(Name-mce) ListServ Best Films Poll Result

[Paul C.Gorski]

Best Films Poll

 

(7 votes) The Color of Fear from StirFry Seminars, available at
http://www.stirfryseminars.com

>From the StirFry Seminars Web site: The Color of Fear is an insightful,
groundbreaking film about the state of race relations in America as seen
through the eyes of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino and
African descent. In a series of intelligent, emotional and dramatic
confrontations the men reveal the pain and scars that racism has caused
them. What emerges is a deeper sense of understanding and trust. This is the
dialogue most of us fear, but hope will happen sometime in our lifetime.

 

(5 votes) It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School from Women's
Educational Media, available at http://www.teachingforchange.org

>From the Women's Educational Media Web site: It's Elementary is the first
film of its kind to address anti-gay prejudice by providing adults with
practical lessons on how to talk with kids about gay people. Hailed as "a
model of intelligent directing," It's Elementary shows that children are
eager and able to wrestle with stereotypes and absorb new facts about what
it means to be gay or lesbian.

 

(4 votes) Eye of the Storm/A Class Divided/Blue Eyed/The Angry Eye featuring
Jane Elliot, available at http://www.janeelliott.com/videos.htm

>From Jane Elliot's Web site, referring to The Angry Eye: Hailed as "a
fascinating revisit" to the famous 1968 Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise in
discrimination by Jane Elliott, this film documents the effects of racial
prejudice with startling force and emotional intensity. Taking pigmentation
- in this case, eye color - as an arbitrary dividing line, Jane Elliott
builds a microcosm of contemporary American society, compelling her more
privileged blue-eyed participants to live in another world for the longest
two and a half hours of their lives.

 

(4 votes) Race: The Power of an Illusion from California Newsreel, available
at http://www.newsreel.org
>From the California Newsreel Web site: What is this thing we call 'race'?
Where'd the idea come from? What are the patterns of human variation? And if
race isn't biological, what is it? How do our social institutions 'make'
race? RACE - The Power of an Illusion is the series so many are talking
about that compels viewers to scrutinize some of their most fundamental
beliefs.

 

(3 votes) A Place at the Table from Teaching Tolerance, available at
http://www.tolerance.org/teach/resources/index.jsp
>From the Teaching Tolerance Web site: Throughout our nation's history,
individuals and groups - from Baptists fighting for religious freedom to
families seeking gender equity in sports - have toppled barriers to become
full participants in our democracy. These stories of everyday bravery are
highlighted in the film. To help students identify with ongoing efforts to
achieve equality, the film is narrated by teenagers who explain how their
families struggled for and found "a place at the table."

 

(3 votes) Skin Deep by Iris Films, available at
http://www.irisfilms.org/SD/con1.html

>From the Iris Films Web site: Skin Deep is a 53 minute film that was
produced in response to the growing wave of racial hatred and violence in
this country. It was made out of the belief that talking about racial
issues, both in interracial dialogue and in homogeneous groups, is a
necessary first step towards taking action to undo the racial inequalities
that permeate our institutions and communities and affect us all deeply as
individuals. SKIN DEEP takes the viewer on a journey of dialogue with a
group of contemporary college students.

 

(3 votes) The Way Home from New Day Films, available at
http://www.newday.com

>From the New Day Films Web site: Over the course of eight months, sixty-four
women, representing a cross-section of cultures in the US, met in councils
separated by ethnicity-Indigenous, Asian, European, African, Arab, Jewish,
Latina and Multiracial. Their candid conversations offer rare access into
multidimensional cultural worlds mostly invisible to outsiders. With
uncommon courage, the women speak their hearts and minds about resistance,
love, assimilation, beauty standards, power, school experiences, and more.
Woven throughout are collages of historical and family photos, dance
sequences, visual images, and music from over twenty cultures all of which
expand the impact of the women's words.

 

(2 votes) Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary from Josepha Producciones,
available at http://www.teachingforchange.org

>From the Multicultural Pavilion: "When I grow up I'm going to be a person
who fights for this country. I'm going to be an important person. I'm going
to a good college.." Mayra, a fifth-grade student from a high-poverty school
in Los Angeles, is one of the central figures in Fear and Learning. The film
effectively weaves together the stories of students and colleagues into a
collage that powerfully illustrates the awareness and lack of awareness,
compassion and lack of compassion, and anti-racism and racism that exist at
Hoover (and at every school in the United States). Fear and Learning is one
of the most important, engaging, and powerful films ever made about
education, equity, and social justice in the United States. The film raises
questions about race, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic class, and the
intersections of these identities.

 

(2 votes) In Whose Honor? from New Day Films, available at
http://www.newday.com

>From the New Day Films Web site: In Whose Honor? takes a critical look at
the long-running practice of "honoring" American Indians as mascots and
nicknames in sports. It follows the story of Native American mother Charlene
Teters, and her transformation into the leader some are calling the "Rosa
Parks of American Indians" as she struggles to protect her cultural symbols
and identity. In Whose Honor? looks at the issues of racism, stereotypes,
minority representation and the powerful effects of mass-media imagery, and
the extent to which one university will go to defend and justify its mascot.

 

(2 votes) Mad Hot Ballroom from ParamountVantage, available at
http://www.paramountvantage.com/madhot/

>From the ParamountVantage Web site: Eleven-year-old New York City public
school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of
themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes
hilarious perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant
participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies
and gentlemen," on their way to try to compete in the final citywide
competition. Providing unique insight into the incredible cultural diversity
that is New York City, this film profiles several kids from three schools
(out of 60) at this dynamic age, when becoming that "cool" teenager vies for
position with familiar innocence, while they learn the merengue, rumba,
tango, the foxtrot and swing.

 

Films Receiving One Vote Each are listed below. As somebody who reviewed
films for several educational journals, I decided to mark (with an asterisk)
those films that I think belong on the "most important" list, just to make
the list a little more manageable.

 

500 Years Later

Bend It Like Beckham

Beyond Brown

Bowling for Columbine

Broken English

Children's March

Color of Fear 3: Four Little Beds

Daughter from Danang

*Eyes on the Prize

Fourth World War

*Granitos de Arena

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

How Biased Are You?

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

*Killing Us Softly 3

The Language You Cry In

Last Chance for Eden

Making Whiteness Visible

Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation

Monsoon Wedding

My Brown Eyes

*Panama Deception

The Ralph Lazo Story

The Shadow of Hate

So Long Silence 

Spirit of the Dawn

Storm Reading

Streetwise

Tales from Arab Detroit

Tell Them I'm a Mermaid

That's a Family

*Tough Guise

Trudell

***Unequal Education

When Billy Broke His Head

The World in Claire's Classroom

 
********
Paul C. Gorski
EdChange: http://www.EdChange.org <http://www.edchange.org/> 
Multicultural Pavilion: http://www.EdChange.org/multicultural
Social Justice Store: http://www.cafepress.com/edchange
Multicultural Poster Store: http://www.EdChange.org/posters
SoJust Civil Rights History: http://www.SoJust.net <http://www.sojust.net/>