Out at Work

In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."

When global developers purchase Industry City — a series of connected industrial buildings within a primarily immigrant, working class community in Brooklyn — conflicting views draw battlelines between residents, city officials and master planners as the fate of the city and contemporary urban development hangs in the balance.

SHIFT tells the story of the volatile relationship between Melanie, a waitress in an airport coffee shop, and Louis, a telemarketing prison inmate in a new prison labor program. Stars Chris Meloni (Oz, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), Alethea Allen and Eric Thal (A Stranger Among Us, The Wedding). Funded by the Independent Television Service for public television.

Making a Killing documents how the tobacco giant Philip Morris uses its political power, size and marketing skill to spread tobacco addiction internationally. Using once-secret corporate documents, the film exposes the aggressive advertising and promotional tactics the company uses to undermine local regulation and gain political influence.

Director Kelly Anderson's personal journey as a Brooklyn 'gentrifier' to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood along lines of race and class. The film reframes the gentrification debate to expose the corporate actors and government policies driving displacement and neighborhood change.

This is an up-beat and at times humorous glimpse into the thoughts of a group of teenage girls raised by lesbian mothers. It candidly asks questions that the neighbors want to, but never dare. “How do lesbians have sex?” “Does having a lesbian mother turn you into one?” Told through the experience of its eighteen-year-old director, this frank video invites its audience to laugh and, at the same time, to feel comfortable questioning their own sexuality.

Anthony Baez died during a football game when an officer put him in an illegal chokehold. Amadou Diallo was unarmed when he was shot at 41 times by police in his doorway. Gary (Gidone) Busch was pepper-sprayed and shot to death while holding a small hammer, though witnesses said he posed no threat. Their stories are tragic and the courage shown by the mothers heroic. As one witness says, "As long a there's a mother, we'll continue to fight."

A documentary film examining the treatment of lesbians and gay men during the early years of the Cuban Revolution and perspectives of current residents of Cuba on questions of political ideology and sexual identity

UNSTUCK is an award-winning short film that explains OCD through the eyes of young people. It avoids sensationalizing compulsions and obsessions, and instead reveals the complexity of a disorder that affects the brain and behavior. As the group of resilient kids and teens roadmap their process of recovery, the film will inspire you to believe it is possible to fight your worst fears and defeat OCD.