Rigoberta Menchú: Broken Silence

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.

Following four Lakota families over three years, Homeland explores what it takes for the Lakota community to build a better future in the face of tribal and government corruption, scarce housing, unemployment, and alcoholism. Intimate interviews with a spiritual leader, a grandmother, an artist, and a community activist from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation reveal how each survives through family ties, cultural tradition, humor, and a palpable yearning for self-reliance and personal freedom.

On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.

In a world drifting further away from participatory food production, relying instead on large corporations to feed us, this film asks “What do we lose by giving up our responsibility to produce food?”

“The Walkout” is a new documentary that brings to light a pivotal but often overlooked moment in Texas history: the 1968 student walkout at Edgewood High School in San Antonio’s Westside. Fed up with underfunded classrooms, uncertified teachers, and crumbling facilities, a group of young Mexican American students and their families organized a bold protest that would become a catalyst for statewide education reform. Told through the voices of the original students, community leaders, and historians, The Walkout weaves together personal testimony, historical footage, and present-day reflections to honor the legacy of resistance born in San Antonio’s Westside. This film doesn’t just revisit the past; it also draws a direct line to today’s struggles over school funding and equity in Texas.

Documentary about the Red Lake school shooting and its perpetrator, Jeff Weise.

The real life story of the events surrounding the fight for and against public housing and racial integration in Yonkers, New York in the 1980s as portrayed in the HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero.

The last surviving Native Americans on Long Island are the focus of The Lost Spirits. The film chronicles their struggles as an indigenous people to maintain their identity amidst relentless modernization and a heartless bureaucracy.

A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders.

A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.

A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.

The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the May events in France, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Prague Spring, the Chicago riots, the Mexico Summer Olympics, the presidential election of Richard Nixon, the Apollo 8 space mission, the hippies and the Yippies, Bullitt and the living dead. Once upon a time the year 1968.

This Traveltalk series short visits the village of Chichicastenango, Guatemala and emphasizes the influence of the Mayan culture on its people. It shows how the residents intermingle ancient religious practices with Catholic teachings. Narrator James FitzPatrick introduces, and greets on camera, Father Ildefonso Rossbach, a Catholic priest who ministers to the local population in the village and outlying areas.

Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota describe the ongoing struggle of their people.

Narrated by actress Alfre Woodard, this trenchant, eye-opening doc traces the radical civil rights leader’s life from his tumultuous childhood, through his rise in the ranks of the Nation of Islam, to his 1965 assassination.