Platforms
The University Library works with the platforms listed on this page to supply streaming video content to support course instruction.
Panopto
Panopto is a platform to store, stream, and share a selection of films owned and licensed by SCU.
Featured Films on Panopto
A Woman and Her Car
One day, Lucie decides to write a letter to the man who abused her when she was a young girl. She then takes her camera, her car, and resolves to bring it to him in person. This award-winning short doc was started by Lucie but finished by her son, Loic, when he discovered the video tape of her journey ten years later.
Advocate
Lea Tsemel defends Palestinians: from feminists to fundamentalists, from non-violent demonstrators to armed militants. As a Jewish-Israeli lawyer who has represented political prisoners for five decades, Tsemel, in her tireless quest for justice, pushes the praxis of a human rights defender to its limits. As far as most Israelis are concerned, she defends the indefensible. As far as Palestinians are concerned, she's more than an attorney, she's an advocate.
The Ants and the Grasshopper (Access ends Feb. 1, 2025)
Anita Chitaya has a gift; she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions shaping the US, from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, to the thinking that allows Americans to believe they live on a different planet from everyone else. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognize, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.
Aquí y allá
A man (Pedro De los Santos) returns home to Mexico after many years in the U.S. He hopes to make a better life with his family and pursue his dream of starting a band.
Are You With Me
The documentary 'ben jij bij mij/are you with me' portrays Joke van den Broek (92 years), an imaginative woman living in the Netherlands. She used to work as a primary school teacher, and is a real story teller who sees a silver lining in everything. Joke still lives at home and can handle that just fine.
Ask the Sexpert
A documentary about Dr. Mahinder Watsa, a 93-year old sex columnist for a daily newspaper in Mumbai. The film discusses the impact of his column, and attempts at censoring it for obscenity.
The Atomic Cafe
The film recounts a defining period of 20th century history and serves as a chilling and often hilarious reminder of cold-war era paranoia in the United States juxtaposing Cold War history, propaganda, music and culture through a collage of newsreel footage, government produced educational and training films, military training films, advertisements, and fifties music, capturing a panicked nation, offering a fascinating and witty account of life during the atomic age and resulting cold war, when fall-out shelters, duck-and-cover drills, and government propaganda were all a part of our social consciousness.
Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise (Access ends October 28, 2025)
On May 17, 1954, in its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the doctrine of "separate but equal," ending legal segregation in American education. Fifty years later, how close is America to fulfilling the promise of Brown?
Broken Gods
India has one of the largest populations of Indigenous people in the world, known locally as adivasis or tribals. As India's current Hindu nationalist government pushes to redefine India as a homogenous Hindu nation, adivasis’ ways of life are under greater threat. Set among the Rathava and Bhil adivasi communities of western India, broken gods document the social impact of Hindu religious evangelism among India’s Indigenous groups. As Indigenous people join Hindu religious sects, their old gods are literally becoming broken - devotional mural paintings are being whitewashed from homes, and the earthen figurines in honour of village gods and ancestors are being left to fall apart. While for those who convert joining a Hindu sect offers the allure of a better life, those who continue to follow their old ways have become ostracized by their communities. Their broken gods have lost the power to protect them from illness and scarcity.
Le Chant des Mariées (The Wedding Song) (Access ends December 21, 2025)
The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewish woman who are both preparing for their marriages.
Close to Vermeer
Follow renowned Vermeer expert Gregor Weber, curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, as he sets up the largest ever Vermeer exhibition. Weber joins a number of Vermeer enthusiasts and experts who are using the latest techniques to search for what makes a Vermeer truly a Vermeer.
Coded Bias
"CODED BIAS explores the fallout of MIT media lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all. "--Coded bias website.
Complicit
Complicit follows Yi Yeting, a Chinese workers' rights activist, over three years on his quest to expose the dangerous working conditions in the Chinese factories producing electronics for the world market where one worker dies from exposure to toxic materials every five hours (that is the official number, the true number of death may be much higher) and his endeavor to improve these conditions
The Conspiracy
The hateful conspiracy that just won't go away - that somehow a cabal of Jewish people control the world - sends filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin to detail 250 years of antisemitism.
Daring to Resist
Actress Janeane Garofalo narrates this portrait of three teenage girls fighting genocide, taking risks they never dreamed possible: Faye Schulman, a photographer and partisan fighter in the forests of Poland (now Belarus); Barbara Rodbell, a ballerina in Amsterdam who delivered underground newspapers and secured food and transportation for Jews in hiding, and Shulamit Lack, who acquired false papers and a safe house for Jews attempting to escape from Hungary.
Daring to Resist is Produced and Directed by Barbara Attie and Martha Goell Lubell
Daughter of the Lake
Nelida is an Andean woman who talks to the water spirits. The discovery of a gold deposit threatens to destroy the lake she thinks of as her mother. To stop this from happening, Nelida joins the local farmers who fear being left without water in their fight against the biggest gold mine in Latin America.
Disgraced Monuments
"Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Mark Lewis use rare archival footage and interviews with artists, art historians, and museum directors to examine the fate of Soviet-era monuments during successive political regimes, from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of communism. Mulvey and Lewis highlight both the social relevance of these relics and the cyclical nature of history". - Filmaffinity
Down a Dark Stairwell
When a Chinese-American police officer kills an innocent, unarmed Black man in a darkened stairwell of a New York City housing project, it sets off a firestorm of emotion and calls for accountability. When he becomes the first NYPD officer convicted of an on-duty shooting in over a decade, the fight for justice becomes complicated, igniting one of the largest Asian-American protests in history, disrupting a legacy of solidarity, and putting an uneven legal system into sharp focus.
East LA Interchange
East LA Interchange follows the evolution of working-class, immigrant Boyle Heights from one of the most diverse, multicultural areas in the United States to predominately Latino and a center of Mexican-American culture. The film shows how the neighborhood fought to survive the construction of the largest and busiest freeway interchange in the nation despite being targeted by government policies, real estate laws, and California planners. East LA Interchange explores the shifting face of community in the United States today and argues why it should matter to us all. The film features narration by Danny Trejo (Machete) and interviews with will.i.am (The Black Eyed Peas), Father Greg Boyle (Homeboy Industries), and Josefina López (Real Women Have Curves) as well as an original song by Raul Pacheco (Ozomatli).
Edith + Eddie
Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America's oldest interracial newlyweds. A family feud threatens to disrupt the couple's happiness.
Empleadas y Patrones (Maids and Bosses)
The front doors of Panama’s expensive houses and apartments, where families and their domestic staff sometimes live together for many years, hide a at a world of ignorance and prejudice.
Far East Deep South
A Chinese-American family's search for their roots leads them to the Mississippi Delta, where they stumble upon surprising family revelations and uncover the racially complex history of the Chinese in the segregated South. FAR EAST DEEP SOUTH presents a personal and eye-opening perspective on race, immigration, and American identity. It sheds light on the history of Chinese immigrants living in the American South during the late 1800s to mid-1900s through the emotional journey of Charles Chiu and his family as they travel from California to Mississippi to find answers about his father, K.C. Lou. Along the way, they meet a diverse group of local residents and historians who help them discover how deep their roots run in America. The film also explores the interconnected relationship between the Black and Chinese communities in the Jim Crow era and the generational impact of discriminatory immigration policies, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
From Under the Rubble
The Samouni family is a peaceful, close-knit family of farmers in Gaza, 48 members of whom were killed when they were herded into a house by the Israeli Defence Force and then fired upon, as part of Israel's battle with Hamas in January 2009.
Fruit of Labor
Ashley, a Mexican-American teenager living in California, dreams of graduating high school and going to college. But when ICE raids threaten her family, Ashley is forced to become the breadwinner, working days in the strawberry fields and nights at a food processing company. A co-presentation of POV and VOCES, co-produced by POV and Latino Public Broadcasting. Official Selection, SXSW Film Festival.
Grandma's Tattoos
Grandma's Tattoos is a powerful documentary that reveals the fate of thousands of forgotten women, mostly teenagers and young girls, who survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide but were forced into prostitution by their captors. Many of these women were tattooed as a permanent mark of their status.
Half the Kingdom
American, Canadian and Israeli women talk about their struggle to redefine their roles in Jewish life and attempt to incorporate feminist values into their religion.
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
The 2018 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short Subject is an extraordinary portrait of artist Mindy Alper, whose astonishing body of work - drawings and sculptures of powerful psychological clarity - reveals a lifetime of struggle with debilitating mental illness.
Indochina: Traces of a Mother (Access ends September 26, 2024)
Indochina: traces of a mother documents a little-known chapter in African, Asian and French colonial history and the personal story of Christophe, a Beninese-Vietnamese orphan that returns to Vietnam to look for his long-lost mother.
Injunuity
Injunuity is a collage of reflections on the Native American world, our shared past, our turbulent present, and our undiscovered future. From Columbus to the western expansion to tribal casinos, we are taught that the Native way, while at times glorious, is something of the past, something that needed to be replaced by a manifest destiny from across the ocean. But in a world increasingly short of real answers, it is time we looked to Native wisdom for guidance. It is time for some Injunuity. Injunuity is a mix of animation, music, and real thoughts from real people exploring our world from the Native American perspective. Every word spoken is verbatim, every thought and opinion is real, told in nine short pieces and covering such topics as language preservation, sacred sites, and the environment. But rather than simply revisit our history, the goal of Injunuity is to help define our future, to try and figure out the path that lies before us, to focus on where we are going as well as where we have been. Featuring the voices of William Harrison (Mountain Maidu), Monica Nuvamsa (Hopi, Acoma, Havasupai), Tom Phillips (Kiowa, Creek), Nazbah Tom, (Navajo/Dine), Randy Lewis (Colville), Lyz Jaakola (Anishinaabe) and Audiopharmacy.
Italy: Love It, or Leave It
Luca and Gustav are two young Italians who over the past few years have witnessed the exodus of many of their friends to Berlin, London or Barcelona. Creative, talented people who dont see a future in their country. They're fed up with the high cost of living, the lack of job security, the feudal university system, the generally reactionary attitudes and indifference to human rights, the clear sense that you dont get anywhere just on merit. Tired of a country that appears to be mired in quicksand can they find a reason to stay?
Jean-Jacques Dessalines: the Man who Defeated Napoleon Bonaparte (English Subtitles)
Dessalines is Haiti’s main founder. He was assassinated two years after the proclamation of independence. Today he is both a mythical and an unknown figure, used for better and for worse. This film reintroduces him in all his complexity and opens a debate on the Haitian crises and the colonial heritage. With analysis by Pierre Buteau, Jean Casimir, Michèle Pierre-Louis, Jean Alix René, Bayyinah Bello, Vertus Saint-Louis, Jhon Picard Byron, Lesly Péan, Daniel Elie and others.
Kirikou and The Sorceress
This animated film exquisitely recounts the tale of tiny Kirikou born in an African village in which Karaba the Sorceress has placed a terrible curse. Kirikou sets out on a quest to free his village of the curse and find out the secret of why Karaba is so wicked. Lisa Nesselson of Variety (11/1/99) notes: 'KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS employs snappy visuals to tell a catchy story for all ages. A blend of African folktales 'KIRIKOU' has both humor and flair.' Kirikou depicts a precocious newborn infant who battles ignorance, and so-called evil, with endearing perseverance. This film speaks to the child within us all who yearns to express and defend the best in others and ourselves. KIRIKOU's stunning visuals are accented by a traditional music soundtrack by African music giant Youssou N'Dour of Senegal.
Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank
A transformative artist and one of the most insightful chroniclers of American life, legendary Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank continues to fascinate generations of casual observers and aspiring photographers alike. LEAVING HOME, COMING HOME: A PORTRAIT OF ROBERT FRANK is the definitive account of Frank’s life and the unique ways his biography and art intersect to produce powerful, richly textured images.
Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
This Academy award nominated documentary about the Argentinian mothers' movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 "disappeared" sons and daughters remains as extraordinarily powerful as when it was first released. As well as giving an understanding of Argentinian history in the '70s and '80s, LAS MADRES shows the empowerment of women in a society where women are expected to be silent. LAS MADRES provides a banner of hope in the international struggle for human rights.
Monumental Crossroads
"Throughout the South of the United States, tempers flare up as confederate monuments are targeted for removal. During a 6000 mile road trip through the former Confederacy, this documentary explores the legacy of Southern Heritage. A myriad of supporters and opponents is met along the way: White, Black, North and South. Each with their own view on what's worth remembering and preserving. Is there a way past these crossroads?"
--IMDb
Motherload (2019)
Motherload is a crowdsourced documentary about a new mom's quest to understand and promote the cargo bike movement in a gas-powered, digital and divided world. As Liz explores the burgeoning global movement to replace cars with purpose-built bikes, she learns about the bicycle's history and potential future as the ultimate "social revolutionizer." Her experiences as a cyclist, as a mother, and in discovering the cargo bike world, teach Liz that sustainability is not necessarily about compromise and sacrifice and there are few things more empowering, in an age of consumption, than the ability to create everything from what seems to be nothing. MOTHERLOAD features unconventional production methods (including crowdsourcing from non-filmmakers), genre-bending storytelling (experimental/personal/doc), and themes of movement-building, activism and courage to "go against the grain."
My Country (Access ends Feb. 19, 2026)
Two brothers — one American, one Italian, who’ve never met — take a road trip from Rome to the unknown but picturesque region of Molise on a journey to spread the ashes of their late father in the small town where he was born.
Neighbor
A homeless man uncovers a dirty little secret in Suburbia.
No Más Bebés
"The story of Mexican immigrant women who were pushed into sterilization while giving birth at L.A. County hospital during the 1970s. Alongside intrepid young Chicana/o lawyers and a whistle-blowing doctor, the mothers stood up to powerful institutions in the name of justice."--Container
Nostalgia for the Light
Director Patricio Guzman travels to the driest place on earth, Chile's Atacama Desert, where astronomers examine distant galaxies, archaeologists uncover traces of ancient civilizations, and women dig for the remains of disappeared relatives.
Oaxacalifornia: El Regresso
An intimate portrait of three generations of a Mexican-American family in California, Oaxacalifornia: The Return revisits the Me̕ja family twenty-five years after they were first portrayed negotiating their place in a new environment, digging deep into the complexities of multigenerational immigrant identities and the nuances of both belonging and otherness to become a moving epic about the fabric of this nation.
Paris Was a Woman
Through a combination of still photos, archival film footage, and interview commentary, documents the creative community of French, English and American women, many of whom were lesbians, who gravitated to the Left Bank in Paris during the early part of the 20th century.
The Pearl Button
The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds the voices of the Earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of a mysterious button that was discovered in its seabed. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline, the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian indigenous people, of the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.
Plan A
In 1945, a group of Jewish holocaust survivors planned to poison the water system in Germany. The film tells the dangerous and bold secret-operation which was called Plan A.
Potentially Dangerous
During World War II, the U.S Government restricted the actions and freedoms of 600,000 Italian residents of the United States. All were declared "Enemy Aliens," and many were placed under curfew, banned from their workplaces, evacuated from their homes and communities, and even placed in internment camps. Many of these people had been in the United States for decades, had children born in their adopted country, and had sons serving in the U.S. Military. During that era, Italians made up the biggest foreign-born group in the country. As the Department of Justice would later say, "The impact of the wartime experience was devastating to the Italian American communities in the United States, and its effects are still being felt." Interned Italians were not changed with a crime or allowed legal representation. They were subjected to "loyalty hearings" and held for the duration of the war. The United States government considered them "Potentially Dangerous" not based on anything they had done, but on where they were born. Most Italians refused to speak about what happened to them. Even 80 years later, many have remained silent. Until now. Hear their stories for the first time in Potentially Dangerous.—Zach Baliva
The Prison in Twelve Landscapes
An examination of the prison and its place -- social, economic and psychological -- in American society. Excavates the often-unseen links and connections that prisons and our system of mass incarceration have on communities and industries all around us-- from a blazing California mountainside where female prisoners fight raging wildfires to a Bronx warehouse that specializes in prison-approved care packages to an Appalachian coal town betting its future on the promise of new prison jobs to the street where Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson. Includes interviews with ex-convicts, prisoners and people who live near prisons.
Prisoner of Paradise
Kurt Gerron was a star in Germany's theater and cabaret scene in the 1920s and 1930s, performing with some of the country's best artists and entertainers of the time. But with the rise of Adolf Hitler, the acclaimed Jewish entertainer was relegated to the role of prisoner in a Nazi-run concentration camp. There he was forced to put his talents to use writing and directing a propaganda film that sang the praises of his captors. This documentary tells Gerron's shocking and tragic story.
The R-Word
This film explores the long-reaching history and lasting implications of derogatory language used to describe people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Reckonings
They met in secret to negotiate the unthinkable -- compensation for the survivors of the largest mass genocide in history. Survivors were in urgent need of help, but how could reparations be determined for the unprecedented destruction and suffering of a people? Reckonings explores this untold true story set in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story
A documentary on the Christian anarchist and co founder of the Catholic Worker movement.
Rodents of Unusual Size
"Louisiana has suffered from hurricanes, flooding and oil spills, but nothing has been as insidious as the nutria. This giant swamp rat, known for its distinctive orange buckteeth, is prone to tunneling and eating plant roots, threatening the region's fragile wetlands with erosion. Rodents of Unusual Size follows fisherman-turned-bounty hunter Thomas Gonzales and other colorful Gulf residents, from hunters and trappers to furriers and chefs, as they try to defend their imperiled land from this invasive species."--Container
The Seeds of Vandana Shiva
How did the willful daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator become Monsanto's worst nightmare? The Seeds of Vandana Shiva tells the remarkable life story of Gandhian eco-activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, how she stood up to the corporate Goliaths of industrial agriculture, rose to prominence in the ecological food movement, and is inspiring an international crusade for change. In her colorful sari and large scarlet bindi, Dr. Vandana Shiva is an arresting presence: She galvanizes crowds, advises government leaders, fields constant calls from the media-then then retreats from big-city buzz to work alongside small farmers across the developing world. Who is she? What is her mission? How did this woman from an obscure town in India become Monsanto's worst nightmare: a rebellious rock star in the global debate about who feeds the world?
Selling Lies
In 2016, an army of teenagers in Macedonia discovered a wildly lucrative game of posting false political clickbait news articles on Facebook for profit. By creating websites leading up to the presidential election that published sensationalized and misleading news stories about American politics, they generated a massive income and influenced the election. Selling Lies offers a rare glimpse inside the secret network behind these websites, including one notorious ringleader whose social media reach had vast implications on American readers, and explores how disinformation campaigns are continuing to strongly impact the U.S. today leading into the 2020 presidential election.
Señorita Extraviada
This film "unfolds like the unsolved mystery that it examines -- the kidnapping, rape and murder of over 350 young women in Juárez, Mexico ... [T]he film unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed these brutal murders to continue. Relying on what filmmaker Lourdes Portillo comes to see as the most reliable of sources -- the testimonies of the families of the victims -- this film documents a two-year search for the truth in the underbelly of the new global economy
Sleep Dealer
Set in the future, a young man looks for a better life outside his small rural village in Mexico-- but finds himself facing a technological dystopia when he attempts to cross the border.
Soldiers of Conscience (Access ends April 06, 2023)
Eight Iraq War soldiers face the most difficult moral decision of their lives: to kill or not to kill. Each is torn between the demands of duty and the call of conscience. A realistic, yet optimistic look at war, peace, and the power of the human conscience.
A Song for Cesar
"Song for Cesar, the Movement and the Music" is a documentary built around the music, musicians, artists, and other important supporters who were instrumental in assisting Cesar Chavez and the UFW grow this movement.
Street Heroines
STREET HEROINES is an award-winning feature-length documentary celebrating the courage and creativity of women who despite their lack of recognition have been an integral part of the graffiti and street art movement since the beginning. With authentic vérité storytelling woven between an interview-driven narrative, STREET HEROINES juxtaposes the personal experiences of three emerging Latina artists from New York City, Mexico City, and São Paulo as they navigate a male-dominated subculture to establish artistic identities within chaotic urban landscapes.
TGV (1997) (Access ends December 20, 2023)
TGV is an express bus service between Dakar, Senegal, and Conakry, Guinea, operated by the enterprising Rambo and his assistant, Dembo. Before setting off, Rambo and his passengers are warned of the danger that lies ahead on their route. The Bassari are carrying out a revolt at the Guinea border, leading to an exodus of refugees from their villages. On hearing the news, only a dozen or so passengers decide to make the risky trip. During the arduous journey, each passenger’s motivation for making the trip is slowly revealed. - africanfilmny.org
Touba (Access ends September 7, 2026)
Touba reveals a face of Islam essential in these divisive times. It chronicles the Grand Magaal pilgrimage of 1 million Sufi Muslims to the holy city of Touba, Senegal. This observational film takes us inside the Mouride Brotherhood: one of Africa's most elusive organizations. Pilgrims travel from all over the world to pay homage to the life and teachings of Cheikh Amadou Bamba. His non-violent resistance to French colonial persecution in the late 19th century inspired a national movement: freedom of religious expression through pacifism. These are lessons the world can learn.
Unladylike2020
"UNLADYLIKE2020 calls into question American history as we know it, reaching back to the dawn of the 20th century to recognize unsung female leaders and women of color trailblazers. The series presents rich biographies of 26 trailblazing American women that everyone should know, who broke barriers in male-dominated fields over 100 years ago, such as politics, journalism, science, business, sports, and the arts, including the first woman to found a hospital on an American Indian reservation, serve in the U.S. Congress, become a bank president, earn an international pilot’s license, lead scientific expeditions in the Arctic, swim the English Channel, sing opera on the main stage at Carnegie Hall, or direct a feature-length movie. Presenting history in a bold new way, UNLADYLIKE2020 brings these extraordinary stories of daring and persistence back to life through captivating original artwork and animation, rare archival imagery, and interviews with historians, descendants, and accomplished women of today, who reflect on the influence of these pioneers. The UNLADYLIKE2020 collection includes short documentary films ranging in length from 9 to 12 minutes profiling 26 different women." -- Grasshopper Film
L'Uomo Piu Buono del Mondo: La Leggenda di Carlo Tresca
United States, early 1900s. Carlo Tresca is an Italian immigrant who leads strikes that last for months, publishes newspapers denouncing bosses and mafiosi, wins and loses dozens of trials for the freedom of his ideas and for immigrant workers in America. For almost forty years the FBI considered him among the most dangerous subversives. From Sulmona, Abruzzo, he is a trade unionist, journalist, socialist, revolutionary, anarchist, anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist, inconvenient for everyone. Perhaps he wanted to return to Italy to participate in the liberation of the country but a gunshot to the back kills him one winter evening. It's January 11, 1943. At his funeral in New York, a procession of eighty cars loaded with flowers and thousands of people. Workers, weavers, intellectuals, artists, writers mourn what was called "the best man in the world". Then on him, for years, silence descends.
Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance
UPROOTED is a feature-length documentary celebrating the history, lineage, and future progressions of jazz dance. With a stellar cast of leading industry experts, award-winning choreographers, and legendary performers, this groundbreaking documentary goes back to the roots in Africa and follows the evolution of this incredible dance form through every single decade and genre. Exploring and commenting on political and social influences, the film addresses topics such as appropriation, racism, socialism, and sexism. UPROOTED includes special appearances with Debbie Allen, George Faison, Chita Rivera, Camille A. Brown and Thomas F. DeFrantz and showcases the works of the Nicholas Brothers, Pepsi Bethel, Jack Cole, Katherine Dunham, Bob Fosse and Gene Kelly.
Vado Verso Dove Vengo
People share stories of how their lives turned out as a result of making their respective choices from emigration, homecoming and staying put.
Vamonos con Pancho Villa!
This classic of Mexican cinema follows the adventures of six young men who leave their rural homes to join Pancho Villa's army. Together the men endure hardship, tragedy, and disillusionment for the cause of the Mexican Revolution.
We Are All Related Here
In a remote western Alaskan village, an Indigenous community is at imminent risk of being displaced by climate change.
We Exist: Beyond the Binary
"One of the first films to document a growing community living life "beyond the binary" construct of gender. We exist offers a first-hand account of what it is like to exist other than male or female, while living within the confines of a world that is slow to catch up."--DVD jacket.
Who Is Dayani Cristal?
The body of an unidentified immigrant is found in the Arizona Desert. In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.
Womanhouse (1974)
A prodigious historical documentary about one of the most important feminist cultural events of the 1970s in the United States. "Womanhouse" was a feminist art installation and performance space organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Feminist Art Program. Held in 1972 at 533 N. Mariposa Street, Los Angeles, Ca..
The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
This documentary recounts the life and work of German film director Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts her career from dancer, actress, and film director in Nazi Germany. The film explores her disgrace after Germany's defeat in 1945 and tells of her work and life after the war. Leni Riefenstahl is best known for her film Triumph des willens.
Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice
Biography in political and social context of Yuri Kochiyama, an Asian American woman and humanitarian civil rights activist who first became aware of social injustice in the United States during her time in a Japanese-American interment camp during World War II. She stresses the need for members of all races and ethnicities to work together for common goals, and for a fundamental change in political power structures. Includes interviews with Kochiyama and with members of her family.
Swank Digital Campus
Swank Digital Campus provides a customizable academic streaming library of over 25,000 feature films, documentaries and foreign films from the largest movie studios, including Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, NBCUniversal, Columbia Pictures, Lions Gate, MGM, Miramax and many more.
Kanopy
Kanopy is a video-streaming platform dedicated to thoughtful and thought-provoking films. Founded in 2008, Kanopy was established to provide academic institutions with essential films that foster learning and conversation. Content providers include A24, PBS, California Newsreel, Paramount, Criterion Collection, HBO Documentary Films, Kino Lorber, Cohen Media Group, Cinema Guild, Bleeker Street, Media Education Foundation, Dos Vatos, First Run Features, New Day Films, and Psychotherapy.net.
Effective October 7, 2022, Santa Clara University Library expanded Kanopy access to include access to Kanopy's BASE Subscription titles in addition to films individually licensed per faculty request. Kanopy BASE Subscription content includes nearly 10,000 titles (many of which are exclusive to Kanopy) which cover multiple disciplines from diverse suppliers including PBS, California Newsreel, Kino Lorber, First Run Features, New Day Films, Film Movement, and SHOUT Factory.
Alexander Street Press
Alexander Street publishes more than 80 collections totaling many millions of pages, audio tracks, videos, images, and playlists. Collections across the curriculum—in literature; music; women's history; black history; psychological counseling and therapy; social and cultural history; drama, medical, theatre, film, and the performing arts; religion; sociology; and other emerging areas. SCU currently subscribes to the collection Counseling and Therapy in Video and also licenses videos individually.
Films on Demand
Films On Demand is a Web-based digital video delivery service that allows viewing of streaming videos from Films Media Group. Choose from thousands of high-quality educational titles in dozens of subject areas. Special features allow users the ability to organize and bookmark clips, create and share playlists, and personalize folders. Content providers include BBC, ABC News, NBC News, A&E Television Networks, Cambridge Educational, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
Docuseek
Docuseek streams essential independent, social-issue and environmental films to colleges and universities, providing exclusive access to content from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution. Participating distributors include Bullfrog Frilms, dGenerate Films, The Fanlight Collection, First Run Features, Icarus Films, Kartemquin Films, KimStim Films, MediaStorm, National Film Board of Canada, ScorpionTV, and Terra Nova Films.
Film Platform
Film Platform collaborates with some of the industry’s leading filmmakers and content providers around the world to bring the finest documentary films to any audience willing and wanting to learn. The collection is meticulously curated by film experts and leading academics to showcase meaningful documentaries of social, political, and cultural importance. Film Platform works with an academic advisory board to ensure that each of our films upholds the highest educational standards and speaks directly to today’s most pressing academic topics and concerns.
Ambrose Video
Ambrose Video has access to over 700 Educational videos including timely science and history topics. New releases include: Career Decisions: Physical Therapy, The Neuroscience of Addiction Extended Interviews, Behavioral Science, AP Human Geography, Great Directors, Great Authors of the British Isles and Great Irish Authors, BBC Classics such as all 37 BBC Shakespeare Plays, James Burkes' Connections, Ascent of Man and more.
Digitalia
Digitalia Film Library (streaming video) is a multilingual collection of films from Spain, France and other European countries, North American Classic films, and Latin American films from South America, Central America and Caribbean including Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and others.
Vendor Catalogs
The University Library also licenses films from the catalogs below to host on SCU's Panopto platform.
Grasshopper Film
Grasshopper Film is a distribution company dedicated to the release of independent, foreign, and documentary film. Founded in December 2015 by Ryan Krivoshey.
Good Docs
"GOOD DOCS are films that do good in the world. Our award-winning collection engages and inspires students by featuring rarely heard stories about individuals and communities working towards a more equitable world. We champion creative expression and complex films that provoke critical thinking. GOOD DOCS represents established documentarians and passionate new filmmakers driven by their experiences as educators, academics, journalists, artists, social workers, community members, and activists." - Good Docs About Us
Women Make Movies
Women Make Movies - "Our acclaimed collection of nearly 700 films is used by thousands of cultural, educational and community organizations across North America and throughout the world. We work in collaboration with international film festivals, national broadcasters, and local community groups to deliver media that enriches public dialogue and changes lives. Our long-standing commitment to diversity shows in our catalog, more than half of which is produced by women from different cultures, as well as by LGBTQI women, older women, women with disabilities, and women of color." - WMM About Us Distribution
Cinema Guild
Cinema Guild - Based in New York City, The Cinema Guild is a distributor of independent, foreign and documentary films. The company was founded by Philip and Mary-Ann Hobel, producers known for their work in documentaries and features, including Tender Mercies, winner of two Academy Awards.
Third World Newsreel
Third World Newsreel (TWN) is an alternative media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation and dissemination of independent film and video by and about people of color and social justice issues.
It supports innovative work of diverse forms and genres made by artists who are intimately connected to their subjects through common bonds of ethnic/cultural heritage, class position, gender, sexual orientation and political identification. TWN promotes the self-representation of traditionally marginalized groups as well as the negotiated representation of those groups by artists who work in solidarity with them.
Ultimately, whether documentary, experimental, narrative, traditional or non-traditional, the importance of the media promoted by the organization is its ability to effect social change, to encourage people to think critically about their lives and the lives of others, and to propel people into action.