A young African-American man, living in Los Angeles without direction in his life, reluctantly agrees to be the best man for his brother, an upwardly mobile lawyer.
Social & External
Pierce Mundy
Mrs. Mundy
Sonia Dubois
Soldier Richards
Mr. Mundy
Mrs. Richards
Mr. Richards
Angela
Big Mama
Mrs. Debois
Mr. Dubois
Walker
Babe Brother
Terrence
Babe Brother's Wife
Beat-up man
Mr. Shaw
Sister
Gene
Dian
Pastor #2
Mr. Bitterfield
Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field
An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.
An enigmatic drifter from the South comes to visit an old acquaintance who now lives in South-Central LA.
The story of Dorothy and her husband T.C. He is a discharged Vietnam veteran who thought he would return home to a "hero's welcome." Instead he is falsely arrested and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Her life revolves around the welfare office and a community facing poverty and unemployment. As a result of the film's events, both the main characters become radicalized and Dorothy eventually turns to violence.
In 1902, an African-American family living on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina prepares to move to the North.
A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.
A naive young woman moves from the South to stay with her aunt and uncle in Compton. As an outsider, she struggles at first to find her footing, but soon falls into the middle of a community of rebellious youth. She soon becomes more and more aware of the social injustices of the big city.
In this meditative film the everyday lives of poor Ethiopian peasants are shown using documentary as well as storytelling techniques, with its drama arising out of the timeless yet persistent issues of their lives.
Charlie Banks, chronically unemployed, struggles to find dignity and a meaning for life in the impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts.
Eddie Warmack, an African American jazz musician, is released from prison for the killing of a white gangster. Not willing to play for the mobsters who control the music industry, including clubs and recording studios, Warmack searches for his mentor and grandfather, the legendary jazz musician Poppa Harris.
Ashes and Embers is an original screenplay by Haile Gerima, about a Vietnam veteran, who, several years after the war, is struggling to come to terms with his role in the war, and his role as a Black person in America. He survives by working odd jobs in Washington, D.C. and living with his girlfriend and her son. When criticism of his alienated behavior come from her and a father figure too often, he runs to the streets or to his grandmother's rural house in Virginia. Her criticism and his memories of the past both send him fleeing again to Los Angeles, where he is surrounded by superficial people who have forgotten how to be compassionate human beings. It is here that the advice of his friends and grandmother combine to transform him from an embittered ex-soldier to a strong and confident man.
Filmed in response to the LAPD’s shooting of Eulia Love in 1979, Gidget Meets Hondo opens with stills taken by Bernard Nicolas of a demonstration against Love’s killing. Nicolas’ Gidget is a self-absorbed young white woman who remains clueless to the violence erupting around her, ultimately to her own peril. The film asks whether such police brutality would be tolerated if the victim were a middle-class white woman.
A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.
Nikander, a rubbish collector and would-be entrepreneur, finds his plans for success dashed when his business associate dies. One evening, he meets Ilona, a down-on-her-luck cashier, in a local supermarket. Falteringly, a bond begins to develop between them.
A couple on a boat. Their love is burnt out. But how to let go when souls are entangled?
A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin, Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name
When a rebellious teen embarks on a solo summer journey to connect with her roots, she finds herself in a new world, geared up for the ride of her life, and discovers she had the drive in her all along.
After treating his rancher cousin shoddily in L.A. Michael Woods is sentenced by his parents to spending a month on the ranch with his cousin and aunt.
After learning that the death of his wife was not an accident, a former CIA Station Chief is forced back into the espionage underworld, teaming up with an adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew.
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?
Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.
Football star Charlie has the world at her feet. With a top club desperate to sign her, her future is seemingly mapped out. But the teenager sees only a nightmare. Raised as a boy, Charlie is torn between wanting to live up to her father's expectations and shedding this ill fitting skin.
After a cheerleader is sexually assaulted by the high school football team, she must overcome her shame and use the evidence gathered from the subsequent social media firestorm to piece together the night that she can't remember in her fight for justice. Based on the true story of the Steubenville, Ohio rape case.
A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.
An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.
Up and coming young lawyer Anthony Lawrence faces several ethical and emotional dilemmas as he climbs the Philadelphia social ladder. His personal and professional skills are tested as he tries to balance the needs of his fiance Joan, the expectations of his colleagues and his own obligation to defend his friend Chester on a murder count.
A 9 year old boy experiences God's power in a supernatural way.