Dorothy is a poor black woman. Her husband is put in jail for no observable reason, and she is pregnant with a second child. The government threatens to take away her welfare if she does not get an abortion.
Social & External
The people behind it
Barbara O. Jones
Dorothy
Johnny Weathers
T.C.
Cora Lee Day
Molly
Simmi Ella Nelson
Simmi
Bettie J. Wilson
Social Worker
Bob Ogburn Jr.
Dahomey Man
Susan Williams
Luann
Ben Collins
Ben
Renna Kraft
Angi
Darian Gibbs
Young Street Boy
An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.
Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field
Ashes and Embers is an original screenplay by Haile Gerima, about a Vietnam veteran, who, several years after the war, is struggling to come to terms with his role in the war, and his role as a Black person in America. He survives by working odd jobs in Washington, D.C. and living with his girlfriend and her son. When criticism of his alienated behavior come from her and a father figure too often, he runs to the streets or to his grandmother's rural house in Virginia. Her criticism and his memories of the past both send him fleeing again to Los Angeles, where he is surrounded by superficial people who have forgotten how to be compassionate human beings. It is here that the advice of his friends and grandmother combine to transform him from an embittered ex-soldier to a strong and confident man.
A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.
A naive young woman moves from the South to stay with her aunt and uncle in Compton. As an outsider, she struggles at first to find her footing, but soon falls into the middle of a community of rebellious youth. She soon becomes more and more aware of the social injustices of the big city.
An enigmatic drifter from the South comes to visit an old acquaintance who now lives in South-Central LA.
In 1902, a Gullah family on the Sea Islands off South Carolina decide whether to migrate to the mainland, risking their unique cultural heritage.
A young African-American man, living in Los Angeles without direction in his life, reluctantly agrees to be the best man for his brother, an upwardly mobile lawyer.
Eddie Warmack, an African American jazz musician, is released from prison for the killing of a white gangster. Not willing to play for the mobsters who control the music industry, including clubs and recording studios, Warmack searches for his mentor and grandfather, the legendary jazz musician Poppa Harris.
In this meditative film the everyday lives of poor Ethiopian peasants are shown using documentary as well as storytelling techniques, with its drama arising out of the timeless yet persistent issues of their lives.
Charlie Banks, chronically unemployed, struggles to find dignity and a meaning for life in the impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts.
Filmed in response to the LAPD’s shooting of Eulia Love in 1979, Gidget Meets Hondo opens with stills taken by Bernard Nicolas of a demonstration against Love’s killing. Nicolas’ Gidget is a self-absorbed young white woman who remains clueless to the violence erupting around her, ultimately to her own peril. The film asks whether such police brutality would be tolerated if the victim were a middle-class white woman.
Sandi and Ana are former classmates who, after a web of coincidences, come across each other after several years. Ana, Sandi’s elementary school crush, is now protesting, and he’s deftly strumming the strings of his guitar. But will he be able to strum on the strings of her heart?
The short film that inspired the upcoming feature film, Escaping Ohio (the short) follows Sam and JJ, two 18-yr-olds facing adulthood. When it becomes clear Sam intends to leave their small town for new adventures in California, JJ dares her to let him prove why Ohio is worth sticking around for.
Two men meet secretly each week in an Italian flat to struggle with their feelings for each other and to wrestle.
Noah - an 18-year-old photographer, gets the opportunity to move away and leave home. But, when the deadline for his portfolio submission approaches, he is faced with the reality of leaving his best friend Dylan behind.
A family is persecuted by I-Kuan Tao, a feudal religious organization.
Héctor returns to his town in the Guatemalan highlands after a difficult migration of many years to the north. That trip has left him wounded. With a possessive mother, a young wife who despises him since her abandonment and a young son who does not know him, Héctor will try to adapt, proposing to live as before, repairing lost time, but he runs into a community that has already discarded him. His violent reaction breaks the fabric of his environment, and he discovers that since he left everything has changed, neither Héctor nor his community will be the same.
Alyoshin, a Soviet journalist working in Argentina, witnessed the kidnapping of photo correspondent.
After impulsively quitting their job, a single parent kidnaps a neighbour’s dog to try and win some prize money at a local dog show.
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but he learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse.
Escaped convict Sam Gillen single-handedly takes on ruthless developers who are determined to evict a widow with two young children.
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Heather bumps into Carla, having not spoken to her in years, and presents her with a very unexpected proposition that could change both of their lives forever.
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
