day verité, a poignant reflection from Amy Ray & Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls – the iconic folk rock duo. A timely look into the obstacles, activism, and life lessons of two queer friends who never expected to make it big.

Over the course of two years, HOW WE GET FREE follows Elisabeth Epps as she works to abolish cash bail in Colorado.

Photojournalist Amanda Mustard returns home to Pennsylvania to investigate the sexual abuse crimes committed by her grandfather. A visual whirlwind of memories from her family’s archive unravels a world of secrets through interviews, photographs and home movies. An eight-year cinematic journey, “Great Photo, Lovely Life” chronicles a granddaughter’s attempt to disrupt a cycle of intergenerational trauma through the voices of the survivors and her grandfather himself.

Pola is a nickel miner and family man from Indonesia. The mineral nickel is a key component in electric cars, a supposedly sustainable technology paid for by Pola and his village.

Running out of time and money, editor/publisher Laurie Ezzell Brown battles an oil bust, a global pandemic, and a growing mistrust of the media as she tries to keep her newspaper alive in rural Texas.

When photographer Cig Harvey discovers her best friend has cancer, she sets out to fill her world with color and light. Eat Flowers is film about living.

Dear Thirteen weaves together nine stories of thirteen-year-olds from across the globe. Video diaries and candid interviews reveal how global issues are shaping – and being shaped by – young people: rising anti-Semitism in Europe, guns in America, gender identity and racial divisions across Australia and Asia. This empathetic portrait of a new generation goes beyond stereotypes of adolescence to capture the complexity of finding a way into adulthood today.