Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power
Through first person accounts and searing archival footage, this documentary tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County, Alabama.
Sam Pollard
Geeta Gandbhir
Also Directed by Sam Pollard
Before Oprah, before Arsenio, there was Mr. SOUL!" On the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, one fearless black pioneer reconceived a Harlem Renaissance for a new era, ushering giants and rising stars of black American culture onto the national television stage. He was hip. He was smart. He was innovative, political, and gay. In his personal fight for social equality, this man ensured the Revolution would be televised. The man was Ellis Haizlip. The Revolution was SOUL!
For 40 years, the community-organizing group ACORN advocated for America’s poorest communities, while its detractors accused it of promoting the worst of liberal policies. Riding high on the momentum of Barack Obama’s presidential victory in 2008, ACORN was at its political zenith when a hidden-camera video sparked a national scandal and brought it crashing down. The story involves voter fraud, a fake prostitute, and the rise of Breitbart.com.
Goin’ Back to T-Town tells the story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation. Torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially-motivated massacres in the nation’s history, the neighborhood rose from the ashes, and by 1936 boasted the largest concentration of Black-owned businesses in the U.S., known as “Black Wall Street.” Ironically, it could not survive the progressive policies of integration and urban renewal of the 1960s. Told through the memories of those who lived through the events, the film is a bittersweet celebration of small-town life and the resilience of a community’s spirit.
Zora Neale Hurston, path-breaking novelist, pioneering anthropologist and one of the first black women to enter the American literary canon (Their Eyes Were Watching God), established the African American vernacular as one of the most vital, inventive voices in American literature. This definitive film biography, eighteen years in the making, portrays Zora in all her complexity: gifted, flamboyant, and controversial but always fiercely original.
Documentary about the increasingly necessary conversation taking place in homes and communities across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police.
Unprecedented access to Wilson’s theatrical archives, rarely seen interviews and new dramatic readings bring to life his seminal 10-play cycle chronicling a century of African-American life. Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
John Ford and John Wayne — a friendship and professional collaboration that spanned 50 years, changed each others’ lives, changed the movies, and in the process, changed the way America saw itself. It was a relationship that reflected all the elements and all the paradoxes of 20th century America — generosity of spirit, abuse of power, a sense of loyalty, and a restless nationalism that didn’t quite know what to do with itself.
A star-studded roster of interviewees (including Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal) pay tribute to the legendary, multi-talented song-and-dance man.
A documentary that recounts the many ways in which American slavery persisted as a practice many decades after its supposed abolition.
An introduction to the work of some of the foremost Black visual artists working today, inspired by the late David Driskell's landmark 1976 exhibition, "Two Centuries of Black American Art."
Also Directed by Geeta Gandbhir
Robert De Niro, Sr., was a celebrated painter obscured by the pop-art movement. His life and career are chronicled in the artist's own words by his contemporaries and, movingly, by his son, the actor Robert De Niro.
Sisters-in-law Derrica and Natalie Wilson dedicated their lives to locate Black people who are missing by bringing awareness to their cases, which have often been marginalize by law enforcement and traditional media. DOC NYC will preview one episode of the upcoming four-part HBO series about their work that was created by Soledad O’Brien and Geeta Gandbhir. We watch as the Wilsons use their experience to put the mother of the missing Michelle Green on The View, prompting a tip that leads to a hopeful turn in the case.
A short documentary exploring the connection between Christianity and homophobia in the wake of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Through Our Eyes is an intimate and inspiring journey into the lives of American families, from the perspective of children themselves as they navigate formidable yet all-too-common challenges along with parents and siblings. The four-part docuseries captures the innocence of childhood and the strength of perseverance in the face of parental incarceration, climate displacement, the wounds of war, and homelessness.
Prison Dogs is a story of redemption, strength, fear, love, and dedication. In this wonderfully human tale, prison inmates, along with veterans suffering with PTSD, find a path to a second chance at life through their love and care of a puppy.
The modern criminal justice system is hindered by the fact that countless rape kits remain untested in police evidence storage facilities across the United States. Only eight states currently have laws requiring mandatory testing of rape kits.
A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers acquaints us with the personal side a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the wake of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake.
The cost of college is forcing students to make choices that put eating regular meals and their education at odds. Director Geeta Gandbhir and executive producer Soledad O’Brien’s poignant film follows four college students as they navigate food insecurity in their attempt to change their lives for the better. Homelessness, abandonment and mental health issues loom as students are caught between educational institutions’ pursuit of profit during “the best time of their lives.”
A cinematic tale of deportation, migration, displacement and opportunistic capitalism, Call Center Blues follows four characters as they struggle to make sense of their lives in Tijuana. Each with a vastly different story, they are all linked by their displacement and the sole choice of call center work they have in a country that is so unfamiliar and oftentimes frightening, yet other times a ray of hope. Tijuana becomes their home, a place defined by the border but yet defiant towards it, a no man's land where everything and everyone feels transient. These characters paint a picture of love, loss and longing - for home, for an American Dream deferred, and for justice.