Skin Deep (1995)

The Aryans

THE ARYANS is Mo Asumang's personal journey into the madness of racism during which she meets German neo-Nazis, the US leading racist, the notorious Tom Metzger and Ku Klux Klan members in the alarming twilight of the Midwest. In The ARYANS Mo questions the completely wrong interpretation of "Aryanism" - a phenomenon of the tall, blond and blue-eyed master race.

Negra

I was about seven years old the first time someone called me \"black\" on the street. I turned around to see who they were talking to, until I realized they were talking to me.

« Je ne suis pas chinetoque » : Histoire du racisme anti-asiatique

Journalist Émilie Tran Nguyen invites the viewer to follow her in her quest and discover, at the same time as her, the historical origins of this anti-Asian racism. Told in the first person, alternating archive images, interviews with historians, sociologists and field sequences, this film traces the making of prejudices in the French imagination and pop culture, to twist the neck of stereotypes, deconstruct and act.

La banlieue, c’est le paradis

In the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.

Racist Trees

Can a tree be racist? A few years ago, debate on this issue reached as far as Fox News. The focus was a row of tamarisk trees along a huge golf course in Palm Springs, which screened off the neighborhood of Crossley Tract. This is a historically Black neighborhood, named after its founder Lawrence Crossley, who was one of the first Black residents to settle in the largely white tourist paradise, established on indigenous land over a century ago.

Be Water

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.

Coded Bias

Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.

Journey into Gaza

“In Gaza you have to get there in the evening, in spring, lock yourself in your room and from there listen to the sounds coming in through the open window.... It's 2018. I am 25 years old and a foreign traveler. I meet young Palestinians my age..”

The Rape of Recy Taylor

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. The film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story.

Two Towns of Jasper

Using two separate filmmaking teams (an all-white crew filming white residents and an all-black camera crew filming black residents), TWO TOWNS OF JASPER captures very different racial views by townsfolk in Jasper, Texas, the location for a racially motivated murder of an African American man in 1998.

The Problem with Apu

In the history of “The Simpsons,” few characters outside the title family have had as much cultural impact as Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Springfield convenience store owner. Comedian Hari Kondabolu is out to show why that might be a problem.

Yellow Fever

What does beauty look like? In this award-winning short, Kenyan filmmaker Ng’endo Mukii combines animation, performance, and experimental techniques to create a visually arresting and psychologically penetrating exploration of the insidious impact of Western beauty standards and media-created ideals on African women’s perceptions of themselves. From hair-straightening to skin-lightening, YELLOW FEVER unpacks the cultural and historical forces that have long made Black women uncomfortable, literally, in their own skin.

FC Roma

A team of Romany football players try to overcome prejudice in this Czech documentary.

Nin E Tepueian: My Cry

NIN E TEPUEIAN - MY CRY is a documentary tracks the journey of Innu poet, actress and activist, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, at a pivotal time in her career as a committed artist. Santiago Bertolino's camera follows a young Innu poet over the course of a year. A voice rises, inspiration builds; another star finds its place amongst the constellation of contemporary Indigenous literature. A voice of prominent magnitude illuminates the road towards healing and renewal: Natasha Kanapé Fontaine.

Show Me Democracy

Amidst the storm of Ferguson, 7 St. Louis college students evolve into advocates and activists as they demand change through policy and protest

Flag Wars

Filmed over four years, this documentary focuses on the impacts of gentrification as gay white professionals move into a largely black working-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.

Statues Also Die

Commissioned by the journal Présence Africaine, this short documentary examines how African art is devalued and alienated through colonial and museum contexts. Beginning with the question of why African works are confined to ethnographic displays while Greek or Egyptian art is celebrated, the film became a landmark of anti-colonial cinema and was banned in France for eight years.

The Musicians' Green Book: An Enduring Legacy

Stories and music of Black artists who relied on an underground travel guide to navigate the injustices of racial segregation while on the road. The Negro Travelers’ Green Book was a directory of lodgings, restaurants, and entertainment venues where African Americans were welcomed. Features performances and interviews with vocalists, musicians, activists, historians, and others.

Incarceration Nation

An examination of the connection between relentless government intervention since colonisation to the trauma and disadvantage experiences by Indigenous Australians - the two key drivers of incarceration.

Welcome to Leith

In September 2012, the tiny prairie town of Leith, North Dakota, sees its population of 24 grow by one. As the new resident's behavior becomes more threatening, tensions soar, and the residents desperately look for ways to expel their unwanted neighbor.

Alt-Right: Age of Rage

In the first year of Trump’s Presidency, Daryle Lamont Jenkins, an Antifa activist, combats the rise of the Alt-Right movement, while Richard Spencer, an Alt-Right leader, fights to gain ground, culminating in a tragic showdown in Charlottesville.

What Happened, Miss Simone?

The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.

2018 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary

The year’s most spectacular Documentary short films.

Free to Be… You and Me

Free to Be…You and Me, a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a record album, and illustrated book first released in November 1972, featuring songs and stories from many current celebrities of the day (credited as "Marlo Thomas and Friends") such as Alan Alda, Rosey Grier, Cicely Tyson, Carol Channing, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross, among others. An ABC Afterschool Special using poetry, songs, and sketches, followed two years later in March 1974. The basic concept is to encourage a post-60's gender neutrality, while saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and happiness with one's identity. A major thematic message is that anyone, whether a boy or a girl, can achieve anything.

Falácias

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Killing America

A 38 minute documentary that investigates why antisemitism exploded in Bay Area High Schools after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. This comes after years of anti-Asian hate and anti-white hate.

The Australian Dream

AFL legend Adam Goodes shares the story of his life and career to offer a deeper insight into race, identity, and belonging.

White Noise

Through a poetic language, "White Noise" seeks to reflect on the whitening processes that Brazil suffered for 130 years, after the abolition of slavery. How it affects our offspring and makes it difficult to search for the identity of black people in a historically racist country.

Black Memorabilia

Filmmaker Chico Colvard investigates the propagation of demeaning representations of African-Americans. From industrial China to the rural American south to contemporary Brooklyn, we observe the people and places that reproduce, consume and reclaim BLACK MEMORABILIA. This feature documentary takes us on a journey into the material culture of racialized artifacts and confronts us with the incendiary features of these objects. BLACK MEMORABILIA also moves beyond perverse attractions and absolute objections to collectibles and antiques that serve as reminders of America's troubled racial history. In the midst of roiling ethnic unrest in the US today, the film's confrontation of our feelings about these objects strikes at the heart of a pressing contemporary issue and opens a unique dialogue about the continuing legacy of racism in America.

Totems and Taboos

In Brussels, Belgium, the Royal Museum of Central Africa is undertaking a radical renovation, both physical and ethical, to show with sincerity, crudeness and open-mindedness the reality of the atrocities perpetrated against the inhabitants of the Belgian colonies in Africa, still haunted and traumatized by the ghost of King Leopold II of Belgium, a racist and genocidal tyrant.

Hail to the Breadsticks!

Writer producer Donick Cary (The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, Have a Good Trip, etc.) has been a huge fan of the Washington D.C. pro football team since before he could walk. Passed down from his dad, he was excited to pass the tradition onto his kids. Donick never questioned the team name and or Native American logo until one day, while watching a game, his 9-year-old son, Otis, asked him if it was racist. When Otis suggests they ask Native Americans how they feel, it sends the two on a cross-country journey full of unexpected surprises.

Algeria 1943: A Colony Under Vichy Control

World War II, June 1940. France has fallen and suffers the relentless boot of Nazi Germany. But Algeria, the prized French colony in North Africa, remains part of the territory controlled by the Vichy regime of Marshal Pétain. A strict colonial order is maintained: the French of European origin rule, while local Jews are stripped of French citizenship and discrimination against the mainly Muslim population increases.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

More than 60,000 of Ernest Cole’s 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures he shot in the U.S. Told through Cole’s own writings, the stories of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation and will unravel the mystery of his missing negatives.