Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.
A chronicle of lives lost in a school shooting. In the wake of another tragedy, we get a glimpse of each victim and see who they were, who they loved, who they hurt, and who they wanted to be.
Francesco takes an unsparing look at the most pressing challenges of the 21st-century, asking deep questions about the human condition. The film is guided by Pope Francis who, with tremendous humility, wisdom, and generosity, offers moving lessons from his life that illuminate what it will take to build a better future. In doing so, he addresses issues such as climate change, immigration, peace and religious tolerance, LGBTQ support, gender and identity justice, and economic equality.
Serena starts reflecting on the commitment in her own relationship with Donielle when she is asked to be the maid of honor for her former lover Tisha's wedding.
An eight-year-old boy experiences his first heartbreak when he falls in love with his male third-grade teacher.
A prescient portrait of late-1970s Washington, D.C., that chronicles the city's creeping gentrification, the systematic expulsion of poor Black residents, and the community response in the form of the Seaton Street Project, in which tenants banded together to purchase buildings.
Jamaa Fanaka’s first project plays off the Blaxploitation’s genre conventions, an adaption of Goethe’s “Faust” presented with a non-synchronous soundtrack and superimposed over a remake of Super Fly (1972). Often out of focus with an overactive camera, the film immediately exudes nervous energy, but unlike Priest’s elegant cocaine consumption in Super Fly, Willie’s arm gushes blood as he injects heroin. A morality tale in two reels. —Jan-Christopher Horak
Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field
Writer-director Robert Wheaton’s story of a shy guy, Mark (Parros), trying all the wrong moves to meet the right girl rides high on a romantic sensibility. Although at first it’s hard to imagine the handsome Mark having trouble with the ladies, Parros gives a charming performance as the nice guy who finishes last. UCLA’s north campus features prominently as this would-be Romeo’s ever-hopeful hunting ground.
A voodoo doll must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death.
Recovering from a traumatic break-up, Olivia is on the verge of a nervous breakdown when her friend Maya flies in from New York. From one failed attempt to another, their weekend starts to feel more like a test of their friendship. Will they pass?
In common with many L.A. Rebellion films, Snake touches on such themes as institutionalized racism, colonialism and the plight of women of color. Narrated in the first person by the filmmaker as an epistle to her son, The Snake in My Bed tells Diegu's story as a Nigerian woman in Lagos who is romantically pursed by a German national who has “gone native.” Despite his secretive and duplicitous actions, she eventually agrees to marry him and has his child, only to learn that he is a bigamist with a German wife and child.
Filmed in response to the LAPD’s shooting of Eulia Love in 1979, Gidget Meets Hondo opens with stills taken by Bernard Nicolas of a demonstration against Love’s killing. Nicolas’ Gidget is a self-absorbed young white woman who remains clueless to the violence erupting around her, ultimately to her own peril. The film asks whether such police brutality would be tolerated if the victim were a middle-class white woman.
A man is trying to decide if he should go to Vietnam with the US army.
When Cassandra witnesses a drunken encounter between her friend and her roommate, she is compelled to investigate if it was consensual.
The Angler claims he will use a toxin which will kill sea life unless a ransom is paid. Aquaman races to stop him.
An improvised late '60s short-subject student film, and debut movie of Charles Burnett, done in the neo-realist, documentary film style. A day-in-the-life South Central L.A. tale about a rag-tag group of unemployed black male pals.
An early student film directed By Francis Ford Coppola during his time at UCLA School of Film and Television. This short would later be expanded on in Coppola's debut feature, Tonight for Sure
In 1963 a boy and his mother are left in Saigon while his father and brother flee to seek shelter from religious persecution in North Vietnam. The two brothers meet as strangers in a hapless confrontation during the war in 1973.
Ben Caldwell’s Medea, a collage piece made on an animation stand and edited entirely in the camera, combines live action and rapidly edited still images of Africans and African Americans which function like flashes of history that the unborn child will inherit. Caldwell invokes Amiri Baraka’s poem “Part of the Doctrine” in this experimental meditation on art history, Black imagery, identity and heritage.
