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
An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.
In 1902, a Gullah family on the Sea Islands off South Carolina decide whether to migrate to the mainland, risking their unique cultural heritage.
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.
An enigmatic drifter from the South comes to visit an old acquaintance who now lives in South-Central LA.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Through the eyes of the actor, you experience his daily routine. A routine that turns into a madness and glitches out his reality. A Point of View Sci-Fi short film in collaboration with Adobe.
Ranvir Singh Rana, the tough head of a special prison for especially dangerous criminals, suddenly loses his warm spot. Blame everything - the jailbreak of the dangerous bandit Bagheera from prison.
After the war ended, Bachurin returned home with awards, where his family and a huge garden, which he had loved since childhood, were waiting for him. But a decree was issued on the taxation of fruit trees in private estates. And Bachurin ruined the garden, scalding the apple trees with boiling water. So he got his first big term ...
As every year, the celebration of All Saints Day brings Polish families together at the graves of their loved ones. On this special day Maria, 80-year-old widow, visits the graveyard with her son, his wife and their children.
The grotesque portrayal of an attempt at communication, graphically and rigorously depicted: In the LCB's second production, Peter Rühmkorf and Helmut Herbst bitingly trace a relationship story that is already over before it has begun.
Efe and Daniella’s marriage is a profoundly unique union that exhibits the perfect example of “unconditional love” or does it? Daniella is a beautifully alluring young woman who has a borderline mental condition that subjects her to frequent episodes which makes her behave like a 7yr old child. Filmed on locations in Lagos (Nigeria) Las Vegas (USA) and Antigua (Caribbean Island); this is a fascinating tale of romance, love, passion and of a couple’s struggles with an “embarrassing” mental illness.
When sixteen-year-old Lola is forced to relocate to Casper, Wyoming with her anxious, existentialist mother - she ends up falling for her eccentric grandmother's ranch hand.
In this hilarious dramatic comedy, a highly successful diaspora based Nigerian medical Doctor decides to return home and run for the office of the Governor of Anambra state as “a humble stepping stone to becoming the President of Nigeria” but navigating through the dark, murky and very diabolical waters of the Nigerian politics proves quite an uphill task for Dr Mekam.