Sally Jo Fifer

A group of women and non-binary journalists, bucking the white male status quo, launch The 19th*—a digital news startup that asks who has been omitted from mainstream coverage and how they can be included.

An intimate portrait of a community fighting to save lives and keep hope alive in a neighborhood ravaged by the overdose crisis.

From his Memphis studio, Ernest Withers’ nearly 2 million images were a treasured record of Black history but his legacy was complicated by decades of secret FBI service revealed only after his death. Was he a friend of the civil rights community, or enemy—or both?

On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.

In Venezuela, amidst a backdrop of poverty, murder, and corruption, the El Sistema youth orchestra offers children hope and the opportunity to pursue a life of art in spite of the harshness of the society around them. Yet the country’s spiraling collapse and political repression threatens the musicians’ dreams of a better life.

Explores a variety of underground hazing rituals that are abusive and sometimes deadly. The journey to understand hazing culture reveals a world of toxic masculinity, violence, humiliation, binge drinking, denial, and institutional coverups.

Sam Now is a gripping family story consisting of home videos, Super 8 films and modern-day HD videos told over a lifetime. Director Reed Harkness captures the story of his half-brother, Sam, who grappled with the disappearance of his mother during the most formative years of his life. After setting out to find her as a teenager, Sam works through the subconscious trauma caused by her absence, his family members' denial and his feelings toward his mother, whose new life proves better than raising kids. Sam's journey is an emotional roller coaster with loops of mental health, commitment issues and familial relationships.

In the majestic tropical island of Palawan, three environmental crusaders confront murder, betrayal and political corruption in this thrilling documentary about land defenders battling to save and preserve paradise in the Philippines.

When a thriving, top-ranked African American elementary school is threatened to be replaced by a new high school favoring the community’s wealthier residents, parents, students and educators fight for the elementary school’s survival.

Mama Bears is an intimate exploration of two “mama bears”—conservative, Christian mothers who have become fierce advocates for LGBTQ+ people—and a young lesbian whose struggle for self-acceptance exemplifies why the mama bears are so important.

Beautifully layered and expressionistic, After Sherman is a story about inheritance and the tension that defines our collective American history, especially Black history. The filmmaker follows his father, a minister, in the aftermath of a mass shooting at his church in Charleston, South Carolina to understand how communities of descendants of enslaved Africans use their unique faith as a form of survival as they continue to fight for America to live up to its many unfulfilled promises to Black Americans.

Family, football and history come to life in an intimate portrait of the Dean family, longtime residents of the historic town of Pahokee, Florida. We take a journey back home, with filmmaker Ira McKinley, to the land of sugarcane, as he reconnects with his niece Bridget and nephew Alvin and explores their shared family history that spans seven generations. Told through stories that transcend space and time, Outta The Muck presents a community, and a family, that resists despair with love, remaining fiercely self-determined, while forging its own unique narrative of Black achievement.

In a universe where cool kids are nerds, the orchestra is world class and being Asian American is the norm, seniors at Lowell High School compete for the top prize: admission to the college of their dreams.

Follows the mental health crisis in Chicago and three participants of the Mental Health Court in Cook County who are working to rebuild their lives after being incarcerated for crimes related to their mental illnesses.

The life and legacy of Helen Keller, including how she used her celebrity to advocate for human rights and social justice for women, the poor and people with disabilities.

Alvin Ailey was a visionary artist who found salvation through dance. Told in his own words and through the creation of a dance inspired by his life, this immersive portrait follows a man who, when confronted by a world that refused to embrace him, determined to build one that would.

When one’s sole focus is to provide for their children, the stakes are extremely high. The need for multiple jobs to make ends meet has become a common reality for many families in this country, which leads to a very important question: who looks after the children while their parents work? Through the Night examines the economic and emotional toll affecting some American families, told through the lens of a 24-hour daycare center in Westchester, New York. At the center of it all is Nunu, the primary caregiver and a hero to many families in need of a safe space to bring their children.

With sharp humor and a critical sense of curiosity, comedian CJ Hunt documents the fraught removal of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans. As the scope of his film expands, Hunt investigates the origins of a romanticized Confederacy and confronts hard truths much of America has yet to face.

A dogged family-run paper in Iowa gives citizens the scoop on forces threatening to overwhelm their precarious small-town existence.

One man dance party Howard Mordoh, a longtime fixture of the L.A. concert scene, copes with the canceled concerts and isolation of life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the US Midwest, plagued with opioid abuse and rising incarceration rates for women, three unforgettable mothers return home from prison to rebuild their lives after years of separation from their children.

Michael was a ballet prodigy with a stellar career ahead of him. He transformed into a Russian ballet instructor named Madame Olga as a way to both embrace himself as an artist and reconcile with the trauma from his past.

In Milwaukee, a 15-year-old attempted to carjack law student Claude Motley and shot him in the face. Through multiple surgeries and catastrophic health care bills, the effects of gun violence upends Claude’s life. Yet he still finds himself torn between punishment for the young man and the injustice of mass incarceration for Black men and boys. Can he find mercy in his heart for his attacker?

When a daughter becomes concerned about her mother's well-being in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio, an 83-year-old man who becomes a new resident—and a mole inside the home, who struggles to balance his assignment with becoming increasingly involved in the lives of several residents.

Virtuoso Afro-Cuban-born brothers—violinist Ilmar and pianist Aldo—live on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm a half-century wide. Tracking their parallel lives in New York and Havana, their poignant reunion, and their momentous first performances together, Los Hermanos/The Brothers suggests what is possible when walls come down, and borders are crossed. A nuanced, intensely moving view of nations long estranged, through the lens of music and family. Featuring an electrifying, genre-bending score composed by Cuban Aldo López-Gavilán, performed with his American brother, Ilmar, with a guest appearance by violin maestro Joshua Bell and the Harlem Quartet.

Missing in Brooks County follows the journey of two families who have come to Brooks County to look for their loved ones who went missing. As they search for answers, they encounter a haunted land where death is a part of everyday life. A gripping documentary mystery, it is also a deeply humane portrait of the law enforcement agents, human rights workers, and activists who come face to face with the life and death consequences of a broken system.

The story of a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer in Newark, NJ who takes two young men under his wing to teach them how to live better lives.

Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry -- the doughnut.

Mentally ill. Deviant. Diseased. And in need of a cure. These were among the terms psychiatrists used to describe gay women and men in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. And as long as they were “sick”, progress toward equality was impossible. This documentary chronicles the battle waged by a small group of activists who declared war against a formidable institution – and won a crucial victory in the modern movement for LGBTQIA+ equality.

In the heart of the American Midwest, three women take on entrenched political systems in their fight to reshape local politics on their own terms.

Set in motion by a tragic police-involved shooting, two communities of color navigate fraught perceptions of injustice, inequality, and discrimination in the eyes of the law.

When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal involuntary sterilizations in California’s women’s prison system, they take to the courtroom to wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes - from dangerously inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations - primarily targeting women of color. But no one believes them. This shocking legal drama captured over seven years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated women, demanding our attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the United States.

Following three female police officers in Minneapolis, Women in Blue charts their progress and efforts to remake the department to become more inclusive. When the killing of Justine Damond results in the resignation of Chief Harteau, it threatens the gains women have made in the department.

Sixteen-year-old Jewel Wilson is the next generation in a long line of prolific Inupiat subsistence hunters in Unalakleet, Alaska. Her ability to hunt moose is hindered by two pressing issues – scarce wildlife and the pressures of high school life. Finding sufficient food competes with track practice and homework in Jewel’s multilayered world. Along with her father, Jewel turns to the land to feed their family and finds that their village’s way of life is endangered by the same environmental shifts that could affect us all. In hunting moose, we see that Jewel is also hunting for answers. How will her village survive if subsistence hunting is threatened? Can she honor the traditions of her Elders while navigating the pressures and anxieties of a modern, connected teenager? "Jewel’s Hunt" proves to be both physical and philosophical in this insightful exploration of what it means to come of age in complicated times in Unalakleet, Alaska.

Brett Story's visionary look at New York City as it braces for an uncertain future.

Chicago 1969: Activists from the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and Young Patriots united African Americans, Latinos, and poor whites to confront police brutality and unfair housing practices in one of America’s most segregated cities. A timely story of collective action, The First Rainbow Coalition tells this little-known chronicle of political struggle with insight and urgency using archival footage and interviews with those who lived it.

Exposing a painful, quintessentially American geography, CONSCIENCE POINT unearths a deep clash of values between the Native American Shinnecock and their elite Hamptons neighbors, who have made sacred land their playground.

Spanning his fifty-year dogsled racing career, ATTLA explores the life and persona of George Attla, from his childhood as a TB survivor in the Alaskan interior, to his rise as ten-time world champion and mythical state hero, to a village elder resolutely training his grandnephew to race his team one last time.

Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage is a warm and revealing portrait of the charismatic, groundbreaking actor’s journey from his native Puerto Rico to the creative hotbed of 1960s New York City, to prominence on Broadway and in Hollywood. Filled with passion, determination and joy, Juliá’s brilliant and daring career was tragically cut short by his untimely death at age 54.

Filmmaker Judith Helfand's searing investigation into the politics of “disaster” – by way of the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave, in which 739 residents perished (mostly Black and living in the city’s poorest neighborhoods).

Four women find purpose carrying babies for strangers in Boise, Idaho -- the unofficial surrogacy capital of the United States -- and encounter complexities along the way.

Accept the Call charts a Muslim American family’s struggle against Islamic radicalisation. Through a series of calls from federal prison, Yusuf and his son examine and rebuild their understanding of their faith.

Three brave cheerleaders take on the NFL, battling the massive, male-dominated sports league for recognition — and a raise.

When 17-year-old Lennon Lacy is found hanging from a swing set in rural North Carolina in 2014, his mother's search for justice and reconciliation begins while the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present.

The story of the tortuous struggle against the silence of the victims of the dictatorship imposed by General Franco after the victory of the rebel side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1975). In a democratic country, but still ideologically divided, the survivors seek justice as they organize the so-called “Argentinian lawsuit” and denounce the legally sanctioned pact of oblivion that intends to hide the crimes they were subjects of.

Harvest Season delves into the lives of people who work behind the scenes of the premium California wine industry, during one of the most dramatic grape harvests in recent memory. The film follows the stories of Mexican-American winemakers and migrant workers who are essential to the wine business, yet are rarely recognized for their contributions. Their stories unfold as wildfires ignite in Napa and Sonoma counties, threatening the livelihoods of small farmers and winemakers who are already grappling with a growing labor shortage, shifting immigration policies, and the impacts of a rapidly changing climate.

Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.

The Interpreters follows the lives of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters, and the American veterans they worked with. In many cases, interpreters face danger in their countries because of their affiliation with the US war effort. This is the story of how they are rebuilding their lives.

¡Las Sandinistas! uncovers the disappearing stories of women who shattered barriers to lead combat and social reform during Nicaragua’s 1979 Sandinista Revolution, and who continue to lead Nicaragua’s current struggle for democracy and equality.

Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, "93Queen" follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City. With unprecedented-and insider-access, "93Queen" offers up a unique portrayal of a group of religious women who are taking matters into their own hands to change their own community from within.

On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberry’s 'A Raisin in the Sun' opened on Broadway and changed the face of American theater forever. As the first-ever black woman to author a play performed on Broadway, she did not shy away from richly drawn characters and unprecedented subject matter. The play attracted record crowds and earned the coveted top prize from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. While the play is seen as a groundbreaking work of art, the timely story of Hansberry’s life is far less known.

An intimate character study of the complex figure Ittetsu Nemoto, an aimless and rebellious former punk rocker-turned-Buddhist priest. He is renowned in Japan for saving the lives of countless suicidal men and women through his wise and compassionate counsel. But Nemoto is now approaching middle-age with a wife and young boy of his own, when he learns his life is at risk from heart disease, compounded by the heavy emotional workload of supporting those who no longer want to live. When saving others takes such a toll, can he find the resiliency to save himself?

Iranian musician Shahin Najafi flees his homeland and heads to Cologne, Germany after harsh criticism by several clerics over the release of his song speaking out against human rights abuses resulted in a fatwa being issued.

Sonia Kennebeck takes on the controversial tactic of drone warfare, and demands accountability through the personal accounts—recollections, traumas, and responses—of three American military veterans whose lives have been shaken by the roles they played in this controversial method of attack.

A detailed investigation into the political and economic interests that, since the beginning of the 20th century, have pulled the strings of the arms trade, hidden in the shadows, feeding the shameful corruption of politicians and government officials and promoting a state of permanent war throughout the world, while they cynically asked for a lasting and universal peace.

Mobilizing working-class transgender hairdressers and beauty queens, the dynamic leaders of the world's only LGBT political party wage a historic quest to elect a trans woman to the Philippine Congress.

Like millions of indigenous people, many Native American tribes do not control their own material history and culture. For the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes living on the isolated Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, new contact with lost artifacts risks opening old wounds but also offers the possibility for healing. What Was Ours is the story of how a young journalist and a teenage powwow princess, both of the Arapaho tribe, travelled together with a Shoshone elder in search of missing artifacts in the vast archives of Chicago’s Field Museum. There they discover a treasure trove of ancestral objects, setting them on a journey to recover what has been lost and build hope for the future.

When 24-year-old Hend Nafea is arrested and tortured for demonstrating peacefully in Cairo's Tahrir Square, her pursuit of justice reflects post-revolution Egypt at an uncertain crossroads.

The story of the Black Panthers is often told in a scatter of repackaged parts, often depicting tragic, mythic accounts of violence and criminal activity; but this is an essential story, vibrant, human; a living and breathing chronicle of a pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America.

Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a 'Gang of Killer Lesbians'.

Direct cinema pioneer Frederick Wiseman takes an in-depth look at the preeminent American university during a fall semester that saw a vigorous debate taking place over tuition hikes, budget cuts, and the future of higher education in the United States.

An investigative and powerfully emotional documentary about the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the US military, the institutions that perpetuate and cover up its existence, and its profound personal and social consequences.

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn't obsolete, but it's scarce. The city has created a program to "remigrate" long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

A thoughtful portrait of a renowned artist, this documentary shines the spotlight on New York City painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring extensive interviews conducted by Basquiat's friend, filmmaker Tamra Davis, the production reveals how he dealt with being a black artist in a predominantly white field. The film also explores Basquiat's rise in the art world, which led to a close relationship with Andy Warhol, and looks at how the young painter coped with acclaim, scrutiny and fame.

A plastic bag, thrown out in the trash, attempts to find his way back to his owner and along the way discovers the world.

ハーブ＆ドロシー夫婦は、ニューヨークの現代アート界きっての有名コレクター。彼らは30年以上にわたり日々ギャラリーやアーティストらを訪ね歩き、少しずつお気に入りの作品を買い集めてきた。今では20世紀を代表するアーティストに成長した画家による名作も数多くあったが、彼らの1LDKのアパートはすでに収納の限界を超えていた。

Marko and Atanas are two friends whose lives would be sweet as strudel but for an annoying little problem with their papers. They need a European passport and they are prepared to do almost anything to get one, including buying a wife. With nothing but their brass necks and 7,000 euros, they set out to find the woman of their dreams.

A Chilean judge uncovers long buried secrets of former dictator Augusto Pinochet and, in the process, must confront his own role in that dark past.

A born rebel and innovator, Lupe Yoli aka La Lupe or La Yiyiyi was renowned for her emotional performances. Her renditions of classics such as "My Way," "Fever" and "Going Out of My Head" were known worldwide. But beyond her musicianship, celebrity and scandal, Lupe Yoli was also a single mother of two, a survivor of domestic abuse, a Santera who later became a Christian Evangelist speaker.

Outlawed in Pakistan tells the story of Kainat Soomro as she takes her rape case to Pakistan's deeply flawed court system in hopes of getting justice. The 13-year-old Kainat accuses four men of gang rape and shortly after is ordered to be killed by her village elders. Spanning over five years, the story is told through the perspective of Kainat and the four men accused of her rape.

Jeff Chang visits East Palo Alto, a historically Black and Latino community in the heart of Silicon Valley, to hang out with rapper, dancer and performer Isaiah Phillips a.k.a. Randy McPhly, who appeared in Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” video. They talk about the domino effects of gentrification.