The New-Ark

A report on the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered Black voices from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, and H. Carl McCall.

ER explores the inner workings of an urban teaching hospital and the critical issues faced by the dedicated physicians and staff of its overburdened emergency room.

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.

The long and remarkable life of Dr. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B) Du Bois (1868-1963) offers unique insights into an eventful century in African American history. Born three years after the end of the Civil War, Du Bois witnessed the imposition of Jim Crow, its defeat by the Civil Rights Movement and the triumph of African independence struggles. Du Bois was the consummate scholar-activist whose path-breaking works remain among the most significant and articulate ever produced on the subject of race. His contributions and legacy have been so far-reaching, that this, his first film biography, required the collaboration of four prominent African American writers. Wesley Brown, Thulani Davis, Toni Cade Bambara and Amiri Baraka narrate successive periods of Du Bois' life and discuss its impact on their work.

A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.

A successful black businessman, haunted by his crumbling marriage and identity crisis, is drawn into a psychological game of cat and mouse with a mysterious white woman he encounters on a New York subway.

After breaking ties with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a man marked for death...and it was just a matter of time before his enemies closed in. Despite death threats and intimidation, Malcolm marched on - continuing to spread the word of equality and brotherhood right up until the moment of his brutal and untimely assassination. Highlighted by newsreel footage and interviews, this is the story of the last twenty-four hours of Malcolm X. Featuring the music of jazz percussionist Max Roach.

A young conservative black man, minding his own business, rides a nearly empty subway car. The only other passenger, a blonde vixen looking for trouble, sizes him up. Sexual tension, racial bigotry and righteous fury collide in a razor's edge confrontation between this unlikely pair.

A black radical's ex-wife and children establish a new family unit with a Caucasian man, but he eventually returns to violently besiege them inside their home.

Doug Harris's 1982 avant-garde jazz film Speaking in Tongues was funded by German Public Television channel ZDF and broadcast throughout Europe when it was first released. The now rarely seen work features saxophonist David Murray, percussionist Milford Graves, and poet-playwright and novelist Amiri Baraka, and serves as a tribute to Albert Ayler, a tenor saxophonist who was a leader in the free-style jazz movement before his mysterious death in 1970.