Directed by Shirley Clarke • Documentary • With Ornette Coleman, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer • 1985 • 85 minutes

Returning in 1983 to his home in Fort Worth, Texas, documentary footage and dramatic scenes recall legendar...

Directed by Shola Lynch • Documentary • With Shirley Chisholm, Amiri Baraka, Octavia Butler, Bobby Seale • 2004 • 77 minutes

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this compelling documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman...

Directed by Shirley Clarke • Documentary • 1967 • 108 minutes

On the night of December 2, 1966, Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. There, for twelve straight hours they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang, donned costum...

Directed by Fronza Woods • Drama • 1979 • 9 minutes

KILLING TIME, an offbeat, wryly humorous look at the dilemma of a would-be suicide unable to find the right outfit to die in, examines the personal habits, socialization, and complexities of life that keep us going. Part of the mediamaking move...

Directed by Alain Kassanda • Documentary • 2023 • 89 minutes

Born in Kinshasa and living in Paris, filmmaker Alain Kassanda embodies the classic immigrant dual identity: in the Democratic Republic of Congo he is seen as French, while in France he is seen as Congolese. Determined to understand th...

Directed by Alaysja Clark • Documentary • 2017 • 7 minutes

African-American women discuss the struggles and benefits of being a black woman in America through hair.

Directed by Jarrod Cann & Erick Stoll • Documentary • 2016 • 16 minutes

In the Spring of 2001, the African-American community of Over-the-Rhine in downtown Cincinnati arose in protest after unarmed 19-year-old, Timothy Thomas, was killed by a white officer named Steven Roach. In the years follow...

Directed by Mosco Boucault • Documentary • 1997 • 86 minutes

Warning: This film contains graphic sequences of police violence, brutality, and torture.

1995. On the outskirts of Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast, a policeman is murdered. Shot outside his vehicle, while his fiancée sits in...

Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Gil Scott-Heron • 1983 • 79 minutes

BLACK WAX is a musical-political entertainment film produced and directed by Robert Mugge. It centers on the late African American poet-singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron - the man Melody Maker called "the most dang...

Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2021 • 91 minutes

Delphine reclines on a daybed in her bright, cluttered apartment in Belgium, an empty crib beside her. “I started to work the streets like crazy,” she says, matter-of-factly recounting her life story. “Selling my body.” Delphine, who is...

Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Sun Ra and his Arkestra • 1980 • 59 minutes

Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poet...

Directed by Brad Lichtenstein • Documentary • With Claudaire Motley, Victoria Davison, Nathan King • 2021 • 94 minutes

This unscripted feature follows five years in the life of Claude Motley as he tries to recover mentally and physically from being shot in the face by carjacker Nathan King, a 15...

Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Ken Tucker • 1984 • 66 minutes

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AL GREEN looks at Green's transition from hugely successful soul singer to gospel artist and fundamentalist preacher. Filmed in concert in Washington, D.C., in rehearsal in...

Directed by Terence Dixon • Documentary • With James Baldwin • 1970 • 27 minutes

Shot in Paris, a city in which Baldwin lived for nine years after leaving New York — a decision he has described “as a matter of life and death.” The early sequences find Baldwin uncooperative, even hostile to the B...

Directed by Chloé Aïcha BORO • Documentary • 2023 • 83 minutes

When her uncle dies, Chloé Aïcha Boro films the courtyard at the family house in Burkina Faso, where communal meetings and prayers have been held. Some of the heirs lay claim to it under French law, whereas others believe they can pr...

Directed by Joseph Ndjom • Documentary • 2021 • 55 minutes

Detyr and his partner Adele exchanged a promise while they were still prisoners — to make their life together once released. Now established in the village of Nkonga (Cameroon), their desire to marry faces opposition from Detyr's family.

Directed by Sedat Pakay • Documentary • With James Baldwin • 1973 • 12 minutes

Set in Istanbul, the film opens with a surprisingly candid scene of Baldwin leisurely awakening in his bedroom. Sedat Pakay, a Turkish filmmaker who studied with Walker Evans, is known for his photographic portraits o...

Directed by Lofty Nathan • Documentary • 2013 • 76 minutes

The 12 O'CLOCK BOYS are a notorious urban dirt bike pack in Baltimore -- popping wheelies and weaving at excessive speeds through traffic, the group impressively evades the hamstrung police. In Lotfy Nathan's wild, dynamic documentary (t...

Directed by Adam Bhala Lough, Ethan Higbee • Documentary • With Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Paul McCartney, The Clash, Bunny Wailer, Marcus Garvey, Carl Bradshaw, Eve, Benicio Del Toro • 2008 • 95 minutes

THE UPSETTER tells the wild, weed-fueled story of Lee “Scratch” Perry — a ...

Directed by Mosco Boucault • Documentary • 1998 • 90 minutes

On March 1, 1996, 15-year-old Shafeeq Murrel was killed on the street in South Philadelphia — innocently caught in the crossfire between rival pairs of crack dealers out for revenge. Shafeeq’s murder was one of 435 in Philadelphia that...

Directed by Fatou Cissé • Documentary • With Souleymane Cissé, Martin Scorsese, Costa-Gavras, Baba Diop • 2022 • 73 minutes

A Daughter’s Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé is the story of a filmmaker as told by his daughter. Through interviews with his friends, family, and collaborators, th...

Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver • Documentary • With Myles Horton, May Justice, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bernice Robinson • 1985 • 85 minutes

Lucy Massie Phenix's You Got to Move: Stories of Change in the South is about individuals who have dared to change the world for the be...

Directed by Charles Burnett • Drama • With Everett Silas, Jessie Holmes, Gaye Shannon-Burnett, Ronnie Bell • 1983 • 86 minutes

In 1983, after many long months of shooting, Charles Burnett sent his rough-cut of My Brother’s Wedding to his producers. Ignoring his request to finish the editing of t...

Directed by Billy Woodberry • Drama • With Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore • 1983 • 80 minutes

Searching for steady work, Charlie (Nate Hardman) views his chronic unemployment as a kind of spiritual trial. But selling a few catfish can’t sustain a family of five while his wife, Andais (Kaycee Moore)...