Donate
Documentary Educational Resources is committed to helping filmmakers produce movies that communicate ideas about our world's culture. We help independent filmmakers for one reason: story. Stories inform us about who we are, where we're going, and what we have done. Stories help shape the richness of our lives.
Richness in a story is more than an interesting anecdote or historial overview. A story allows us to look through another's eyes. In looking through those eyes, you chance a view of the world informed by another's thoughts.
Unfortunately, many important stories go untold - this is often our experience with commercial media. For this reason we would like you to support independent media. Through your support you allow our filmmakers to tell stories from perspectives that would otherwise go unheard.
Below is a list of documentary projects sponsored by Documentary Educational Resources. Donate to individual projects using credit card by clicking the donate button found at the bottom of each project's description. You may also view a list of our previous fiscal sponsorships.
If you are outside the United States, please contact us to make a donation by check or money order. All checks should be made out to DER.
Please note: All donations made to DER are tax-deductible.
Ankle Straps
68 year old Professor Emeritus John Southard recently came out to his M.I.T colleagues as a cross-dresser after nearly 40 years of easy collegiality. His exuberant outing is reflected, in part, by his efforts to reach out as an educator and counselor to other closeted students and faculty. Unfortunately, the institution is not an easy one to penetrate. John is eager to show his female persona, Tephra to his colleagues. A department fundraiser is planned, and John hopes this will be an opportunity to dress - and introduce Tephra. His consuming desire is to be finally accepted as a full person in the department as well as in society. So far, his efforts have been met with mixed reactions of unease, curiosity, indifference or avoidance. John's journey weaves a story that intersects gender presentation, acceptance, the immutability of established institutions and the ultimate affirmation of the human spirit.
Visit the filmmaker's website: www.mineralkingproductions.com
Arthur Polonsky: The Release from Reason
When the artist Arthur Polonsky turned 85, his son Gabriel decided to make a simple film about him, and found himself on an unexpected journey of his own. Discovering that he never knew how well known, admired and loved his father is in the Boston art community, the stage was now set for an all-encompassing historic portrait of one of the most important Boston painters of the 20th century. Beginning with Arthur's meteoric early career - major international exhibitions, a feature in LIFE Magazine, and broad critical acclaim, the film follows the triumphs and struggles of a life committed to art over seven decades. It reveals how Arthur is perceived by the art world, by himself, and by his son through the lens of his camera.
Filled with beautiful images of his work, Arthur Polonsky: The Release from Reason also reveals his philosophies on art and life, as he shares his humor and fascinating stories. Arthur was a prominent “Boston Expressionist,” (a name given to a loose group of young artists who graduated from the Museum School in the early 1950's) he is described as a “true visionary,” whose work is “mystical, mysterious, and spiritual,” yet he rejects those labels and “isms.” His role in this important era of American art is brought to life though archival images, and interviews with Boston's leading museum curators, scholars, fellow artists and the man who lived it, Arthur himself.
And finally, we find Arthur as he is today, full of life, returning to his studio to work on new paintings, revitalized by this film project that reconnects him with his son, old friends and colleagues, and past days of glory.
"There is this kind of mutual acceptance of the artist as some sort of magic-maker, that he is feared and admired unreasonably. This interests me because I think that art is the release from reason. That it lives in a world where reason is the goal as well. There it is interpreted, loved, and maybe useful. That's the word—I always wanted to find art useful in some way." —Arthur Polonsky.
Visit the filmmaker's website: APolonskyFilm.com
Bassac
Bassac follows a struggling theatre troupe through a performance in the Cambodian countryside. Lingering signs of war are etched into the performers and the villagers for whom they perform. The troupe's director, Len Chouen barely survived the Khmer Rouge's eradication of artists and intellectuals. After hiding in the jungle, he emerged to do the only thing he knows how to do: perform Bassac.
The film follows Len Chouen and his troupe as they perform and build themselves a permanent home. Bassac opera is unique in combining ancient mythology with indigenous Cambodian experience. These stories echo the memories of recent genocide and soothe the audience with the beauty of their history. The efforts of the performers to build their home brings an economic boost to a region carpeted with land mines. Members from every echelon of Cambodian culture, from His Royal Highness King Norodom to impoverished villagers watching the show, are included in expressing what this art form means to them, and to the healing of their nation.
Big Top Without Borders
Big Top Without Borders is the story of two circuses, started by two friends, from two different corners of the world: Igloolik, Nunavut, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle; and Conakry, Guinea, in Equatorial Africa. By embracing their traditions and harnessing the enthusiasm of two youth populations, these circuses give self-confidence and hope to a new generation of visually stunning circus performers.
Visit the film's official website at www.bigtopwithoutborders.com
Canada Lee - MAN OUT FRONT
Canada Lee was one of the greatest African American actors of the 20th Century, but most people have never heard his name. Lee poured his talent into fighting for racial equality. His uncompromising stance prompted the U.S. Government to label him a Communist, destroying his reputation and career. With the support of the Canada Lee Heritage Foundation and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Canada Lee - MAN OUT FRONT is the first film to explore his life and legacy.
Visit the official website: www.canadaleedoc.com
Cartoon College
Cartoon College (working title) is the definitive story of contemporary comics as seen through the eyes of the students and faculty of the Center for Cartoon Studies, America's premiere institution of higher learning for the study of comics-making. This feature-length documentary chronicles a generation of artists at the dawn of a creative and social epiphany.
Since its inception in 2005, the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont has welcomed aspiring cartoonists from all over the world to study the art of making comics — a medium that after a hundred years of superheroes and Sunday funnies is just now beginning to tackle issues of universal importance. As celebrated cartoonist and CCS faculty Jason Lutes put it, “[Comics] are a means of expression that can encompass virtually any subject. There's this vast untapped potential.” Today CCS is helping to facilitate a new breed of cartoonist, outsider artists who, like the poets and folk singers of the early 1960s or the graffiti artists and punk rockers of the early ‘80s, are threatening to unleash their own brand of creative expression into the mainstream and claim a spot near the top of the cultural hierarchy.
A Civil Remedy
A Civil Remedy is a short documentary film about a vision of justice for children and women who are trafficked for sex in America.
The story of sex trafficking involves vulnerability, systemic and systematic violence, entrenched inequalities, shocking profitability, and the failure of law. The film tells the story of one victim who survived - an American girl who was trafficked into prostitution in Boston at the age of seventeen, escaped to her family, and survived to finish school and become an anti-trafficking advocate.
Against this backdrop, the film weaves the perspectives of three commentators — Gloria Steinem, Cherie Jimenez, and Siddharth Kara — as they explore the importance of survivors' stories, the meaning of justice, and the need to place new legal tools in the hands of victims. A civil remedy — a state civil action for damages against traffickers, pimps, and purchasers — will empower victims to reclaim their equal place in their community, see their violators held accountable, and drain resources from this global sex industry.
For more information, visit: www.filmandlaw.com
The Club
The Club is a candid documentary film exploring the lives of several women across the world who lost their mothers in their formative years, and the impact this loss has had on the unconventional lives they've made for themselves and ultimately the women they've become.
Chronicling the stories of four women from a range of different backgrounds, at varying stages of their lives who are all still identifying their own paths and how their mother's absence has and continues to play a role in their lives. The gracious contributions of Rosie O'Donnell, Molly Shannon and NY Times Bestselling author of Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman, also demonstrates the gravitas of this subject matter.
From the heart of Sao Paulo, Brazil to the bustling streets of New York City; the seemingly idyllic Calabasas, California to the hot and sweaty Deep South, all the way across to the alternative hub of Bristol England; this film is an eclectic patchwork of personal stories woven together with rich archival footage to give theirexperiences context and the film a strong sense of intimacy and nostalgia. As women who lost their mothers during childhood, the filmmakers will offer a unique approach and a sense of authenticity that aims to be an honest yet hopeful depiction of the long-term impacts of early mother loss.
For more information, please visit: www.theclubdocumentary.com
Cotton Road
Cotton Road is a film and internet-based media project about the people that drive the transnational flow of cotton. Through both a linear documentary film and interactive mapping project, audiences and users journey alongside cotton's global supply chain as raw cotton is transported from South Carolina farms to China, turned into a product, and shipped back to America for consumption. The film's story and its interactive map bring transparency to the human and environmental costs behind the products we consume and challenges us to reconsider our rapacious desire for cheap products.
Devil May Care
In Devil May Care, Bob Dorough, the 86-year-old musical legend behind Schoolhouse Rock, proves how creativity can keep you young; he rises at dawn to compose new tunes, travels the world for gigs, and drinks his younger band-mates under the table. Ever the enduring hipster, Dorough is the unlikely “leading man” in a film that charts his resilience and celebrates his panache — and just happens to give an offbeat history of American popular culture as he recounts collaborations with Miles Davis, Lenny Bruce, Lawrence Ferlenghetti, Maya Angelou, Sugar Ray Robinson, The Fugs, Charlie Parker, David Johanssen (to name a few). Throughout the film — and precisely because of it — we see contemplation and vulnerability pierce the showman's cloak, even as his indomitable spirit reverberates beyond the film. Provocative and character-driven (with a quirky, charismatic character), this is an “anti-biopic,” a film of wide interest for its story, its visual style and its diverse soundtrack.
Visit the official website: www.devilmaycarethemovie.com
Directing Dissent
Directing Dissent is a film about John Roemer, teacher and social activist, and his decisions to either live within the law, or have a sound basis for civil disobedience. It not only shows his distinctive and unconventional style of teaching, but uses it as a framework within which to explore his past.
Roemer's story involves near-death experiences and adventures, both as director of the Maryland ACLU and while playing a pivotal role in helping to integrate Maryland. In the conversations with Roemer he discusses significant personal and historical issues, including Plessy v. Ferguson (1896, a Supreme Court decision upholding racial segregation in private businesses under the doctrine of "separate but equal"), the Gwynn Oak Park demonstrations, integrating the ocean, and why civil liberties are important. At the same time, it is our hope that Directing Dissent will speak directly to and energize those who continue to advocate for social change — from teachers to activists, social workers to students.
Directing Dissent is seeking tax-deductible contributions for the production and distribution of this film.
Visit the official website: www.directingdissent.com.
Divided Families
There are an estimated 100,000 first generation Korean Americans with immediate family members in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). These families have been left divided for over 50 years and many of them have already passed away, or are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Though American citizens, there are no formal mechanisms for family members to identify or even dream of reunion with their family in the DPRK. Sadly, many of us are not aware of this tragedy.
Divided Families is a documentary retracing story of one divided family member, Mrs. Chahee Lee Stanfield, a retired librarian in Chicago. For over thirty years she has lived the American dream, leaving a home ravaged by wars to forge her own destiny. She remembers the moment when she was separated from her father and her brother. It was the eve of the Pacific War and her family decided to go back home to Taegu, Korea after living in Manchuria. She left with her mother on a train to Taegu and her father and brother were supposed to meet them one week later but in that week, political lines were drawn. She didn't know that her departure from that train station would be the last that she would ever see them and without having the chance to ever say goodbye, over half a century would pass.
Many Korean Americans share her story and are waiting for that day when they would see their families. Because of this collective tragedy, ChaHee has organized a movement to fight for this generation's right to see their family members before it's too late.
This is a journey of separation, immigration, and epic search for a father and a brother in a rush against time.
Visit the film's website at www.dividedfamilies.com.
To make a donation to this film, click the donate button below.
Down the Fort
Down The Fort is a multimedia public history documentary and archive project for "the Fort," a traditional Sicilian fishing enclave adjacent to the historic Gloucester harbor. It is a collection of oral histories, visual artifacts and local expressive culture gathered from individuals, businesses and families tied to the Fort. It offers a permanent record and preserves valuable memories for families and a city whose roots emanate from this historic neighborhood. It also creates a channel of expression for members of the community looking to celebrate and honor the generations of families who have lived, worked, loved and died "down the Fort.'
Visit the official website: www.downthefort.com
Exit Zero
How long does the impact of deindustrialization last? Exit Zero uses family stories to offer an intimate portrait of the former steel mill community of Southeast Chicago and the lasting effects that the loss of heavy industry has had on the region. Interweaving home movies, found footage, and a first person narrative, the film traces the stories of multiple generations of filmmaker Christine Walley's family in this once-thriving steel mill community. From the turn-of-the-century arrival of immigrants to work in Chicago's mammoth industries to the labor struggles of the 1930s to the seemingly unfathomable closure of the steel mills in the 1980s and 90s, these family stories convey a history that serves as a microcosm of the nation.
Following Walley's father, a former steelworker, as he wanders aimlessly through a transformed Calumet region now made up of industrial brownfields, toxic landfills, and gambling casinos, the film suggests the social and environmental stakes of such transformations. Although the film is personal, it tells a story that resonates across some of the crucial disjunctures of our time: the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the collapse of the American Dream for working people, and the toxic legacy of a vanished industrial past.
Field Marks
Field Marks is a feature-length documentary that looks at birdwatchers from all walks of life and investigates the culture of avian observation. Determination can be as transparent as the lens of a binocular - but if you look into the wrong end, you'll see something distorted - something distant. Field Marks goes beyond the stereotypical idea of birder as eccentric affluent, and goes behind the binoculars, gazing into the squinted eyes of the birdwatcher.
Our goal in producing Field Marks is to reveal birdwatching to the general public in an innovative light. The film aims to provide an understanding of birdwatching using a multilayered approach including the personal, the social and the environmental. We are structuring the film in such a way that is both entertaining and educational so that it can be relevant to birdwatchers and non-birdwatchers alike. While birdwatching is enjoyed by almost 50 million Americans, it is still a subculture whose motivations are essential to keep the planet functioning. Through filming and research, we've noticed a correlation between a well-rounded understanding of nature and a desire to protect it. Awareness fosters conservation - and media fosters awareness.
Please visit fieldmarksfilm.com to learn more about our project. We thank you in advance for your interest and support.
From the Bottom of Their Soles: Arts, Education and Achievement in an American Public High School
What happens when an entire city says “The Arts matter”? This film unveils a public-school model built on a foundation of civic, cultural and educational values that consider education without the arts incomplete. In Worcester — a typical midsize, multi-ethnic, working-class city in Central Massachusetts — every September more than 100 students show up in the Burncoat High School dance studio. Every May they perform to a sold-out audience at the Hanover Theatre, one of the top theaters in the world. In the nine months between, they learn more than just how to dance.
The dramatic arc of the film follows the 2011-12 school year from opening fall classes through the climactic spring dance concert to graduation in June. Four years of filming telescope back into previous years' classes, rehearsals and performances but also forward into graduates' lives today, where they are using the skills they learned in Room H15 — skills such as perseverance, teamwork, problem solving and “thinking outside the box” required for success in our “innovation economy“ and in life.
From the Bottom of Their Soles highlights the cause-and-effect links between arts education, creativity and achievement that should be possible in any American public high school.
The Giant Music Box
Three generations of the van der Linde family have been intimately involved in teaching and playing piano in Vermont for nearly four decades. What began as an informal piano camp, founded by Rein and his wife, Rosamond, for their children and their playmates, grew rapidly to become the unique and inspiring piano camp it is today.
In a grand old house with twenty-six pianos filling every nook and cranny, children of all levels and from all around the world learn from a diverse faculty at Summer Sonatina. The Sonatas - live-in piano camp for adults, some who have returned annually for over twenty years - are offered for ten days each month of the year. The Giant Music Box will capture the passion of the four van der Linde daughters and one son, as well as the energy of their mother, Rosamond, a vibrant, unorthodox, yet brilliant teacher. We will follow Polly van der Linde - program director and piano whisperer - and her staff and students through the four seasons, beginning and ending with the Autumn Sonata.
The Giant Music Box will be a moving and inspiring film - rich in sound, full of drama and heart - as we join those who love piano on their individual and collective journey. From the pratfalls of the practice room through pre-concert jitters, we will share, finally, the transformative and joyous experience of making and sharing music in The Giant Music Box.
Greyhound: Racing Into The Light
Revered by royalty from the Egyptian pharaohs to the kings and queens of England, greyhounds were a favored pet and hunting partner. Egyptians considered the birth of a litter of greyhounds second in importance only to the birth of a son. A status symbol for medieval England's ruling class, commoners were forbidden to own greyhounds, and killing one was a capital offense. So elegant their appearance, greyhounds are featured in many classic and Renaissance masterpieces.
Sadly, however, if not for a greyhound's likeness on the side of a bus, a great many Americans today wouldn't know a greyhound from a chihuahua. Fewer know their history or how the greyhound racing industry functions.
Greyhound is the first full-length documentary film to trace the 4,000-year history of this amazing breed and to present an evenhanded, in-depth examination of the controversial greyhound racing industry. The film will include the commentary of racing-greyhound breeders and trainers, track owners, animal scientists, humane groups, veterinarians, racing officials, greyhound adoption groups, state racing commissioners, professional gamblers, and others.
Growing Season
In the heart of Houston, the health department is forging an alliance with vulnerable communities to try to counter both the health and economic insecurities of living in a “food desert,” where fast food is plentiful, but vegetables and fruit are hard to find. Neighborhoods are learning how to grow the produce themselves and the health department is sponsoring the gardens.
Growing Season tells the story of a community garden in one of these neighborhoods: Hiram Clarke. The film follows a single garden and the people who tend it from the moment the ground is broken, until the harvests come in from the first growing season. Will a group of Houstonians, unfamiliar with agriculture, be willing and able to grow and cook their own produce? Growing Season will explore how this new garden shapes the community and the lives of the people who work the soil.
Visit the website: www.growingseasonmovie.com
Holy Ghetto
A film by iLan Azoulai
Tracing the narratives of marginalized women within Tel Aviv's red light district, Holy Ghetto explores the devastating legacy of Israel's long unregulated sex trafficking industry on a generation of silenced, stateless women.
The character-driven film will intimately explore personal narratives that are emblematic of a nation's battle towards recovery: three sex trafficking victims trying to regain their rights as mothers and legal citizens and to liberate themselves from a cycle of prostitution, drugs, poverty and abuse, and an American whose independently-operated shelter struggles to help them. Holy Ghetto will document their stories with authenticity, providing a detailed picture of the landscape from which its victims must recover. At the same time, it will acknowledge Israel's efforts to regulate the industry and rehabilitate the victims. It is a film with global relevance, positioned at a time when nations are fraught with a similar recuperative process.
Visit the film's website: www.holyghetto.com
Hossein Omoumi: Classical Persian Music from Isfahan to Irvine
You have heard it in American movies, world music festivals, celebrations of Rumi's poetry, and at universities across the country. Classical Persian music has a long history of exchange with musical traditions of the Silk Road, and today it is defining its place in the United States. Hossein Omoumi, master of the Persian reed flute called the ney, is an epicenter of this movement. An internationally recognized musician, Omoumi has introduced innovative technology to Persian instruments with centuries of history. He is also a down-to-earth teacher, welcoming students to the labyrinth of Persian music with humor and patience. Omoumi is an endowed professor at University of California in Irvine, and he teaches students nationwide and worldwide via new technologies like Skype.
Hossein Omoumi has made it his life's mission to provide global access to classical Persian music. This documentary film will introduce the history and beauty of classical Persian music through his innovations in education and musical technology. The film engages a diverse audience, following this compelling musician while also providing insight into Persian music itself.
How to Grow a Band
What happens to a musical prodigy after his wife leaves and his band splits up? By the time he turned 25, Chris Thile had already sold two million records with the Grammy-winning, pop-bluegrass trio Nickel Creek and had been called "perhaps the most virtuosic American ever to play the mandolin." Now, broken-hearted and restless, Thile is beginning again.
How to Grow a Band is an up-close look at Chris Thile's daring new project and the musicians he has drafted to help him find his way. The film follows the new band, Punch Brothers, on their first tour as they debut "The Blind Leaving The Blind," Thile's four-movement suite with lyrics inspired by his divorce and the band's intense collaboration. On the road, the Punch Brothers soon face questions about whether Thile can lead them - and his audience - where he wants them to go.
From Punch Brothers' first show at a folk festival in Scotland, to their triumphant performance at Lincoln Center in New York, How to Grow a Band tells a musical coming of age story. It explores the tensions between individual talents and group identity, art and commerce, innocence and wisdom. An intimate portrait of dizzying young talent at a crossroads, How to Grow a Band is ultimately a film about growing up and starting over.
Visit the film's official site.
Hollow: An Interactive Documentary
Hollow: An Interactive Documentary represents a universal struggle shared by rural communities across the United States by focusing on one of the hardest hit areas: Southern West Virginia. Intimate documentary portraits reveal the faces behind the statistics of McDowell County an area plagued with deep-rooted stereotypes, high unemployment, loss of population, youth exodus and poverty as they continue to live, work and enjoy life in a community where the buildings and institutions fall into disrepair around them.
Hollow features 50 documentary portraits mapped on an interactive HTML-5 website that engages viewers through the use of data, personal stories, maps, contemporary footage, user-generated content and archival imagery specifically designed to help address the issue of "rural brain drain" and build a new identity for West Virginians. Members of the community will take part in the filmmaking process by creating 20 of the 50 short documentaries in efforts to build engagement and social trust and empower the community to work together for a better future.
Check out the Hollow Kickstarter campaign.
Visit the official website: www.hollowthefilm.com
Home Country
Maine and Somalia lie at opposite ends of the world, yet are connected by tenuous threads of memory that span the distance between. Home Country is a feature length documentary about personal geography as one young man treads the balance between place and identity in the 21st century.
Visit the film's official site.
Icaros: Songs of the Amazon
Traditional Amazonian healers or curanderos, claim the spirits of the plants communicate with them through lullabies, called Icaros. Every being in the rainforest has an Icaro and its melody alone is believed to possess curative powers. A curandero will sing a plant's song while preparing and administering it as a medicine to invoke the spirit of the plant as an ally in healing. These songs have been described as the "quintessence of shamanic power."
The lullabies are melodic transmissions from earth to man and they display an intimate relationship to nature that is in jeopardy. As we are losing species of plants to deforestation we are also losing Icaros to the buzz of the modern world. The trend of indigenous youth migrating to cities and away from traditional cultural practices leaves elder shaman as the sole keepers of these sacred songs.
We will create an audio-visual archive to preserve the Icaros and a feature documentary to explore their power and history. We will investigate how the songs are used to promote healing, how one learns an Icaro, and how/if speficic songs vary throughout the Amazon.
The Last Hunger Season
The Last Hunger Season is the story of four farm families in Western Kenya who are struggling to improve their livelihoods through agricultural development. Like millions of other smallholder farmers who wrestle with poor soils, tired seeds and fickle rains, Leonida, Francis, Ziborrah, and Rasoa live with a chronic, gnawing emptiness in their bellies. It is at its worst during the hunger season: the months when their previous harvest supplies run out and the new crop is yet to come in. In this part of Kenya 10 percent of children die before their first birthdays, mostly from hunger and malnutrition.
These four farmers have decided to try a likely — but far from guaranteed — solution. An organization called One Acre Fund (www.oneacrefund.org) offers to help them defeat their persistent hunger with improved seeds, fertilizer, training, and market access. It is a leap of faith, putting their trust in new technologies unavailable in the region until recently. As we grieve for their losses and cheer for their successes hope builds for the many like them who, by feeding their families, bring the promise of freedom from future famines to Africa — and the rest of the world.
Visit the official website: www.thelasthungerseason.com
Mozayik
Over two years since the earthquake in Haiti, almost 500,000 people continue to live in 800 tent camps throughout the capital of Port-au-Prince. Mozayik is one of these camps, housing over 150 people. But the people of Mozayik will soon be moved, because Mozayik is about to be evicted.
Mozayik follows the story of Augustin Mona in his battle to galvanize the camp against their eviction and coordinate their displacement. Organizing protests in coordination with local human rights groups, Mona finds himself stuck in between the will of the Haitian government and the inability of international organizations to act.
A musician and painter living in the camp, he has become the impromptu leader of Mozayik. With a strong social conscience and head of dreadlocks stretching down to his legs, Mona demands that the Haitian government and international community respect the rights of Haiti's internally displaced people.
Nawal's Feast
In this excursion through the cradle of civilization, ancient recipes prepared in vibrant neighborhoods restore faith that Iraqi culture endures in those most universal of human activities - cooking and eating.
We are guided through this world by Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi scholar and food writer. The film is based on one of her books, Delights from the Garden of Eden.
The film's dramatic structure moves between demonstrations given in a starkly white studio kitchen outside of Iraq, and those same recipes coming to life in the homey confines of Iraqi kitchens.At the conclusion, a dozen Iraqi scholars share a feast of the dishes Nawal has cooked at a long table set on a darkened stage with only the food and guests lit.
We seek to melt hardened hearts with warm food from Iraq.
For more information, visit the film's website.
Oil in the Family
Oil in the Family is a feature-length documentary film that is both poetry and policy. It explores our marriage to oil through a uniquely personal journey. New England filmmaker Jon Goldman traces his roots (and good fortune) back to his family's Louisiana oil field. There, he discovers that his grandmother played a vital role in the creation of one of the most celebrated - and derided - documentaries ever made, Robert J. Flaherty's Louisiana Story.
Visit the official website: www.oilfilms.com
One in 38
A recent study out of Yale University reports that one in 38 people may have autism spectrum disorders. Yet many of us lack a clear idea of what autism is. Is it a communication disorder or a set of behavior problems? Does it affect the brain or the body? Is autism curable, or does one live with it for the rest of his or her life? What kinds of therapies work? And who should pay for those therapies - families, schools, insurance companies?
One in 38 is a documentary film following three Rhode Island families, each with a child on the autism spectrum, with the goal of answering these questions. In the process we witness just how unique each child is, and how each of the families' stories intersect with a myriad of people involved in their everyday lives — from extended family, to therapists and neurologists, to special education teachers, tutors, and surfing instructors.
Providing important context to the family's stories, One in 38 features leading autism researchers and experts in the areas of developmental neuroscience, genetics, and environmental toxins. The film will also look at the history of mental health services, which reflects society's evolving view of its relationship with those identified as mentally ill, from the era of institutionalization to the current era of community membership and inclusion.
By providing audiences with an intimate view of autism spectrum disorders, One in 38 will engage and educate viewers and help them better understand the impact of autism on society. Audiences will also see how many of the decisions we make today will affect the way that we, our children, and our grandchildren will live tomorrow.
Opus 139
Opus 139: To Hear the Music will tell the story of Charles Brenton Fisk, a brilliant Massachusetts nuclear physicist who turned away from the militaristic developments in his field during World War II in order to pursue his passion for music.
Leaving his early involvement in the Manhattan Project and a graduate program at Stanford University, Fisk returned to coastal Gloucester, Massachusetts to pursue organ building. Over the next 50 years, the C.B.Fisk Pipe Organ Company has become a premier American builder of mechanical action pipe organs, combining exacting physics and mechanical engineering with acoustic artistry to produce the largest of musical instruments.
Now, Charles Fisk's legacy of collegial problem solving is continued by dedicated artists and craftspeople, who will undertake the design and construction of a very special instrument: Opus 139 in Harvard University's Memorial Church. To suit the changing needs of the University's worship space, the new organ will require renovation to the Church's second floor gallery and a design that will allow it to sing with the congregation and grace a landmark of Boston history and architecture.
Trained by Charles Fisk and passionately dedicated to his principles and working method, the modern day guild of artisans at C.B.Fisk, Inc. will strive to help future generations of visitors to Harvard hear the music that entranced their founder.
View the official trailer here.
Our Mockingbird
Our Mockingbird, a one-hour documentary, depicts how Harper Lee's classic coming of age story, To Kill A Mockingbird, still resonates in our national discourse about race, class, and justice. Our Mockingbird is also about the power of arts in education to transform lives as illustrated by a high school production of the adapted play, To Kill A Mockingbird, in Birmingham, Alabama. Two Birmingham high schools, one all-black and one all-white, collaborate on a life-changing production of the play and come to grips with the tumultuous civil rights history in their hometown. Along with the story of the high school production, scholars, writers, students, teachers, lawyers, judges, and actors all weigh in on the influence of To Kill A Mockingbird.
For more information contact: sandy.ourmockingbird@gmail.com
The Paradigm Shift Project - Documentaries that Inform & Inspire Change
Founded by Rebecca Sweetman in 2008, The Paradigm Shift Project (PSP) is a registered Canadian charity that creates documentaries to change worldviews. With a mission to advance education on important issues relating to poverty, ecology, health and human rights, PSP connects people around the world to grassroots projects in developing countries tackling the world's toughest problems, also providing local organizations with tools to reach out for support. PSP is a facilitator, building important relationships to bridge the divisions in our world. PSP is also an educator, informing us on the issues, and more importantly, how we can be part of the solutions.
To date, PSP has produced six documentary films on a variety of environmental and human rights issues that have been viewed roughly 30 000 times in over 100 countries. With funding from private donors, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, DoJiggy Foundation, and Change for the Children Foundation, PSP has conducted in-class outreach with youth in Canada, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, reaching over 2000 students in the past year alone. Additionally, PSP's films have been used by educators in Canadian and American institutions, including the University of Toronto, York University, New York University, and the Cornell Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development. PSP's first set of Educators' Toolkits is now available online on their website. These guides, available free of charge to educators and non-profits, provide detailed curricula to accompany their films for use in classroom contexts.
PSP is currently working on three new documentary projects, on three timely and important issues: sexual slavery in India, Thailand, and Cambodia, waste management solutions in Bali, Indonesia, and slum settlements in Asia and South America.
For more details about PSP, their projects, and how you can help, visit their website: www.theparadigmshiftproject.org
The Paduka of the Guru
The aim of this film is to chronicle the enigmatic and controversial life and legacy of the late religious philosopher Dr. Bibhuti Singh Yadav, from his birth into a low-caste cow-herding clan in a remote rural village of North India to his career as an international scholar and Professor of Indian Religions at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.
The film integrates into Yadav's biography an ancient and enduring ritual performed exclusively by members of the Yadav family and rooted in a myth that narrates the Yadav's identity as a low caste clan who rejected Indra, the high caste god of storm, rain and thunder, to devote their worship to Krishna, himself a member of the low caste Yadav clan. This myth is well known to all India but this particular ritual - Karaha - is not and has never been previously documented. The Yadav ritual specialists defy laws of physics by bathing in clay cauldrons of boiling hot milk and immersing their nearly naked limbs and torso in the raging flames of the holy sacrificial fire. The ritual is a sensational, dramatic, mimetic re-enactment of the identity defining moment in the mythical history of the Yadav family.
Peace Through Education
Peace Through Education is a feature length documentary film that examines the role of education in minimizing conflict and creating critical opportunities for children in Afghanistan.
We will examine this theory through the story of Mohammad Khan Kahroti and his determination to create and build a school for Afghani children in his home village of Shin Kalay. The school existed successfully for eight years, starting with only 16 students and growing to 1200.
Sadly, tragedy struck mid October 2008; an unidentified group of people took it upon themselves to loot the institution, bulldoze it, and destroy everything, leaving it in a heap of rubble on the ground. Their reason: they didn't agree with a secular education for the children of his village.
Through the words of former students and Mohammad himself we will be able to see the impact that Green Village School had on the students and the village of Shin Kalay and the devastating aftermath of its loss. We will follow Mohammad on his emotional journey to rebuild his school; from the fundraising efforts in the US to the brick by brick reconstruction of the Green Village School.
Will Mohammad be able to rebuild his school? Will his village survive this tragedy? These questions will be answered through the journey that lies ahead in Peace Through Education.
Visit the film's official website: www.peacethrougheducationfilm.com.
Pell Grants: A Passion for Education
We are at a crossroads in education.
With the number of financially challenged students struggling to pay for higher education, and Congress threatening to slash the 40-year old Federal Pell Grant program, the time is ripe to investigate the history, the power, and the vitality of these Higher Education grants and their impact on our American values and culture.
Pell Grants: A Passion for Education will dive into the compelling, often suspenseful behind-the-scenes battles privately waged behind closed doors in Washington, D.C. during the 1970's with Senator Claiborne Pell (R.I.) leading the charge while showcasing those leaders who have been positively impacted by the Pell Grant, those who fiercely oppose the program and the current fight for the survival of the Pell Grants by a wave of students actively promoting their views through social networking and media. The war for the future of American education has begun. Who will win?
Rare Bones
Meet Bob. Bob has a rare genetic disorder — he can die if he breaks his bones. His diagnosis is Hardcastle's Syndrome, and he comes from one of only five families in the world known to be affected by this disease. In 2004 Bob was given a life expectancy of five years and told any broken bone would result in cancer, and could be lethal.
RARE BONES, though providing an in-depth look at a family enduring this rare disease, focuses on a life fully lived. Undeterred by his bone risk, Bob engages in activities like hunting, ice fishing, and demolition derby. Bob also started his own tow truck company, called “Hop-to-It Towing” in honor of his amputated leg. Instead of opting for the doctor recommended desk job, Bob chooses to live out his days his way, and on his terms.
Visit the official website: www.rarebonesfilm.com
Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home
In the late 1930s, a determined group of German Jewish refugees left behind well-established lives and most of their possessions in Hitler's Germany to find safe haven in Chicago. Here, these newcomers set out to create a vibrant and supportive community for themselves and others fleeing Nazi persecution, eventually establishing the Selfhelp Home for elderly refugees. Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home tells the story of this singular place that for generations has brought over 1,000 Holocaust survivors and refugees together under one roof.
Through interviews with Selfhelp's residents and founders, some of the last eyewitnesses to this period in history, Refuge moves back and forth seamlessly between their stories — before, during and after World War II — to show how one small community came together, through prescience and pooled resources, to care for its oldest generation.
Visit the official website: storiesofselfhelp-film.com
Relief Riders International
Relief Riders International is a humanitarian-based, adventure travel company that organizes horseback journeys through remote areas while providing humanitarian aid to local people.
Since 2004 Relief Riders International has helped over 18,700 people, including 12,000 children in Rajasthan, India and adds Cappadocia, Turkey to the Relief Ride itinerary in 2011.
Visit the official website: www.reliefridersinternational.com.
Romeo
A new film project by Lorna Lowe Streeter. Romeo, a documentary, examines the complexities of battering through the eyes of Antonio, a 32 year-old, Haitian-American counselor for violent men.
Most of us are unaware of the full extent of battering not only in American society but world-wide. The ramifications of these acts of violence across generations is devastating. Many people in the target audience for this program lead secret lives as a batterer or a victim who struggles to exist in conditions such as those that appear in the film.
Visit the film's official website here.
Shine On
Shine On chronicles seven girls & young women with various physical and intellectual disabilities and their families as they participate in the 5th annual Miss “You Can Do It” Pageant. The contestants are not judged by the fit of the gown or by how perfect they look, but on how brightly they're hearts and spirit shine through.
The real winners of this pageant may just be the family and friends cheering in the audience. In a world where people are always asking what's wrong with these girls and young women, SHINE ON is celebrating what's right with them.
For more information, visit the filmmaker's website: www.shineonfilm.com
A Simple Act
Every night at 8 a miracle happens.
A Simple Act is the story of Patty and Rick Parker and an act of kindness that becomes bigger than those involved. When Rick has to undergo emergency heart surgery seventeen-year-old Rudy Favard, captain of the Malden Catholic football team, steps in to save the family.
Visit the official site: www.14steps.org
Skin Bleaching in Tanzania
The after effects of Arab trade, slavery and colonization in East Africa are explored in this riveting documentary on skin bleaching in Tanzania. The film exposes the untold practices of skin lightening and the motivations that lead women into the lifestyle by going behind closed doors to hear contemporary personal accounts from the users themselves. Discover the controversial institutions that laid the foundation for this mind and body altering practice and see firsthand the extent to which power and privilege have altered the face of Africa.
Sky Endeavors: The Story of a Black Balloon Pilot
The rubber met the road in the early 1970s for Bill Costen. After being drafted by the Buffalo Bills and later being sent to a Buffalo farm team in Hartford, CT, a life-threatening tragedy forced him to put the pads down. The result was a lark that led to the birth of the first African American commercial hot-air balloon pilot in the country.
Sky Endeavors is about more than a 6'5 ex-jock showing the world how to navigate through the clouds; who weathered the ordeal of his mom passing when he was only 10 years old; who flunked out the University of Nebraska his freshman year and moved across the country with something to prove; who warmed the bench in high school only to be drafted in the pros five years later; who survived numerous twists and turns in his life to avoid becoming another ignominious statistic. It is about flight in every sense of the word.
Told through the eyes of Bill's award-winning filmmaker daughter, Chantal Costen, Sky Endeavors is a multi-layered film that displays a story untold, that will prompt a call to your nearest hot air balloon pilot right after it makes you contemplate the meaning of a dream deferred. It is a piece of history that serves as another reminder of the rich tapestry of not only the African American stock, but also humanity.
Sky Endeavors crystallizes the art of struggle and redemption, while providing an unofficial blueprint for not becoming a victim of circumstance. It is the manifestation for father and daughter, of a dream simultaneously realized. Three decades, thousands of passengers and countless adventures later Bill is still flying, proving that with a bit of faith the sky is the limit.
Visit the official website: www.skyendeavorsmovie.com
A Song of Hope: The Life Story of Pauli Murray
The civil rights narrative, as it is most commonly portrayed, is about a movement, led by men, in the mid-1950s and 60s. But that is hardly the whole story. Pauli Murray was arrested for refusing to abide by bus segregation laws, and helped organize the first lunch-counter sit-ins, in the early 40s. She went on to develop a close friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, contribute legal analysis to key civil rights cases fought by the likes of Thurgood Marshall, and become the first black female Episcopal priest; yet, she often had trouble finding work, struggled with society's heterosexual expectations that she could not meet, and lived in constant fear of her own mental illness.
The film will be both a universal story about human rights, and a very personal journey. Pauli Murray (1910 — 1985) was a same gender loving, African-American feminist, activist and lawyer who demanded to be treated as a whole person, and as an equal, at a time when society was not ready. Her life story reflects how social action in the 20th century transformed America.
Visit the filmmaker's website: www.timetravelproduction.com
Soy Andina
Two Peruvian dancers raised in different worlds - an immigrant folk dancer from the Andes, a modern dancer from Queens, NY - return to Peru to reconnect with roots and an astonishing world of traditional dance and culture.
After fifteen years in New York, Nélida Silva returns to her Andean birthplace to host the fiesta patronal - a week of dance, music, and ritual honoring the town's patron saint. But Neli's changed, and so has the village...
Meanwhile, Cynthia Paniagua, a dancer raised in Queens by a Peruvian mom, embarks on her own Peruvian journey after meeting Neli - determined to "quench a burning desire to know the real Peru, to unearth the mystery of the dances."
Soy Andina is an exuberant cross-cultural road trip, propelled by traditional music and dance rarely seen outside the country. But the core story is intimate and universal: a yearning for roots and connection in a globalized world.
Visit the film's website: www.soyandina.com
The Speed of Orange
The Speed of Orange is the latest documentary by award-winning director, Justin Hunt (Absent, American Meth). It explores the horse racing entity known as GHL, a gritty, hard working family on the Colorado Horse Racing Circuit in the 1970s. No other name dominated horse racing in the southwest as much as the Hunts, in that era. The first horse racing film ever shot in 3D, The Speed of Orange offers a fascinating first person perspective into the everyday life of the sport of kings. It also documents the downfall of one of the greatest teams in quarter horse racing history, as well as their redemption, which is brought about only through the aching burn of personal loss when the matriarch slowly loses her battle with cancer. This truly is a story of an ordinary family living in an extraordinary world.
Sunlight Man: The Life & Times of John Gardner
Novelist John Gardner – bestselling author of Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, Nickel Mountain and other works – died in a motorcycle accident in 1982. Sunlight Man is the story of Gardner’s complex life and turbulent times, as seen from the point of view of his filmmaker son, Joel.
Through interviews, archival film, still photographs and present day location shots, Joel Gardner’s odyssey weaves together several parallel stories in Sunlight Man. Joel examines the myths surrounding his father’s early years, including the death of a younger brother in a farm accident. He traces his father’s swift rise to fame with the publication of Grendel, his subsequent fall from critical favor, and tells of his father’s personal struggles – in art and in life – which led to his death at 49.
Alongside his exploration of John Gardner’s life and work, Joel Gardner tells his own story in intimate terms. Joel compares and contrasts the choices he’s made against those of his father. By the end of the film, Sunlight Man, Joel Gardner is able to come to terms with his father, with himself, and with the tangled legacy John Gardner left in his wake.
Tiapapata Art Centre
The Tiapapata Art Centre was established in 1989 with various art courses offered informally to children and adults. Since then the Art Centre has grown to be a dynamic and innovative contributor to the art scene in Samoa and, in June 2006, was registered as a Charitable Trust with the Government of Samoa. Printmaking, ceramics, fabric printing, wood and bone carving, and paper recycling are some of the more popular courses taught. Filmmaking is also a growing field for the Art Centre with particular emphasis on human rights education documentaries (three produced to date with work on a fourth about to start) and ethnographic recordings, mainly of oral traditions associated with archaeological sites in Samoa.
At the end of March 2007, the Tiapapata Art Centre burned to the ground in fire caused by a Raku firing attended by students and teachers from a local high school and university. Luckily no-one was injured but there is now an urgent need for financial support to rebuild the Art Centre.
To Timbuktu with Vieux Farka Toure
Journey on a musical pilgrimage following the extraordinary life and work of Vieux Farka Toure. Born in Mali, West Africa, on the banks of the Niger River just outside of Timbuktu, in a country rich in cultural and ancestral wealth yet bound by economic poverty, Vieux is son to the late guitarist and multi Grammy Award winner Ali Farka Toure. Ali is legend in Mali and one of the most celebrated musicians out of Africa. Rooted in the traditional music from his father, and moved by popular sounds from around the world, Vieux has just made his musical debut and is now at the cutting edge of the world music scene.
We begin the journey in Bamako, the capital of Mali, where Vieux now lives (when he's not on tour), and we'll travel with him throughout the country by 4x4, camel and boat, into the Sahara desert just outside of Timbuktu, where Vieux will perform at the Festival in the Desert. After experiencing the music, variety of cities, people and landscapes in Mali, we'll move to the United States. Here we'll see Mali's connection to American history - a story that goes back the origin of the American blues in West Africa, and the later influence of American soul music in Mali.
Today the musical connections live on through Vieux. As he travels around the world, moving audiences and critics virtually everywhere he steps foot, his universal spirit is connecting him to popular musicians from all walks of life; from NY based DJ's that created his remix album, to American country folk musicians. Beyond a successful debut album, largely due to his ability to make music that is palatable to any ear, his increasing musical collaborations and inspiration throughout the world suggest that his music is bound for an even larger audience and world sound.
With the most frequent media images of Africa focusing on disease, poverty, violence, or an attention to culture that's so specific that we lose any sense of humanity, Vieux's story will show another side. To follow Vieux, we'll experience how music is lived, we'll see the complexities of Africa's fight for survival in the 21st century, and we'll learn how we as an international community are inextricably linked and celebrated through the music of Vieux Farka Toure.
To further explore, visit www.totimbuktu.com.
If you are outside the U.S., please contact us to make a donation by check or money order. All checks should be made out to DER.
To the Village Square
To the Village Square: Democracy and Nuclear Power In The New Millennium, a new feature-length documentary film which chronicles citizen participation in the political battle over the future of Vermont Yankee, one of America's oldest-running nuclear power plants.
Vermont is the only state in the U.S. where the legislature is empowered to make a decision about the future operation of an aging nuclear power plant after its operating license expires. The original 40-year license of the state's only nuclear reactor, Vermont Yankee, is set to expire in March 2012.
Grassroots environmental and anti-nuclear activists have worked for decades calling for the closure of Vermont Yankee, citing environmental and public health dangers from both the routine and accidental releases of radioactivity from the reactor, as well as the unresolved issue of long-term storage of high-level nuclear wastes. Pro-nuclear power advocates and Energy company officials argue that Vermont Yankee and other nuclear power plants operate safely and provide a reliable source of jobs and electricity, without adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
With over 100 hours of HD video material already filmed, To the Village Square will feature the perspectives of people on all sides of the nuclear power debate, including Vermont state Senators and House Representatives, former nuclear power engineers (now turned whistleblowers), grassroots activists, Entergy officials, Vermont Yankee engineers and other plant workers, local residents at town meetings and community forums, state officials, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission representatives, and the candidates for the Vermont Governor's race.
The film is directed by Robbie Leppzer of Turning Tide Productions, whose previous documentaries and commissioned magazine segments have been broadcast nationally on PBS, CNN, CNN International, HBO/Cinemax, Sundance Channel and HDNet, Link TV and Free Speech TV.
Visit the filmmakers website: www.turningtide.com.
Unorthodox
A year spent in Israel is a rite of passage for most teenagers brought up in the American Modern Orthodox Jewish community: nearly all high school graduates, both religious and non-religious, embark on this journey of spiritual renewal. Filmmakers Anna Wexler and Nadja Oertelt followed three teenagers - Chaim, Jake, and Tzipi - as they spent a year studying in Israel. Unorthodox is a film that not only documents the unique year in Israel amongst the Orthodox Jewish population, but also represents a more universal narrative: that of anyone who has ever questioned her most deeply-rooted beliefs.
For more information, visit www.unorthodoxmovie.com.
U.S.E.D.
From the State Capitol and the back-alleys of Denver to above ground syringe exchanges throughout the world, U.S.E.D., a one-hour documentary, sheds light on the politicians, drug addicts, social justice activists, people of faith, police, scientists, and medical professionals raising tough questions about why public parks are littered with dirty syringes and drug users are dying from Hepatitis C and HIV. From one group so fed up with policy that they disobey the law to hand out clean syringes, to concerned citizens working to pass a pro-syringe exchange bill at the Colorado State Legislature, U.S.E.D. chronicles people challenging public health practice and political process. Examining multiple sides of the harm reduction debate, U.S.E.D. tells an internationally relevant story about a neglected population in crisis and a public deciding how to respond.
Uprooted: Memoirs of Jewish Iran
Uprooted: Memoirs of Jewish Iran is a character driven documentary about the exodus of the Jews of Iran as a result of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This story is remarkable in many ways: it is the story of the evolution of the Islamic Republic; it is the story of uprootedness and acclimation--an example of the American immigrant experience; and a story of danger and adventure as many immigrants left Iran clandestinely, at night, with the aid of smugglers--on camels and trucks, and through mountains and deserts. The film will explore the experiences of three women while simultaneously depicting the history of the period through scholarly commentary, stock footage and images. It will examine the fluctuating environment of the time and its effects on Iranian Jewish identity and culture both in Iran and in the United States. Dating back 2500 years, the Jewish community of Iran has a wide girth, deep roots, broad boughs, and a high crest.
If you do not care to donate to any of the projects above, but would still like to support independent media, please give to Documentary Educational Resources by clicking the button on the left. Your money will sponsor the efforts of independent media creation and distribution.
