Multi-Cultural Studies and Immigration Films

Angano...Angano, Tales from Madagascar

Directed by: Marie-Clemence & Cesar Paes
Produced by: Marie-Clemence Paes

Angano...Angnao is a journey through tales and legends to discover Madagascar, a voyage between reality and imaginary, a subjective and impressionistic vision, tinged with humor and tenderness.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99

"AN ANGEL IN THE VILLAGE” deftly weaves Yeh’s Africa sojourn together with the story of her evolution from tradition-bound artist to social change visionary.”
—Eils Lotozo, Philadelphia Weekly

AN ANGEL IN THE VILLAGE is an inspiring documentary which traces the 20-year journey of Lily Yeh, a Chinese-born activist artist who uses art to create social change among residents of inner-city Philadelphia and Korogocho, Kenya. 

Between Earth & Sky

Directed by: Kalyanee Mam & David Mendez
Produced by: Kalyanee Mam

Torn from home and country and set adrift in a foreign world, three young Iraqi refugees struggle to find hope as they yearn for a lost past and face a desperate and uncertain future. Unique in its storytelling, Between Earth & Sky takes you into a world within – a world of lost dreams, quiet beauty and gentle strength.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$100
Home Viewing	$20

Between Two Worlds

Between Two Worlds: The Hmong Shaman In America powerfully exposes the struggle of Hmong refugees in America. This classic documentary traces the lives of three Hmong families displaces thousands of miles from their villages in Northern Laos and alienated in American cities. Renowned anthropologist, Dwight Conquergood, narrates the rich history of shamanic rituals and explains the similarity between Hmong beliefs and those of Aboriginal people of the Americas.

Blue Collar and Buddha

"BLUE COLLAR AND BUDDHA" is that rarity among documentary films - a compelling human document, a proactive statement, a moving exploration of both anger and gentleness. This is not merely a first rate film—it's an important one."
- Donald Spoto, author, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock

This Dramatic Documentary explores America's most recent refugees, struggling against the mounting tension of a post-Vietnam era filled with guilt and anger. A group of Laotian era filled with guilt and anger. A group of Laotian refugees have built a Buddhist temple on a small farmstead on the outskirts of a resolutely blue collar town. Their efforts to preserve their culture and religious heritage have been greeted by several terrorist attacks upon their temple.

Blue Collar and Buddha is a moving portrait of the experience of today's refugees and the dramas that results when East meets West.

Journey with Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in search of the indigenous children she photographed fifteen years ago. This film invites you to see through the eyes of these remarkably resilient people whose lives are transformed by a road carved through their forest home by an outside world. From Chief Amir Surui’s embattled efforts to stop illegal loggers to the assassination of legendary rubber tapper Chico Mendes, this poetic and visually stunning film engages our senses and sympathies as global issues take on a profound human perspective.

LICENSE	PRICE
Home Viewing	$21

Children of IBDAA:
To Create Something Out of Nothing

CHILDREN OF IBDAA: To Create Something Out of Nothing is about the lives of several adolescents in a Palestinian children's dance troupefrom Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. They use their performance to express the history, struggle, and aspirations of the Palestinian people, specifically the fight to return to their homeland. Through interviews and documentation of the children, the film offers insight into their families' displacement from their villages in historical Palestine, the physically and emotionally stressful aspects of life in a refugee camp, and the unique experience of participating in the politically motivated dance troupe. The story culminates in a visit by the children for the first time to demolished villages from which their grandparents were expelled in 1948.

Bombhunters

Directed by: Skye Fitzgerald
Produced by: Skye Fitzgerald

Bombhunters is an engrossing examination of the micro-economy that has emerged in Cambodia of untrained civilians harvesting unexploded bombs as scrap metal.  Part of a global economy, these individuals clear UXO from their land to protect their families from harm and to earn money to survive.  Bombhunters is an eye-opening investigation of the residual effects of war experienced by post-conflict nations around the globe, and the complex realities of achieving “peace.”

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$249
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99
Home Viewing	$24.95

Disenchanted Forest

Directed by: Sarita Siegel
Produced by: Taggart Siegel

We call them o-rang-u-tans, which literally means "forest persons" in the Malay and Indonesian languages. They are the only great apes native to Asia. Of all the apes, they are the closest to man in genetic makeup. And they face extinction.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$100
Home Viewing	$23.99

A Dream in Doubt is an immigrant story in a world in which patriotism has morphed into murder. When Rana Singh Sodhi’s brother is killed in America’s first post-9/11 revenge murder, he begins a journey to reclaim his American dream and fight the hate that continues to threaten his community. This intimate, hour-long documentary of one man’s odyssey from persecution in India to embracing America as his homeland proves that courage and hope have the power to overcome hate.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$265
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99
Home Viewing	$24.95

Dreams in Another Language

Directed by: Lucia Rikaki
Produced by: Lucia Rikaki

Dreams in Another Language is the story of the Faneromeni school in Cyprus where students from a mosaic of different nationalities are taught about acceptance, coexisting and the wealth of sharing cultures. The particular geographical and political set up of the school, situated only 500 meters from the Green line separating the country, provides interesting ground for reflection on recent Cyprus history and the recent history of the new migrating nations..

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99

Every Child Is Born A Poet

"The deeply felt resonance of "EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET" derives from Piri Thomas' unique ability to connect with his own interior life of feelings, and then to verbalize them through his art to the rest of the world."
– Jon Gartenberg

A fiery mix of documentary, drama, & spoken-word poetry, EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET explores the life and work of Piri Thomas, the Afro-Cuban-Puerto Rican author of the classic autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets. The film traces Thomas’ path from childhood to manhood in New York City’s Spanish Harlem, El Barrio, from the 1930's through the 1960’s – from home life during the Great Depression, to membership in barrio youth gangs, from a life of crime through six years spent in prison to his emergence as a writer.

Special Educational 16 Page Study Guide Included

The shocking hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers catapult a small Long Island town into national headlines, unmasking a new front line in the border wars: suburbia. For nearly a year, filmmakers Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini lived and worked in Farmingville, New York, so they could capture first-hand the stories of residents, day laborers and activists on all sides of the debate. This timely and powerful film is more than a story about illegal immigration. Ultimately it challenges viewers to ask what the 'American dream' really means.

Resource guide, Discussion guide and Transcript available from Active Resource's Farmingville campaign page.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION
LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99.95
Home Viewing	$21

BILINGUAL SPANISH/ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION
LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99.95
Home Viewing	$21

Finding Face

Directed by: Skye Fitzgerald
Produced by: Skye Fitzgerald

When she was sixteen, Tat Marina was brutally attacked by a jealous woman and her bodyguards who poured highly toxic nitric acid over her head in front of hundreds of witnesses. Finding Face investigates the fracturing of Marina’s family across transnational boundaries and documents the family’s disparate responses to the knowledge that none of Marina’s attackers have been arrested despite widespread knowledge of their identities.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$249
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99
Home Viewing	$24.95

Freedom on the Fence

Directed by: Glenn Holsten and Andrea Marks
Produced by: Andrea Marks

Freedom on the Fence details the evolution of Polish poster art by revealing the unique role posters played in the social, political and cultural life of Poland, from WWII through the fall of Communism. The 40 min. documentary brings this story to life through interviews with leading Polish poster artists, and commentaries from both American and Polish scholars on the significance of the Polish poster as a cultural icon.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99.95
Home Viewing	$24.95

“The effects of the US/Cuba impasse has never felt more personal than in this true story of twin sisters......an incredible documentary. An emotional convergence of politics and family.”
– Festival of Women’s Film & Media Arts, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2007

Two sisters. One passion. Romance. Revolution. Estrangement.

MIRROR DANCE tells the story of Margarita and Ramona de Saa, twin sisters who danced with the National Ballet of Cuba, whose once inseparable relationship was torn apart by love and politics.

"...This fine first feature is a disarming personal documentary that turns into a very moving consideration of...individual heroism. Winner of a well-deserved jury prize..."
- Variety

Born on Cambodian New Year in a refugee camp, Socheata grew up in the United States not knowing anything about her family’s past. She journeys to Cambodia to discover the secrets of how her family came together during the Khmer Rouge period. She finds that what her parents hid in shame also proves their great heroism. NEW YEAR BABY is a love story – a celebration of family and the power of commitment.

Download New Years Baby discussion guide (PDF)

Saudade Do Futuro

Directed by: Marie-Clemence & Cesar Paes
Produced by: Marie-Clemence & Cesar Paes

Saudade Do Futuro features the city of Sãu Paulo and its street poets. To the rhythm and rhymes of musical improvised poetry, journalist or simple maid, art-gallery director or cab driver, the immigrants from the Northeast tell us the beat of the megalopolis.

LICENSE	PRICE
University and College	$250
High School, Community Libraries & Non Profits	$99

The Split Horn:
Life of a Hmong Shaman in America

"It would be difficult for another documentary to equal the scope of Taggart Siegel's film "THE SPLIT HORN: Life of a Hmong shaman in America."
— Justin Lowe, Asian Week

The Split Horn is the sweeping story of a Hmong shaman and his family living in Appleton, Wisconsin. Documenting the journey of Paja Thao and his family from the mountains of Laos to the heartland of America this poignant film shows a shaman's struggle to maintain his ancient traditions as his children embrace American culture. American has become the testing ground for the enduring strength of Hmong culture. The evocative narrative captures the daily struggle to Paja Thao's family between two worlds.