Queen Sugar

This short film by Ava DuVernay celebrates a love of African-American culture, camaraderie, love and romance.

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

We know about the swing. We know about the swagger. But what most Americans don't know about Venus Williams is how she changed the course of her sport. In a stunning case that captured the European public beginning in 2005, Williams challenged the long-held practice of paying women tennis players less than their male counterparts at Wimbledon. With a deep sense of obligation to the legacy of Billie Jean King, Williams lobbied British Parliament, UNESCO and Fleet Street for financial parity. And it was her poignant op-ed piece in The London Times that convinced many people that the Wimbledon tournament organizers were "on the wrong side of history." Roland Garros and Wimbledon finally relented in 2007. That year at Wimbledon, Venus became the first women's champion to earn as much as the men's singles winner (Roger Federer). VENUS VS. chronicles Williams' fight for pay equality.

When her husband is sentenced to eight years in prison, Ruby drops out of medical school in order to focus on her husband's well-being while he's incarcerated - leading her on a journey of self-discovery in the process.

Music video for the song "Family Feud" by Jay Z.

Plot unknown. Feature film based on the DC comic book series, 'The New Gods'.

A coming-of-age drama that depicts the life of athlete Colin Kaepernick and his adoptive parents as they navigate the challenges of raising a black son in a white family and community

Documentary film on events that happened on August 28th in African-American history, shown at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum.

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

'Compton in C Minor' is a meditation on the gang capital of the world from a hometown girl's point of view. Frustrated by negative portrayals of the inner-city, director Ava DuVernay challenged herself to capture Compton in only two hours and present whatever she found. The results touch on everything from unemployment to entrepreneurship, from graffiti to pride of ownership. The short documentary ends with an inspiring spectacle that will cause you to rethink your stereotypes of this community.

A celebration of the life of Zora Neale Hurston, who was born at the turn of the 20th Century and grew to be an important voice with her written portrayals of Black American life in the rural south of the 1930's and 40's, and the stories, songs and folklore that were her heritage and inspiration.

Two teens from racially different background begin a relationship after witnessing the murder of a mutual friend.

Like many Black and Latino teenagers in his neighborhood, Gerald Hart finds adventure and relief from the pressure of poverty and disappointment by leaping from the roof of an abandoned building known throughout his community as the “Club House”. There, in spite of obvious dangers, he imitates Superman and finds happiness.., but the unhappy side of Gerald is gaining ground. He contemplates suicide and, thereby, encounters a strange spiritual phenomenon. “Sky Captain” showcases Reggae, Rap music and Breakdance. “Sky Captain” is original drama Written and Directed by Neema Barnette. Based on the impact of her observations as a former New York City school teacher.

Forced to work under slave-like conditions in a "prison for profit" program, the inmates of a mostly-African-American female prison, Whitehead Correctional, try to take over the institution. At the core of the story is Frances, who finds herself in prison after being falsely convicted of murder, and who is told that her baby has been murdered, sparking her to lead her fellow inmates in the protest

A comedy-drama following a chaste young woman who is accidentally impregnated via artificial insemination as she struggles to inform her devoutly religious family and make the right choices concerning the child. Based on the telenovela "Juana la virgen."

Taking a short-cut home from work, high-schooler Billie Simms is raped. Not only does the incident cause an unwanted pregnancy that damages her college expectations, but it also outrages her smugly religious father who pressures her to give up the baby.

A lawyer fights a losing battle against the courts to overturn the death sentence for a convicted female robber/murderer despite demands from the woman that her death sentence be carried out.

The true story of Olympic gold medalist Gail Devers (Charlayne Woodard) and her fight to combat Graves disease while becoming the fastest female sprinter in the world. From a setback in Seoul that nearly costs her the use of her feet to her excruciating battle with the crippling illness to victories in Barcelona and Atlanta, Gail proves she's got the heart of a champion in this inspirational original biography. Louis Gossett Jr., Jeffrey Sams, Tina Lifford, Robert Guillaume and Paula Kelly costar.

A troubled young man on the run from the law sets forth to help out three old sanctified spirits and a beautiful young woman to restore First Greater Saint New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church to its former glory and place in the heart of the black community.

Neglected by her husband, Sarah embarks on an impromptu road trip with her young daughter and her best friend, Mindy. Along the way, the dynamic between the two friends intensifies before circumstances force them apart. Years later, Sarah attempts to rebuild their intimate connection in the days before Mindy’s wedding.

In Seoul, Korea, two sisters must look after each other when their mother leaves them to search for their estranged father.

Two Mexican-American sisters from the Eastside of Los Angeles who couldn't be more different or distanced from each other are forced to return to their old neighborhood, where they are confronted by the past and surprising truth about their mother’s identity.

Soon after Elizabeth receives this text message, her mother isn't the only one lost in sleep. Elizabeth's car has broken down. It's freezing cold, no sign of life nearby. She just has to wait, patiently. The recovery guys will be here soon, Elizabeth. Till then, she warms her young hands on the vents, drifts into a strange slumber, followed by an even more surreal awakening. Icelandic landscapes merge with Elizabeth's memories. Fears are magically transformed into comforting and fantastical fabrics. Father, upstairs, alone.

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones. Produced by Strand Releasing and Connor Jessup.

Three "good girl" suburban wives and mothers suddenly find themselves in desperate circumstances and decide to stop playing it safe and risk everything to take their power back.

After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, slimy hair, goatee, and his head firmly floating in the clouds, Joby hasn’t been around to be a dad. Now is his last chance to fight for shared custody of his daughter, Ellen.

The exhibition 'The Complete Letters' features epistolary works defined by cinematographic creation. This is an experimental communication format used between pairs of film directors. Although each director is situated in a location geographically distant from that of their partner, they are united by their willingness to share ideas and reflections on all that motivates their work. Within this space of freedom, the directors featured in the exhibition examine their affinities and differences, within an environment of mutual respect and simultaneity of interests and with notable formal variants established in each of the correspondences.

A Korean immigrant falls in love with her best friend while navigating her way through the challenges of living in a new country.

As her family falls apart, seventeen year old Sweetness O'Hara is left to fend for herself in a neighborhood where her survival is uncertain.

Described as a love letter to 1990s action movies, Kill Them All tells of a betrayed murderess on a revenge campaign and a hard-drinking former cop who team up to take down a crime lord. Their nemesis rules from atop a 15-story Miami high-rise, so the duo must go floor by floor cutting through assassins, murderers, Luchadore gang bosses, ex-boyfriends and office workers.

Selena Gomez and Shiloh Ferandez star in this short film for "Flaunt" magazine.

An estranged husband and wife with a bounty on their heads who must go on the run with their son to avoid their former employer – a unit of shadow ops that has been sent to kill them.

After growing up during the tumultuous 1960s, ex-Black Panther Marcus returns to his home in Philadelphia in 1976 and reconnects with Pat, the widow of a Panther leader. Marcus befriends Pat's young daughter and attempts to conquer his demons. Interfering with Marcus's good intentions are the neighborhood's continuing racial and social conflicts, as well as old enemies and friends -- both with scores to settle.

Los Angeles. 1983. A storm is coming and it's name is crack. Set against the infancy of the crack cocaine epidemic and its ultimate radical impact on the culture as we know it, the story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course.

Little seven-year old, Petey, falls prey to his older brothers' hellion ways.

A brother and sister return to their childhood home in order to remodel the space into a recording studio. The house soon turns out not to be as quaint as it seems. Terrifying memories emerge as the siblings spend a night in the house that has destroyed their past.

After a career spent mining his music from the shadows, one fan creates a chain reaction for the lead singer of a black metal band.

When a 17-old boy loses his mother to suicide, he struggles with her death and the secret that plagued their family.

Nine-year old Turtle Thompson thinks his bug loving best friend Maddy is the coolest girl in the whole wide world. If only he had the guts to ask her to the Spring Fling Dance.

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.

Brakebills University is a secret institution specializing in magic. There, amidst an unorthodox education of spellcasting, a group of twenty-something friends soon discover that a magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real— and poses grave danger to humanity.

A former Marine out to punish the criminals responsible for his family's murder finds himself ensnared in a military conspiracy.

A slightly unhinged former Navy SEAL lands a job as a police officer in Los Angeles where he's partnered with a veteran detective trying to keep maintain a low stress level in his life.

Three best friends dubbed “The Supremes,” who have weathered life’s storms together for two generations through marriage and children, happiness and the blues, find their paths at a crossroads that test their lifelong bond.

Set in Detroit during the Civil Rights Movement, "An American Girl Story - Melody 1963: Love Has to Win" examines the joyful life and troubled times of an irrepressible 10-year-old African-American girl whose vivid imagination and creativity reinforce her optimism. When shocking national events threaten her sense of security, Melody must find inner strength to restore her hope for a better world.

Fimmaker Tina Mabry's short drama about a woman who loses her life partner in a tragic accident, then must rebuild her fractured relationship with her estranged teenage son. Fylicia Renee King, Shenita Moore and Winslow Taylor star.

A struggling hip-hop artist runs for mayor to promote his mix-tape and wins.

Three poor Black kids in rural Mississippi reap the consequences of their family's cycle of abuse, addiction, and violence.

Explore the high-pressure experiences of police officers, paramedics and firefighters who are thrust into the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations. These emergency responders must try to balance saving those who are at their most vulnerable with solving the problems in their own lives.

After a stint in a juvenile detention center, Treasure is transferred to an adult prison where her mother, whom she has never met, is also imprisoned. Before long, Treasure encounters Brownie, a lifer and gang leader. Brownie reveals that she is Treasure's mother, and takes the girl under her wing, protecting her from the dangers of hardcore prison life. But some women in Brownie's gang resent Treasure's presence, leading to violent conflict.

Four "Owls" (older, wiser lesbians) who are living in the faded aftermath of their glory days as a once-famous rock group, are all implicated in a crime.

Valencia is a collaboration between a national community of queer filmmakers to adapt the underground classic memoir into a kaleidoscopic vision of San Francisco's Mission District in the early 90s during the rise of a punk lesbian diaspora told through the experiences of Michelle, a single rootless twenty-something searching for sex and love, drugs and adventure.

A trio of young men are forced to grow up quick when their girlfriends all become pregnant around the same time.

Black - once Blue - is now a trans man who works as a security guard in an apartment complex in Oakland. One night, Black notices an ex- girlfriend partying with some other women in one of the buildings. As none of the other security guards want to watch 'the lezzie party', Black volunteers to, thinking he may resolve some inner conflicts from the past. However, things take a turn for the worse.

Cheryl, playing herself, humorously experiences the mysteries of lesbian dating in the '90s.

Over twists, presses, and wash-and-goes, filmmaker Cheryl Dunye joins other clients and hairstylist DiAna DiAna in her South Carolina salon to discuss the current impact of AIDS on Blacks in the south, and what has changed and stayed the same since DiAna was featured in a seminal short video by Ellen Spiro thirty years ago.

Short film created for the 2014 San Francisco Dance Film Festival's Co-Laboratory project. Choreographed and performed by Jocquese Whitfield.

Is it who you do, or what you do?

The story of a black lesbian's relationship with a white, upper middle class high school girl.

Chila is a young Salvadorean girl who enjoys school and music. Her older brother Hugo enjoys the ladies and has no regard for the fact that a thin bedroom wall separates his activities from his sister's. As the week progresses along with Hugo's romances, Chila gets creative with her ways of interfering. The battle between siblings takes a turn when Friday rolls around and Chila and Hugo discover that blood might be thicker than any wall.

The life of a gay, undocumented immigrant is drastically altered when circumstances take him to a conservative town in Pennsylvania.

After being assigned as study partners, two Chicana high schoolers find a bond that confuses them at times.

A girl, her brother and their best friend on a long, hot summer's day in Chascomús in Argentina. A love-triangle takes its course.

A wild gender bending musical film set in 19th century royal Persian court.

ER nurse Helen Sterling struggles to free her grown son, a journalist captured by terrorists in the Middle East. After hitting walls with the FBI and State agencies, she discovers a clandestine community of journalists, advocates, and philanthropists who might be able to help.

One week each year Iranians stay out all night. Women abandon legal curfews. Men weep. Communities gather to mourn their saint's death, ask that wishes be granted, give thanks for prayers answered. While this week showcases Iran's most restrictive religious elements, it offers openings for this culture's most intimate connections. Is a change in the perception of love inherently political because it affects individuals and their view of the world? As we follow three couples negotiating love, we learn freedom is not what we assume it is and love is more than we imagine it to be.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

When a large Iranian-American family gathers in NYC for the patriarch’s heart transplant, a family secret is uncovered and catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past

A dysfunctional family of superheroes comes together to solve the mystery of their father's death, the threat of the apocalypse and more.

The show will follow a teen girl’s journey from her small northwestern town to the heights of the multiverse. When a supernatural event shakes her hometown to the core, Naomi sets out to uncover its origins, and what she discovers will challenge everything we believe about our heroes

Desperate to jar herself from the rich tedium of picture-perfect Beverly Hills, Sophie moves across town to another world: Echo Park. She quickly strikes up an unexpected connection with Alex, a handsome neighbor and British expat who is reluctantly selling his beloved home to move back to London. As the summer passes, a romance driven by uncertainty compels them to reassess where each belongs.

A dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin. Set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past, it explores a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged.

A drama about black-on-black violence in America's inner cities.

This limited series chronicles the incredible true story of Madam C.J. Walker, who was the first African American self-made millionaire.

This feature takes us into the world of "boosters" or shoplifters where a charismatic, intelligent young female booster from a dysfunctional family, notably her mother and grandmother, engages in the illegal occupation of shoplifting. A non-stereotypical view of how problematic family relations fed her foray into a criminal profession.

A feature length documentary about Vertamae Smart Grosvenor, a world-renowned author, performer, and chef from rural South Carolina who has led a remarkably unique and complex life.

“Draw or Die” is the divine imperative received by the painter, Hannah, who is being nurtured by her Grandmother, but controlled by her pragmatic mother. When her Granny spirit shouts this command to Hannah, she closes a celebration of personal visions in a dance piece that is close to visionary in itself.

An African nun is consumed by fear and doubt about her decision to take the solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Her anguish intensifies night after night as she lies on a hard bed in her small room at the convent and listens to the rhythmic, beckoning drums of her village.

A rape victim continues to be stalked by the man who attacked her. Her fiancé is no help, so her father hires a bodyguard to protect her.

The actual experiences of New York City subway riders are dramatized in a collection of 10 intriguing and very different vignettes. The tales showcase an ensemble of familiar faces, and range from stories of compassion and love to reflections on violence and loss. Among them: a disabled beggar quarrels with a woman and ruins her shoes with his wheelchair, provoking onlookers to wrath and pity; a skittish tourist proves to be her own worst enemy; a newlywed trysts with a mysterious sexpot; a commuter helplessly witnesses a suicide attempt; and, in the most affecting segment, a young woman grieves over her mother's imminent death.

A privileged, black college student with a fiance falls in love with a white musician she meets on her 21st birthday.

A woman in a Hollywood dubbing studio struggles with race and preconceptions.

Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastion of these mores in America.

A woman returns to her home town to sort out her troubled marriage and finds new happiness in the rekindling of a broken friendship with her cousin.

Ishmael Huston-Jones physically carries his mother, Pauline Jones, into the improvisational dance space. While she dyes eggs and speaks about family history, he improvises a rhythmic dance-counterpoint to her speech.

Against the backdrop of New York and New Orleans, Elliott, Leanne and Jermaine question their ability to dream amidst a crumbling economic climate. Opening in the streets of downtown Manhattan, Elliott (23), living at home after college, is surrounded by incomplete projects, frustrated and in search of purpose. Simultaneously, in New Orleans, Leanne (26), an aspiring model/actress and single mother of four, struggles to pick up the pieces, presenting at times a clash between family and her ambitious career. Plagued by an unforgiving criminal record, Jermaine (22), a New Orleans native, shifts through his home town for what seems like a hopeless attempt at legal employment. After a series of rejections, he resolves to reinvent himself in hopes of successfully starting anew.

In our current world, where worth is often gauged by online popularity, an economy has developed for paying for followers and likes. Through access inside the “click-farms” of Bangladesh, Like explores the multi-million dollar industry that grows social media followings for celebrities and brands alike.

In Japan, earthquake preparedness is a way of life — and a full- blown industry.

An adaptation of the first book from the book which is a science fiction odyssey.

An investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern Black American family, seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Safe (2022) is the second in a trilogy of short films that explore the nuanced overlap between women’s interior and exterior lives. Exhibited as a three-channel film, the work utilises both black-and-white and colour, 35mm film and HD video. Bradley’s soundscapes draw from the exterior world (street corners, city sirens, public parks), and include evocative fragments of language which are directly culled from research.

This investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern black American family is seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans, Louisiana.

A cinematic omnibus rooted in New Orleans, challenging the idea of black cinema as a "wave" or "movement in time," proposing instead a continuous thread of achievement.

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

A young musician tries to find her place in New Orleans, city of musical dreams and failures. Bradley expresses the musician's inner life with remarkable editing and a moving soundtrack that reinforces the city's slow pace.

The rise of Aretha Franklin’s career from a child singing in her father’s church’s choir to her international superstardom.

Film adaptation of the eponymous memoir by Trevor Noah.

How do you make one of the world's most revered fashion brands your own? A look at the life and work of Gucci fashion designer, Frida Giannini. Taking advantage of rare, behind-the-scenes access, director Christina Voros shows how the Florentine trendsetter has been re-imagined in the past few years.

Director Christina Voros and producer James Franco pull back the curtain on the fetish empire of Kink.com, the Internet's largest producer of BDSM content. In a particularly obscure corner of an industry that operates largely out of public view, Kink.com's directors and models strive for authenticity. In an enterprise often known for exploitative practices, Kink.com upholds an ironclad set of values to foster an environment that is safe, sane, and consensual.