In 1980, police in Brooklyn, N.Y., charge teenage immigrant Colin Warner with murder. Convicted for a crime he didn't commit, Colin spends years in prison while his friend Carl King fights for the young man's freedom.
FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM
The true story of the CIA's introduction of crack into the Black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, featuring interviews with characters who lived it. Their stories reveal a crack in the system that implicates the centers of power in our government, their mass incarceration policies and militarization of police, the spread of gangs and guns, and the loss of entire generations to the war on drugs.
WHOSE STREETS
An account of the Ferguson uprising by the people who lived it.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
A literate slave and preacher orchestrates an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom.
Aunjanue Ellis on Nate Parker & the ‘Birth of a Nation’ Controversy
THE FREE STATE OF JONES
As civil war divides the nation, a poor farmer from Mississippi leads a group of rebels and runaway slaves against the Confederate army. Highlights the betrayal of Reconstruction.
12 YEARS A SLAVE
Based on the true story of one man's fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.
Interview with director, Steve McQueen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and scholar, Yolanda Pierce
UNDERGROUND
Premiered on WGN America and followed the exploits of a group of runaway slaves.
NELSON MANDELA: THE MYTH AND ME
NELSON MANDELA: THE MYTH AND ME
South African filmmaker, Khalo Matabane takes a personal odyssey that encompasses an imaginary letter to Mandela and conversations with politicians, activists, intellectuals, and artists, Matabane questions the meaning of freedom, reconciliation, and forgiveness—and challenges Mandela's legacy in today's world of conflict and inequality.
BOUND: AFRICANS VS. AFRICAN-AMERICANS
BOUND: AFRICANS VS. AFRICAN-AMERICANS
Filmmaker Peres Owino looks at the impact of colonialism and enslavement and how these have divided and bound Africans and African-Americans.
BELOVED
Based on the book by Toni Morrison, in which a slave is visited by the spirit of her deceased daughter.
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
A portrait of the women in the Peazant family, who belong to the creole Gullah culture - former slaves living in the Sea Islands who have been able to preserve much of their African cultural heritage.
BEING BILLIE
A documentary examining jazz legend Billie Holiday's life and impact on modern culture.
MALCOLM X
Biographical epic of the influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life as a small-time gangster, to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his assassination.
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
Re-creates a key year in the Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents.
A TIME TO KILL
Samuel L. Jackson is defended by a young lawyer after being accused of murdering two men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.
THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE
THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975
Mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish filmmakers, after languishing in a basement of a TV station for 30 years, into a mosaic of images, music, and narration chronicling the evolution of one of our nation's most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement.
BORN IN FLAMES
The docu-style fictional feminist movie by Lizzie Borden, explores racism, classism, sexism and more, in an alternative socialist-democratic USA.
GET OUT
A young African American man visits his white girlfriend's sinister family estate.
COMING SOON
The Rape of Recy Taylor
The Terrifying Truth of the Jim Crow South.
The numbers of women raped in the Jim Crow South were staggering. In danger for their lives, they did not report the crimes and their stories went hidden. Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old mother, was gang raped by 6 white boys in 1944 Alabama. Unbroken, she spoke up, and with the help of Rosa Parks and legions of women spreading the word, they worked to get Recy Taylor justice.
Highlights the case of Recy Taylor, kidnapped and gang-raped by six white men in Alabama. Rosa Parks worked ceaselessly to undo years of rape and physical abuse against Black women.