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Films & DVDs on Sociology  Text Size Increase Font Size Decrease Font Size
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    A

  • AntiracketAntiracket - In southern Italy, a group of shopkeepers stand up to the "tax" imposed by the local mafia.

  • Antisemitism - Director Ilan Ziv traces the origins of today's antisemitism in France from the Middle Ages to the infamous Dreyfus Affair.

  • As Long as the Rivers Flow - A series of five films which document the epic struggle of Canada's Native People.

  • B

  • Banking the Unbanked - As a team of managers in Gambia try to build a microfinance business, they learn that the loans may be small - but the stakes are very high.

  • A Baptism of FireA Baptism of Fire - A new generation of freelance photographers flies low-cost to war zones on their own dime in the hope of selling images to printed media or websites.

  • Birth - The story of a woman caught up in a cycle of pregnancies because of social pressure to produce a male child, and two other stories of babies, in need, or absent, in Arab countries.

  • Bitter Money - Documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou to work in its textile factories.

  • Bittersweet Joke - Examines the experiences of single mothers in South Korea, where there remains a strong social taboo against single parenthood.

  • Blue IslandBlue Island - This creative documentary shows real-life characters recreating protest movements from Hong Kong's modern history.

  • Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan - The first film about the Kyrgyz tradition of bride kidnapping takes viewers inside families, to talk with kidnapped brides who have managed to escape as well as those who are making homes with their new husbands.

  • A Bridge Over the River - Profiles Lency, a man who lives in Cuba's central mountains who has a creative solution to all of life's daily problems there.

  • C

  • Can't Do It In Europe - Some people travel to Bolivia to go down the dangerous silver mines, to see the medieval work conditions. Are they crawling through the contaminated tunnels to learn about a foreign culture, or to escape boredom?

  • The Caste StruggleThe Caste Struggle - A controversial affirmative action policy in India has brought about unprecedented social and political change.

  • Caught in the Crossfire - Chronicles three diverse Arab New Yorkers - a beat cop, a minister, and a high-level diplomatic correspondent - as they wrestle with their place in wartime America.

  • Chain of Love - A film about the Philippines' second largest export product - maternal love - and how the international trade in love and care affects the women involved, their families, and families in the West.

  • Chantal Akerman Four Films - Four documentaries spanning two decades are included in this 5-disc box set, with a 16-page booklet and bonus film about the late filmmaker.

  • The Children of 209 Saint-Maur StreetThe Children of 209 Saint-Maur Street - An emotional historiography on Jewish children whose lives in a normal Parisian apartment building were upended by the Nazi occupation.

  • Chore Wars - Do you say "I love you" with flowers - or by doing the dishes?! The place of chores in the battle of the sexes.

  • Codigo Color, Memorias - An exploration of racism and skin color in Cuba during the 1950s.

  • Cul de Sac - An allegory for a working class suburb in decline, this film investigates the story of Shawn Nelson, who stole a tank and went on a rampage through the residential streets of Clairemont, CA.

  • D

  • Dead SoulsDead Souls - Dead Souls documents the testimony of survivors of the hard-labor camp in the Gobi Desert in Gansu, China.

  • Death On Request - Controversial documentary records the last days - and actual death - of a Dutch man who chose euthanasia to end his suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

  • The Destruction of Memory - Explores the intentional destruction of priceless artwork, artifacts and historical sites through war and terrorism.

  • Die Before Blossom - The rising importance of Islamic values in an Indonesian public school is apparent in this portrait of modern schoolgirls Kiki and Dila.

  • Digital Underground in the People's RepublicDigital Underground in the People's Republic - Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China's independent, and underground, film scene.

  • Division of Hearts - Ordinary people from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh recount their tumultuous experiences after the 1947 British subdivision of colonial India.

  • Do Communists Have Better Sex? - In divided Germany, studies showed that East Germans enjoyed their sexual lives more than their West German counterparts. What could account for the difference?

  • Dong - The great filmmaker Jia Zhangke travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong to Thailand where they meet workers in the throes of social turmoil.

  • Downtown DreamDowntown Dream - Five people in a Rust Belt town struggle to reinvent their lives and their dreams in contemporary America.

  • E

  • East Punk Memories - Punks who struggled with Hungary's communist regime discuss their experiences, music and mohawks.

  • Education and Nationalism - Documents the Japanese government’s re-writing of textbooks and education to support their political point of view.

  • Edward Said: The Last Interview - An extended discussion with Prof. Edward Said filmed less than a year before his death. The noted literary critic and Palestinian activist delivers his final testament about his life and work as a committed intellectual.

  • El Sicario, Room 164El Sicario, Room 164 - The story of a hitman for the drug cartels, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

  • El Velador - From dusk to dawn Martin watches over the extravagant mausoleums of Mexico's most notorious Drug Lords.

  • Episode 1 - Capitalism is much more complex than the vision Adam Smith laid out in The Wealth of Nations. Indeed, it predates Smith by centuries and took root in the practices of colonialism and the slave trade.

  • Episode 2 - Adam Smith was both economist and moral philosopher. But his work on morality is largely forgotten, leading to tragic distortions that have shaped our global economic system.

  • Episode 3Episode 3 - The roots of today's global trade agreements lie in the work of stockbroker David Ricardo and demographer Thomas Malthus. Together, they would restructure society in the image of the market.

  • Episode 4 - Have we gotten Marx wrong by focusing on the Communist Manifesto instead of on his critique of how capitalism works - a critique that is relevant and as penetrating as ever?

  • Episode 5 - The ideological divide between the philosophies of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek has dominated economics for nearly a century. Is it time for the pendulum to swing back to Keynes? Or do we need a whole new approach that goes beyond this dualism?

  • Episode 6 - An exploration of the life and work of Karl Polanyi, who sought to reintegrate society and economy. Could the commodification of labour and money ultimately be as disastrous as floods, drought and earthquakes?

  • F

  • FangFang - Mixes documentary and fiction techniques to recount an African art object's 100 year journey - a whole century of Western attitudes towards African culture packed into 8 minutes!

  • Fangshan Church - The inner workings of a Christian community in rural China, whose ways of life and worship are threatened by the world around them.

  • Fate of a Salesman - Meet Willie, Steve and Jerry, D.C.'s experts in pin-striped suits and feathered hats. How long can they stay in business?

  • Floating - Yang is a 30-year-old itinerant singer with a complicated love life, illegally busking in China's big cities, trying to evade the authorities. Which he does, for a while...

  • For Those Who Sail to HeavenFor Those Who Sail to Heaven - Captures the Sufi rites of the annual Opet Festival in Egypt.

  • France (Les Habitants) - Documentarist Raymond Depardon travels through provincial France in a camper, gathering conversations with people from all walks of life.

  • From The Other Side - Using technology developed for the military, the flow of illegal immigration into San Diego has been stemmed. But for the desperate, there are still the dangerous deserts of Arizona, where Chantal Akerman shifts her focus.

  • Futures Market - A visual essay on cultural memory, urban space, and real estate speculation.

  • G

  • Gai Shanxi and Her SistersGai Shanxi and Her Sisters - The story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II.

  • Grand Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to turn Paris into the model super-metropolis for the 21st century, and plenty of world-class architects would like the job.

  • Grassroots in Dry Lands - Tells the story of three unconventional social workers united by a common vision that transcends the antagonisms between their countries.

  • A Grin Without A Cat - Chris Marker's epic film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 60's and 70's: Vietnam, Che, May '68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left.

  • Gringo TrailsGringo Trails - A global survey of the impacts on cultures, economies, and the environment of the most powerful globalizing force of our time: tourism.

  • H

  • Home, or Maids in My Family - A Moroccan woman confronts her liberal bourgeois family and their servants about the relationship between them (Arab Diaries).

  • Housemaids - Seven Brazilian teenagers film their housemaids, exposing issues of class, race, and gender in their families, and in their country.

  • "Housemaids" book - A book companion to the film "Housemaids" by Gabriel Mascaro

  • The Human PyramidThe Human Pyramid - At a lycée on the Ivory coast, Jean Rouch meets with white colonial French high school students and their black African classmates (all non-actors) and persuades them to improvise a drama.

  • I

  • The Inheritors - At early age children begin to work in the Mexican countryside. This is a portrait of theirs lives and their daily struggle for survival.

  • Inside Out - Transsexuals in Iran. Intimate conversations with doctors, religious authorities, and transsexuals about the mind/body conflict, Islamic interpretations, and the impact of sex-change treatments on their lives.

  • The Intolerable Burden - One black family's commitment to a quality education, from the pre-1965 time of segregation, through desegregation, and through the recent period of resegregation. **Winner, John E. O'Connor Film Award, American Historical Association**

  • Iran, Veiled AppearancesIran, Veiled Appearances - Depicts clashes in modern Iran between extreme fundamentalism and young people who are pushing for social change, filming with soldiers, religious leaders, students, artists and intellectuals.

  • The Iron Ministry - Filmed over three years on what will soon be the world's largest railway network, traces the vast interiors of China on the move.

  • J

  • Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir - From 1967, for the first time on video or DVD, a portrait of two of the most influential and controversial writers and thinkers of the 20th century. They discuss their work, lives, and the role of intellectuals in modern society.

  • K

  • Karamay - In Karamay, filmmaker Xu Xin helps a community break the silence nearly two decades after a horrible fire killed nearly 300 schoolchildren.

  • L

  • Le Joli MaiLe Joli Mai - Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme's legendary portrait of Paris and Parisians at the close of the Algerian war.

  • Leninland - The world's largest museum devoted to Lenin offers a "true Soviet-era experience." But can it survive in the new Russia?

  • Long Story Short - Over 100 people at homeless shelters, food banks, and job training centers discuss their experiences of poverty.

  • Love and Marriage - The stories of people confronting obstacles to their personal relationships and happiness in Algeria and Lebanon.

  • M

  • Madam Phung's Last JourneyMadam Phung's Last Journey - Madam Phung and her transgender singers travel around Vietnam, sparking fascination and hostility from the local people.

  • Major Leagues? - Profiles members of the Cuban National women's baseball team, who pursue their passion in a soceity filled with machismo and prejudice.

  • Malls R Us - From impressive architectural projects to economic, environmental and social concerns, everything about shopping malls, and more.

  • A Man Vanishes - Shohei Imamura's investigation into the disappearance becomes an investigation into the nature of fiction and reality.

  • A Man's PlaceA Man's Place - Confronted with unforeseen pregnancies and, in most cases, abortions, men reveal their feelings and thoughts.

  • Marx for Beginners - Hilarious 7 minute animated introduction to Karl Marx's worldview.

  • A Mayan Trilogy: Life, Death & Migration - Now on one DVD, Olivia Carrescia's three films on the Mayan Indians of Guatemala preserve a record, and provide an acute observation on how the indigenous culture has been affected by, yet survived, that country's tumultuous history.

  • Middletown - This classic series, created by Emmy and Academy Award winner Peter Davis, explores both the continuity and the change embodied in the people and institutions of one Midwestern community: Muncie, Indiana.

  • My Father's HouseMy Father's House - The story of an underground church founded by Nigerian missionaries offers a rare glimpse inside an immigrant African community in China.

  • N

  • National Diploma - A group of Congo's high school students desperately tries to pass their final exam in order to graduate.

  • No Loans Today - Fringe banking in redlined, post-riot South Central Los Angeles.

  • North-South.com - In West Africa many young women, who dream of escaping a life of misery by marrying a rich, white foreigner, surf the Internet for marriage proposals.

  • Northern LightNorthern Light - A beautiful and candid portrait of the American working class experience set against the backdrop of a town's snowmobile race.

  • O

  • Oblivion - Heddy Honigmann's latest film focuses on Peru's capital city of Lima, revealing the contrasts of wealth and poverty, and how its poorest citizens have survived decades of economic crisis and corruption.

  • Old Dog - A family on the Himalayan plains discovers their dog is worth a fortune, but selling it comes at a terrible price.

  • Our Newspaper - A couple starts their own newspaper in rural Russia... which lands them in danger.

  • Out of PlaceOut of Place - Traces the life and work of Edward Said (1935-2003), the Palestinian-born intellectual who wrote widely on history, literature, music, philosophy and politics.

  • Oxhide - Daily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this, intimate portrait of a working-class Chinese family.

  • P

  • The Perfumed Garden - An exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society.

  • Portraits of America - Natalie Bookchin is an artist and filmmaker who, through virtuosic editing and innovative sonic and visual montage, interrogates the American crisis and its increased inequality and polarization.

  • The Price of AidThe Price of Aid - An investigation of America's food aid programs for famine-stricken nations, a multi-million dollar business, which asks both U.S. and African government officials whether such aid creates more problems than it solves.

  • The Punishment - An aimless young woman is sent home from school with nothing to do. Drifting through the streets of Paris, she comes across a variety of people.

  • Q

  • Queer China, 'Comrade' China - China's most prolific gay filmmaker presents a comprehensive historical account of the queer movement in modern China.

  • R

  • Running Mate - Eye-opening examination of cartoonists' portrayal of Geraldine Ferraro during her unsuccessful candidacy for the U.S. Vice Presidency.

  • S

  • Sacred WaterSacred Water - Immerses the viewer into a modern Rwanda rediscovering its heritage in a most secret way: female pleasure.

  • Senso Daughters - Investigates the Japanese army's mistreatment of New Guinean women and "comfort girls."

  • Seventeen - A group of high school seniors hurtles toward maturity with a combination of joy, despair, and an aggravated sense of urgency.

  • Sociology is a Martial Art - An introduction to the work of Influential sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose 40 books and countless articles represent a renovation and application of social science.

  • SouthSouth - The heart of this journey is the brutal murder of James Byrd, Jr in Jasper, Texas. But this is not an anatomy of his murder, rather, it is an evocation of how this event fits in to a landscape and climate as much mental as physical.

  • South Africa Belongs to Us - Aided by two black women journalists, the filmmakers visited workers' barracks, a family planning clinic in Soweto, and a shantytown to create the first and most stirring record of black women's lives in South Africa under apartheid.

  • Space Dogs - Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. Following her trace, and filmed from a dog’s perspective, SPACE DOGS accompanies the adventures of her descendants: two street dogs living in today’s Moscow.

  • The Storytellers -

  • Street LifeStreet Life - The hidden lives of homeless migrants who survive in the shadows of one of Shanghai's most affluent and historic streets.

  • T

  • Tahrir: Liberation Square - Director Stefano Savona lived and filmed on the front lines in Tahrir Square, Cairo, to make this film from the heart of the protests that overthrew Mubarak in Egypt last year.

  • This Way Up - Near Jerusalem, the construction of the separation wall continues, a few feet from a senior citizens' home.

  • Three Sisters - Three little sisters live alone in a small village in the high mountains of the Yunnan region. The little girls don't go to school, spending their days working in the fields or wandering in the village.

  • Three Songs about MotherlandThree Songs about Motherland - A film about collisions between the past, present, and future in three Russian cities.

  • 'Til Madness Do Us Part - The daily lives and isolation of a group of men locked on one floor of a Chinese city's psychiatric institution.

  • Time Thieves - Forget water, oil and rare minerals - there is a new resource everyone wants: our time.

  • To Be Seen - A lively study of visual culture, and an exploration of an age-old urban cultural phenomenon, street art. What is art's role in the context of public space and urban culture?

  • Todos Santos Cuchumatan: Report from a Guatemalan Village - This film provides an intimate look at everyday life in Todos Santos, a village in Guatemala's highlands, before the violence of the 1980s.

  • 12 Days - Filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon chronicles the patients of a psychiatric ward where justice and madness meet.

  • U

  • Under the Sun - A fascinating portrait of one North Korean girl and her parents in the year as she prepares to join the Korean Children's Union on Kim Jong-Il's birthday.

  • W

  • We Are the ... of Communism - The mysterious closing of a Beijing school sends hundreds of migrant children on a desperate struggle to reclaim their right to an education.

  • Welcome to RefugeestanWelcome to Refugeestan - The UNHCR manages camps that shelter more than sixteen million refugees all around the world, creating a virtual country as large as the Netherlands.

  • When the Bough Breaks - On the outskirts of Beijing, two teenage girls struggle to pay for their brother's schooling.

  • Which Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam - When two American sisters travel north from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends reveal to them the flip side of a shared history.

  • Work - Explores the hopes and aspirations of Arab men and women as embodied in the dreams and realities of flying.

  • Y

  • YiddishYiddish - Seven young scholars share their love for Yiddish avant-garde poetry written between the World Wars.

  • Young Freud in Gaza - Ayed is a young psychotherapist in Gaza. The film shows his consultations with a variety of patients, and the challenges he and they face.

  • Youth - Four young women face issues of independence and empowerment in Algeria, Egypt, and Lebanon.

  • [

  • [CENSORED] - Violence, birth and sex were cut from films by the Australian Censorship Board from 1958-1971 and went unseen... until now.

More Films & DVDs on Sociology
  • Arab Diaries - A five-part documentary series that presents a fresh, insightful picture of contemporary life across the Arab world.

  • Celso and Cora - A young couple and their two children living in a squatter settlement in the Philippines' capital, Manila.

  • The Color of Gold - In South Africa's President Steyn Gold Mine, 8000 men live in a compound next to the mine shaft in which they dig, far from their families.

  • Dreamland - Takes a sharp but disarming approach in examining the romance of gambling, and reveals the decidedly unromantic reality.

  • Five Centuries Later - Examines the current status of Central American aboriginal civilizations, five hundred years after they were "conquered" by European invaders.

  • From Opium to Chrysanthemums - The Hmong, in Southeast Asia and America - struggling to preserve essential aspects of their culture, while coping with the enormous changes forced upon them.

  • Guns & Mothers - The contentious debate over gun control, as seen through the eyes of two mothers on opposite sides of the issue.

  • Hats of Jerusalem - Jerusalem can rightfully be called the hat capital of the world, and this colorful and personal trip takes us along the diverse headdresses of the three religions populating the city.

  • High Risk Offender - A look into the universe of the parole office, and the tenuous relationships between offenders and their parole officers and therapists.

  • How Happy Can You Be? - What is happiness? And how do we get more of it? Visiting leading figures in positive psychology and observing clinical experiments, this is a light-hearted but serious investigation.

  • Human Weapon - The first sober, in-depth examination of the history of suicide bombing. Filmed in Iran, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Israel, Palestine, Europe and the United States.

  • The Internationale - Draws on people's stories of an emotionally charged radical song (the long-time anthem of socialism and communism) to celebrate the relationship between music and social change.

  • Jesus Politics - A personal investigation into the role of religion in American politics, and specifically this year's presidential election.

  • Justice - Takes a camera where few have been, a criminal courtroom in Rio de Janeiro, to record the social theatre, the structures of power, what is usually invisible.

  • Login 2 Life - Profiles seven people who spend most of their lives in online virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft.

  • Losers and Winners - Two worlds collide when 400 Chinese workers move to Germany for a year and a half to take apart an entire gigantic modern coke factory—and ship it back to China.

  • Mademoiselle and the Doctor - Lisette Nigot seems an unlikely candidate for euthanasia. At 79, she is in good health, feels no pain, and does not seem depressed. But she says she sees no reason to continue living. And Dr. Philip Nitschke is willing to help her.

  • Mayan Voices: American Lives - Contrasts the experiences of Mayan families who came to Indiantown, Florida as refugees fleeing the violence in Guatemala in the early 1980s, with the struggles of those continuing to arrive in search of better lives.

  • Ms. Conceptions - Dually profound and amusing, delves into the "family values" debate via an exposé of women who are single mothers by choice.

  • No Man's Land: Women Frontline Journalists - Profiles members of a rare breed: women war correspondents.

  • On Our Land -

  • Ordinary People - The first ever independently produced current affairs series aired by the South African Broadcasting Corporation's TV1.

  • Our House - A groundbreaking documentary that explores what it's like to grow up with gay or lesbian parents, as Americans struggle to re-define family values.

  • People Power - The first in depth look at non-violent revolutions around the world.

  • The Road to Peace: Israelis and Palestinians - Explores the implications of an historic crossroads in Israeli-Palestinian relations - a process now in great jeopardy.

  • Sotsgorod: Cities For Utopia - Uncovers the secret history of Western architects who moved to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s, to design the huge new industrial cities being built across Siberia and the steppes.

  • Stories of Honor and Shame - Through a series of remarkable personal accounts, fifteen women reveal their roles in the patriarchal Islamic society of the Gaza Strip where men dictate most aspects of life.

  • The Struggle for Peace - Introduces grassroots organizations with very different perspectives on how to bring about a peaceful settlement to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

  • Taxi to Timbuktu - Men from Mali seek work in New York, Paris, and Tokyo.

  • 20 Years Old in the Middle East - Filmed after the fall of Saddam Hussein, this film traverses the region - from Jordan to Syria, Iran, and Lebanon - to take the pulse of Arab and Iranian youth.

  • The Virgin Diaries - Two young women journey through Morocco in search of answers to their questions about virginity, sex and Islam.

  • We Loved Each Other So Much - The Lebanese singer Hoda Nouhad Haddad, better known as Fairuz, is a legend in the Arab world. The stories of diverse Beirut inhabitants and of their love for her provide a moving commentary on Lebanon's tumultuous history.

  • Winds of Memory - Filmed over three years, WINDS OF MEMORY reveals Mayan life and culture in Guatemala today, five centuries after the "discovery" of America.

  • The Women of Hezbollah - A portrait of two women activists in the Hezbollah, and an examination of the personal, social and political factors of their commitment to this Islamic movement in Lebanon.

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