The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?
32.Day, a news classic by Mehmet Ali Birand, is with you this time with the documentary 50 Years of Cyprus!
The Arkansas school integration crisis and the changes wrought in subsequent years. This film profiles the lives of the nine African-American students who integrated Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the fall of 1957. The film documents the perspective of Jefferson Thomas and his fellow students seven years after their historic achievement. Central to this story is their quiet but brave entrance into Little Rock High, escorted by armed troops under the intense pressure of the on looking crowd. We learn first hand their impressions of the past and present and their hopes for the future. Their selfless heroism broke the integration crisis and pioneered a new era. This film went on to win an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short in 1964.
Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time.
Never-before-seen testimony is included in this documentary on Emmett Louis Till, who, in 1955, was brutally murdered after he whistled at a white woman.
An 8-year journey into divided America, The American Question examines the insidious roots of polarization and distrust through past the past and present, revealing how communities can restore trust in each other to unite our country.
A documentary on the life of Matthew Kennedy, one of the first internationally acclaimed African American concert pianists, and former director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville, Tennessee. The film contains footage of interviews with Dr. Kennedy, live performances, radio broadcasts, studio recordings, and interviews with his former students and colleagues. Born in the segregated South in 1921, Matthew Kennedy was known throughout his home state of Georgia as a child-prodigy. At age 12 he attended a concert given by the famous Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff in Macon, Georgia in 1932. Kennedy describes what he remembers of the concert from his perspective in the segregated balcony for “Colored.” He was also the star of his own radio show in the early 1930s. At that time, Kennedy's stage name on radio and in the cinema – where he played the organ to accompany the silent films – was “Sunshine.”
On the 20th anniversary of the opening of crossing points, OVERCOMING tells the inspiring story of Cypriot women, queers, and antimilitarist cismen challenging militarism and gender norms. Through diverse interviews, the film explores how the opening and closing of the checkpoints, as the sole passageways between north and south, have impacted the lives of Cypriots while revealing their struggles against the ongoing division of the island and their efforts towards a more united future.
In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated... and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether.
Turkish and Greek islanders talk about their losses and their experience of shifting residences across to the north and to the south post-1974. In this Turkish and Greek Cypriot joint production, Zaim and Chrysanthou deal with extremely sensitive socio-historical material successfully.
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.
A portrait of a dilapidated Olympic-sized pool in Accra, Ghana.
A short history of the island is followed by views of the countryside and people in town and village.
Report on vandalism
In 1970 the people of Karmi in Cyprus participate in an unprecedented experience: the shooting of the film "Beloved", with Hollywood cast and crew. This documentary functions as a kaleidoscope, transmitting images of that magical time and of the traumatic changes in their lives after the Turkish invasion. Four decades later, they revisit nostalgically those old beloved days.
In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.
The life story of Richard Pryor (1940-2005), the legendary performer and iconic social satirist who transcended racial and social barriers with his honest, irreverent and biting humor.