New Day Films
Long before influencers and the “creator-economy” existed, four feminist filmmakers frustrated with mainstream distribution channels founded New Day Films. Operating as a filmmaker-run collective since 1971, New Day now has 140 filmmaker members and a collection of over 300 titles.
New Day’s catalogue includes many groundbreaking social issue films, winners of Academy Awards and other prestigious honors, and new films from an upcoming generation of independent filmmakers. New Day’s tradition of personal and collective empowerment—controlling their own distribution—is constantly evolving.
To wit, while historically focused on educational audiences, New Day has not been blind to the changes in the media landscape over the past 50+ years. And so, wanting to see its films reach as wide an audience as possible, we are proud that New Day is partnering with OVID to bring its films to individual “at-home” viewers on OVID.
New Day will be a dedicated destination and collection on the OVID platform, and many of its filmmakers will be highlighted as well. A large project encompassing hundreds of films from many filmmakers, it will be rolled out on OVID with an initial selection of films starting mid-July. Many more titles will then be added in August and September.
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Finding Kukan
Directed by Robin Lung • Documentary • 2017 • 75 minutes
Kukan, a landmark color film that documented Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion of China in the early days of World War II, was the first ever American feature documentary to receive an Academy Award® in 1942. When Robin Lung disc...
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An Act of Worship
Directed by Nausheen Dadabhoy • Documentary • With George Shakkour • 2022 • 95 minutes
Told through the lens of Muslims living in the United States, director Nausheen Dadabhoy offers a counter-narrative of pivotal moments in U.S. history and explores the impact of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy...
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North Putnam
Directed by Joel Fendelman • Documentary • 2024 • 90 minutes
Crafted with empathy, a hyper-real reporting lens and skillfully lush cinematography, North Putnam depicts a year in the life of a rural Indiana school district and the community it serves. Multiple storylines intersect, culminating in...
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Band of Sisters
Directed by Joel Fendelman • Documentary • 2004 • 7 minutes
On April 25th, 2004, 1.15 million women marched to the nation’s capital in Washington D.C. to protect and advance abortion rights. Band of Sisters is a retro feeling snapshot of the march filmed in multiple 16mm film stocks using a 1960...
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Auction
Directed by Joel Fendelman • Documentary • 2015 • 8 minutes
The town of Gonzalez, Texas is not what it used to be, Main street is desolate, the population is shrinking, but the culture and history live on through story and communal gathering at this once a week tradition that has been alive sinc...
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Duties of My Heart
Directed by judy lieff • Documentary • With Terrylene Sacchetti • 1997 • 10 minutes
Duties of My Heart is a poetic fusion of American Sign Language, contemporary dance, and spoken word that explores the emotional depth of communication across silence and sound. Drawing inspiration from the exper...
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Stop Time
Directed by Kate Way • Documentary • 2022 • 50 minutes
Stop Time tells the story of Lucio Pérez—a father, husband and worker who took sanctuary in a Massachusetts church for over three years in defiance of a deportation order. Lucio’s moving narrative provides a window into the forces that broug...
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Vida Diferida (Life, Deferred)
Directed by Brenda Ávila-Hanna • Documentary • 2017 • 23 minutes
After the announcement of the policy known as "Deferred Action", Vanessa, an undocumented teenager, contemplates the possibility of a future she was ready to give up on. How will this life-changing opportunity impact her life and t...
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Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis
Directed by Victoria Bruce • Documentary • 2022 • 92 minutes
The first Trump administration tried to shut down immigration to the United States, and even with no changes to the actual law, they nearly succeeded. Things didn't get much better when Biden came into office. But activist lawyers, mos...
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Deaf Jam
Directed by judy lieff • Documentary • With Aneta Besecker, Tahani Salah • 2012 • 70 minutes
Deaf Jam is the story of deaf teen Aneta's bold journey into the spoken word slam scene. In a wondrous twist, Aneta, an Israeli immigrant living in the Queens section of New York City, eventually meets T...
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American Santa
Directed by Avi Zev Weider • Documentary • 2023 • 24 minutes
Black Santas are local heroes, spreading joy and love to children and families at a bustling mall during the Christmas season. But even during this special time, the ugly shadow of bigotry falls on the season’s true spirit.
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CodeSwitching: Race & Identity in the Suburban Schoolhouse
Directed by Mike Mascoll • Documentary • 2020 • 54 minutes
An educated citizenry is said to be the backbone of democracy and a crucial bulwark in an increasingly interconnected and hyper-competitive world. Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act helped weave equal education for all ...
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Higher Power
Directed by Dewey Ortiz Jr. • Documentary • 2023 • 73 minutes
Recreational cannabis use is legal in Washington, D.C. Recreational cannabis sales are not. Higher Power uses the stories of Black Washingtonians navigating this gray space while fighting to enter the legal cannabis industry to reveal...
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Sin País (Without Country)
Directed by Theo Rigby • Documentary • 2011 • 20 minutes
Sin País (Without Country) attempts to get beyond the partisan politics and mainstream media’s ‘talking point’ approach to immigration issues by exploring one family’s complex and emotional journey involving deportation.
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An Act of Conscience
Directed by Robbie Leppzer • Documentary • With Martin Sheen, Randy Kehler, Pete Seeger • 1997 • 90 minutes
How far are you willing to go to stand up for your deepest beliefs? For Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner of Colrain, Massachusetts, their life-long commitment to pacifism led them to risk los...
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Leona's Sister Gerri
Directed by Jane Gillooly • Documentary • With Leona Gordon, Gerri Santoro, Joyce Carboni • 1995 • 57 minutes
For Geraldine Santoro and so many women like her, the barriers to obtaining a safe, legal abortion were insurmountable and in 1964 the legal and the social system did not protect her. Th...
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Time Passages
Directed by Kyle Henry • Documentary • With Kyle Henry, Elaine Henry, Richard Henry • 2024 • 86 minutes
In the final months of his mother Elaine’s late-stage dementia, as a pandemic rages across the globe, filmmaker Kyle Henry time travels via his family archive and his own memories to heal past...
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English Hustle
Directed by Charles Ableman • Documentary • 2023 • 32 minutes
In 2020, there were over 100,000 Americans and at least 20,000 Filipinos teaching English to millions of Chinese students online. With billions of dollars in investment, the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) industry was the largest...
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Soledad
Directed by Lisa Molomot • Documentary • 2020 • 24 minutes
Soledad tells the story of a young woman from Central America who was imprisoned in the Eloy Detention Facility when she sought asylum in the United States. Soledad set out on a perilous journey from her homeland after enduring horrific ...
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See Memory
Directed by Viviane Silvera • Documentary • With Dr.Daniela Schiller. Dr.Eric Kandel, Dr.Paul Browde • 2022 • 14 minutes
Painter Viviane Silvera uses art to explore memory and PTSD, animating 30,000 images to provide a visualization of the brain’s process of forming, altering and storing memorie...
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Tracing Roots: A Weaver's Journey
Directed by Ellen Frankenstein • Documentary • With Delores Churchill, Evelyn Vanderhoop • 2014 • 34 minutes
TRACING ROOTS is a portrait of an artist and a mystery. The film follows master weaver and Haida elder Delores Churchill on a journey to understand the origins of a spruce root hat found ...
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The Lost Bird Project
Directed by Deborah Dickson • Documentary • With Todd McGrain, Andrew Stern • 2012 • 56 minutes
Gone and nearly forgotten in extinction, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, the Heath Hen, the Carolina Parakeet, and the Passenger Pigeon leave holes not just in the North American landscape but in ou...
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Jamesie, King of Scratch
Directed by Andrea E. Leland • Documentary • With James Brewster • 2006 • 71 minutes
Scratch band music, or Quelbe, is the grass-roots folk music from the U.S. Virgin Islands. The lyrics are a form of oral history relaying the day-to-day trials and tribulations of living on a small Caribbean isl...
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25 Texans in the Land of Lincoln
Directed by Ellen Brodsky • Documentary • With Professor Teresa Van Hoy, Priscilla Reyes, Eric Villalpando • 2019 • 33 minutes
Twenty-five history students from St. Mary’s University take a 2,000 mile bus trip from the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas to Springfield, Illinois to build a Day of the De...