The Truth About Reading

Le monde est à eux

A City Decides chronicles the events that led to the integration of the St. Louis public schools in 1954. An Oscar-nominated short documentary from 1956.

An entertaining video filmed over two years. Kids, teachers, heads, parents, ex-pupils tell the story of this unique experimental school. “Kids don’t have to go to lessons at Summerhill and can wear and do mostly what they want. How does that work??!!

This educational film from the 1950s instructs viewers how to prepare for a class report.

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

A documentary about an innovative Disability Studies class at NYU Tandon School of Engineering where engineering students and adults with cerebral palsy learn to communicate, connect, and cultivate their abilities by making movies.

"Sticky" is everything your mother was too embarrassed to tell you about masturbation, in one stimulating documentary. Full of candid interviews from celebrated figures to everyday people, health care professionals, sex therapists, zoologists, anthropologists, and religious figures, this feature length doc answers age-old questions like: What is masturbation? Will it make me go blind? Is it "normal"? Is it wrong? And why are we so afraid to be caught in the act? In a world where confusion about sexuality remains at the root of so many societal problems - rape, sexual abuse, and the threat of sexually transmitted diseases - "Sticky" will help shatter misconceptions and myths surrounding this intimate aspect of human sexuality.

Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, 2011. Maider, a filmmaker, moves to the very same flat where pedadogist Elbira Zipitria Irastorza (1906-1982) clandestinely established the first ikastola, a Basque school, under the harsh regime of dictator Francisco Franco. Despite of her pioneering work, developed throughout thirty years, her story is not well known, so Maider, intrigued, begins to research…

A year in the life of one of America's most innovative classrooms where students design & build to transform their hometown community. The film follows Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller as they teach the fundamentals of design, architecture and construction to a class of high school juniors in rural North Carolina.

Dance for All

A documentary that introduces FIT Hives, a student-run organization whose mission is to educate the FIT community about the importance of bees to the environment, the use of bee-derived resources in the industries related to the majors at FIT and its goal to put a beehive on the roof. FIT Hives is a recipient of an FIT Innovation Grant which also supported the making of this documentary.

Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) tours the Middle East to discuss the war on terror with Arabic people.

Recounts the epic of Vincennes Experimental University Center, from its creation after the events of May 68 until its demolition in the summer of 1980. To talk about Vincennes is to relive unique ten years of intense intellectual and political extravaganza, educational and artistic inventiveness, utopias, hopes, and betrayals that marked the history in a unique place, the forest with the eponymous name.

Being and Becoming explore the choice not to school ones children, to trust them and to let them learn freely what they are passionate about. Through four countries, the US, Germany (where it's illegal not to go to school), France and the UK, the film is a truth quest about the natural desire to learn.

Documentary profiling an Appalachian farming family struggling to scrape out a living. Link­ing education and economic development, The Children Must Learn suggests that better schooling, especially in agricultural techniques, would bring improvement.

A library on four legs, the world's only existing Camel Library is located in Northern Kenya. As they pass antelopes and giraffes, the heavily loadedcaravan of camels are routinely carrying books through the rough savannah.In the villages with their houses of mud and dung these tenacious desert ships are wishfully awaited by the people of the nomadic Muslim tribes. Under the shade of acacia trees, especially the children are excitedly turning pages of school books, novels and comics. However, 400 kilometers outside of the capital city of Nairobi the local librarians are still struggling with illiteracy, old traditions, insufficient funds, blistering sun and - stubborn camels... This is the story about the Camel Library, about inquisitive children, about the origins of a book and about a camel and an exceptional librarian in the heart of Africa within the UNESCO-world decade of alphabetization.

Elvis Sabin’s assured debut follows Albert and André, two Central African Aka Pygmies, as they attempt to establish a new education system in their forest community. The last in their village still attending school, they are determined to pass their knowledge on, holding classes for other Aka children every afternoon. But their project requires funding and they are counting on the year’s caterpillar (known as “Makongo”) harvest to provide much needed income. Evocatively capturing the visual and sonic textures of the forest, Makongo is a layered ethnographic study of two men working to build a sustainable future for their community.

In the late 1960s, with the triumph of bilingualism and biculturalism, New Brunswick's Université de Moncton became the setting for the awakening of Acadian nationalism after centuries of defeatism and resignation. Although 40% of the province's population spoke French, they had been unable to make their voices heard. The movement started with students-sit-ins, demonstrations against Parliament, run-ins with the police - and soon spread to a majority of Acadians. The film captures the behind-the-scenes action and the students' determination to bring about change. An invaluable document of the rebirth of a people.

The documentary portrays the desires and ftures of four young people from the third year of secundary education in Chile. Two of them attend the industrial high school in the San Joaquín commune, where they have already begun their training as a textile technician. They both have dreams, they want to study, work, start a family and improve themselves. On the other hand, at the exclusive Saint George school, two students study in privileged conditions. They want to be professionals and develop through the arts. This is the portrait of two worlds located less than 20 kilometers apart and that can only be together in the audiovisual montage. It is the manifestation of the coincidences and contradictions that exist between the realities and the discourses of four young Chilean students in a fundamental stage for their future.

This documentary film asks whether a citizens' experiment, the CSA (Community-supported Agriculture), developing new partnership models between consumers and farmers, has the power to change society.