FAMILY & SOCIETY
The following films from the multiple Media That Matters Film Festival collections explore the issue of family & society. For even more films on this issue, visit MediaRights.org.
A Girl Like Me
Color is more than skin deep for young African-American women struggling to define themselves.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
A Girl Named Kai
Through a stirring poetic mix of video and sound, Kai appeals to her traditional Taiwanese parents for acceptance in spite of her untraditional take on life and love.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
All That I Can Be
William, like many young Americans, feels that joining the military is his only way out of a dead-end job and a rough life.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
As We Sleep
In 2000, 72% of Americans in living-assistance facilities were sexually abused. As We Sleep tells the story of Marcie and the tragic offense she suffered at the hands of a trusted caregiver.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Ashray
Affected or infected, the children of Ashray in Bombay live together as one family, despite their HIV status.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary)
Journey to the “Asparagus Capital of the World” to discover why one little vegetable is so important.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
Bad Choices
Without a support system, it’s hard for a teenager to stay out of trouble. Aderian reflects on the lessons he has learned from his bad choices.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Book 'Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated
In New Haven, Connecticut the pipeline from school to prison is shorter than you might think.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
Bread
Guatemalan brothers Edwin and Edson crush rocks with their father so their family has enough to eat.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
Day of Remembrance
Sixty years have passed between Pearl Harbor and September 11th, but have things really changed for Arab and Muslim Americans?
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Dedicated to My Family
Living in a teen shelter, Nicole has learned that family is where the heart is.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Don't Worry
Find out how Sunny D and “that purple stuff” are marketed to children as young as three.
Official selection of the media that matters: good food festival
Esmeraldas: Petroleum and Poverty
Esmeraldas documents the intense human suffering that occurred when a Texaco oil refinery exploded and destroyed an Afro-Ecuadorian community.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Face to Face: Stories from the Aftermath of Infamy
Sixty years have passed between Pearl Harbor and September 11th, but have things really changed? An interactive online documentary explores what it means to be an American with the face of the enemy.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Fast and Reliable
Nothing can stop Dexter the bike messenger — not homelessness or even a close encounter with a ten-ton truck.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Food Justice: A Growing Movement
Farmers become activists in the fight for food justice in West Oakland, California.
Official selection of the media that matters: good food festival
Food for Thought
Baltimore youth love to eat their fruits and vegetables.
Official selection of the media that matters: good food festival
Grace
Three women’s lives share an unwanted and violent thread.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Happy Ending
Drugs have taken Chris’s mom out of his life but not out of his heart. In this personal travelogue, he goes to Philadelphia in search of a happy ending.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Holla Back Dubai!
In this touching video letter exchange, kids from the United Arab Emirates “holla back” to a class of sixth-graders in Washington Heights, New York and show that a stereotype is no match for a smile.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Homecoming
When coming out makes Ron a target for attack, he finds a school where respect and acceptance are taught alongside Math and English.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
I Promise Africa
While making a documentary about orphans, a filmmaker preserves the voices of a generation that will soon be silenced.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
I'm Not a Boy
Julie Joyce is not a boy. As a transgendered youth, she just wants what all young people want – to have a positive space to live and grow.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
In Transit
War may be over in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but many Congolese women continue to battle for their reproductive health.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
Is My Neighbor Latino?
Irreverent and funny, this high-spirited newsbrief spoof pokes at preconceptions and shows us that there is no one type of Latino in a country with rapidly shifting demographics.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Laugh at the Fat Kid
A young boy caught in a cycle of ridicule and overeating — what’s wrong with this picture?
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Lean on Me
When the mayor’s office says “no,” a group of kids find a safe place to play basketball.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Night Visions
Individuals enlist in the U.S. military for different reasons, but they all return from war, changed.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
No Child
Minneapolis hip-hoppers Shakademic and Glenn Scott get the inside scoop on military recruiting tactics.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
No Escape, Prison Rape
When Rodney Hulin set fire to a trashcan, he never imagined he would end up in adult prison, serially raped and brutally beaten.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Novela, Novela
A group of Nicaraguan activists produce a homegrown soap opera about issues like safe sex and domestic abuse.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Pizza Surveillance Feature
Want some privacy infringement with that? If the Patriot Act continues to grow in scope, you may get more than mushrooms with your next pizza order.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Profit Cola
All aboard! Ride the sugar rollercoaster with Profit Cola. Next stop: childhood obesity.
Official selection of the media that matters: good food festival
Rapping at Fear
In Andrés Tabares’ barrio in Colombia, “social cleansing” groups wage war. When this thirteen-year-old raps against violence, people listen.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Ripe for Change
In a world where scarcity is the norm, our food system is ripe for change.
Official selection of the media that matters: good food festival
Seeds of Hope: South Africa
A group of women in a South African township learn how to sustain themselves and their children.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Silence Speaks
Domestic abuse, hate crimes, poverty, political persecution and war. Highly personal multimedia pieces tell the stories of survivors and witnesses of these many forms of violence.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Something Other Than Other
New parents Jerry and Andrea have endured their own share of discrimination growing up. They hope their newborn son can grow up identifying as something other than “other.”
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Sonic Memorial Project
An interactive audio landscape where oral stories, ambient sounds, voicemails and archival recordings collectively tell the rich history of the Twin Towers and the events of 9/11.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Sovereign Nation / Sovereign Neighbor
The Narragansett tribe defends its sovereignty only to encounter violent resistance and entrenched misunderstanding from their home state of Rhode Island.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Storm
Billy, the beleaguered hero of Storm finds himself without allies as he struggles to stave off an onslaught of classroom abuse.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Struggling to Survive
Teenagers in eastern Kentucky turn their cameras on the living wage crisis in their community.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Superstar
With the support and guidance of his family, nothing will stop Naiquan from becoming a superstar.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
System Failure
Physical abuse, sexual harassment, inadequate education for incarcerated youth – if a society can be graded by how it treats its prisoners, then the state of California gets an “F.”
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Terminator Tomatoes
A farmer and his daughter get in too deep with a crop of genetically modified tomatoes.
Official selection of the media that matters: good food festival
The Rules of the Game
A Native American tribe’s dreams of prosperity clash with small town values in Rohnert Park, California.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
The Sixth Section
During the cold winters of upstate New York, a group of immigrants work together to give back to their hometown of Boqueron, Mexico.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Tyttonen (The Young Girl)
A woman, trapped by time and age, searches for freedom in her childhood memories.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Vision Test
Who would you feel most comfortable with as CEO of a Fortune 500 company? What begins as a routine eye exam turns into an examination of people’s subconscious attitudes towards race, gender and power.
Official selection of the third annual festival
We Were Humans
This multimedia animation asks what would happen if the billions of dollars of yearly military spending were directed towards education and world hunger.
Official selection of the third annual festival
iThemba
The Sinikithemba Choir turns stage into soapbox, singing and speaking for 5 million HIV+ South Africans.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
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