Film Categories: Race + Ethnicity

  • Greater the Weight, The

    “The way it usually goes down is like this – the greater the weight, the better it feels. When it hurts, nothing feels better to me than hurting a bit more.” – Dana Michel We live in a world where people will fall. The film plays with the idea of falling – the heaviness and the lightness, the emotion, and the sounds associated with falling. It reflects on moments when one stumbles… by accident, on purpose. Sometimes you can get up again right away and you’re fine, and sometimes you’re not. A young woman (Dana Michel) is in a rebellious…

  • Del Mero Corazon

    A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music tradition. Shipped as a bonus film on the “Chulas Fronteras.”

  • American Nurse

    America’s war in Vietnam is over, but the scars of that war remain with many Asian-Americans who served there. More than 60,000 Asian-Americans served in the United States armed forces during the Vietnam War. Many who lived through this lost war in Southeast Asia still silently suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. But there are others willing to speak out about the conditions that they as Americans of Asian ancestry experienced in Vietnam. Lt. Lily Lee (Adams) now of Mill Valley, California, nursed wounded soldiers and worked in triage for a year in Cu Chi. Her story in “American Nurse” chronicles…

  • Block B

    A building becomes a living painting. The concrete homes and contradicting soundscapes frame the lives of an expatriate Indian community in Malaysia. “The grand scale of an aging modernist apartment block in the Brickfields neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur sets the stage for a macroscopic analysis of the quotidian activities of its inhabitants. Seemingly trivial actions assume significant meaning as lives entwine between the rigid lines of the building. Observational cinema at its extreme, ‘Block B’ reveals much about the social structure of the Indian working class in the outskirts of a Malaysian metropolis.” – Alex Rogalski, Toronto International Film Festival…

  • Others, The

    Of Spanish, Scottish/Irish, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, and Cherokee ancestry actor Lou Diamond Phillips is an icon of difference and otherness due to the numerous ‘ethnic characters’ he’s played in Hollywood movies (primarily in the late 1980s and early 1990s) including Mexican, Navajo, Inuit, Lakota, Puerto Rican and Arab. “The Others” features found footage of Phillips’ numerous ‘ethnic characters’ and places them in dialog with each other, literally, by employing classic Hollywood editing style and storytelling tropes. Through these conversations comes an investigation of identity, ethnicity and authenticity. “The Others” is part of the Trinity Square Video Themed Commissioned Project: ICONS.…

  • Desert Veils

    “Desert Veils” is a personal exploration of images of women filmed in the Chihuahua Desert of north-east Mexico. I was part of a film crew documenting the daily activities of an archeological dinosaur dig; when I wasn’t working with the film crew I was shooting my own images, looking beyond the disarticulated fossils and apparent structures, searching for what seemed elusive, hidden from me in my initial encounters with the women I met in Mexico. Given the cultural differences and structures that existed around me, my original images made me feel no closer to what I was seeing. It is…

  • Somebody Is Watching Us

    Two young men, Alliocha and Bruno, have anonymous sex in a public bathroom and are prematurely separated when one loses his nerve. Bruno fears they’ve been watched. Later, the two men are reunited by chance in the same English as a Second Language class for new Canadian immigrants. Alliocha, the young extroverted Russian, tries to provoke his potential partner, Bruno into having a relationship. But their lack of common language leads them into a unique clash of cultures. One day, an unexpected event brings them together again and both men are forced to confront their assumptions of each other.

  • Tziporah

    “Tziporah” is the Hebrew work for a bird. The film is another cinematic reflection on loss and grief. Premiere: October 2007, New York Film Festival: Views from the Avant Garde January, 2008, Rotterdam International Film Festival April 6, 2008, San Francisco Cinematheque April 27&29, 2008, San Francisco International Film Festival September 6,2008,Toronto International Film Festival:Wavelengths Program October, 2009, FAMU, Prague, Czech Republic October, 2009, WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, Poland

  • So Called Equals

    In 1969 a few pioneers decided that everyone had rights, regardless of their sexual orientation. Since that time, much has changed, but not enough. Spain is one of the few countries that allow marriage between people of the same sex. The democratic ideal of being ‘equal before the law’ is a reality in this territory. However, another challenge arises: society’s acceptance of this new legal reality.

  • Botero’s Apple

    December the 25th. Bunny goes out the city chasing after Santa Claus for her son. The boy, Rocamador, run after his mother through the city. The journey takes an uncommon course. — Saracura Filmes