Film
Expectations
When Jane wakes up during involuntary sex, she's forced to confront not only her husband's violation but the invisible expectations that have shaped their relationship. Expectations is a ten minute exploration of one of the most common, yet most hidden, forms of intimate partner violence. It allows the audience to feel and experience the quiet sorrow, self-doubt, and confusion of a woman whose partner doesn't truly see her humanity, and it fills in the missing middle of the social conversation about rape by showing the little compromises and ingrained assumptions that build the power dynamics behind sexual assault.
Dragon Babies
When filmmaker Kathy Trinh discovers forgotten footage from her kindergarten classroom, a simple search for her former classmates—thirty years later—becomes a journey of healing and longing for connection. Set in San Francisco’s Richmond District, DRAGON BABIES is a deep exploration of how unresolved grief, intergenerational trauma, and memory shape who we become—and whether closure is possible when we finally confront the truths we’ve carried since childhood.
Living Harriet Tubman
Living Harriet Tubman chronicles the story of Nancy Whittle, a Fresno woman who has spent thirty years performing as Harriet Tubman at contentious Civil War reenactments across California. As she nears the end of her 30-year reenacting journey, she enlists her community to stage a final performance—one that not only honors Tubman’s legacy but also tells her own life’s journey.
Object Permanence
Psychologist Jean Piaget’s concept of object permanence involves the understanding that people and things still exist even when you can’t see or hear them. The short sci-fi film OBJECT PERMANENCE explores the human psyche's complex relationship with presence and our understanding of our own reality. Life is transformed for best friends Drexxceya and Echo when Drexciya’s employer, the California Aeronautics and Space Agency (CASA), reveals that it now possesses an interstellar object that has reached Earth. Echo finally finds the fulfillment he’s so desperate for in a connection with Drexxceya’s colleague, Jency; and in turn, Drexxceya finally gets the coveted [...]
Northern Lights Re-Release
Winner of the 1979 Camera d'Or, Northern Lights, a unique work of political cinema from the late 1970s, dramatizes small North Dakotan wheat farmers' political struggle against the bankers and railroad magnates pushing them into bankrupcy. Two young lovers get swept up in the turmoil surrounding the formation of the populist Nonpartisan League in the mid-1910's. Shot on location in black-and-white 16mm with a cast of nonprofessional actors, this deeply moving, politically committed film is a masterpiece of American independent cinema. The 4K digital restoration of Northern Lights was created by IndieCollect and Metropolis Post in collaboration with directors John [...]
Last Witness
Story Structure: Some secrets refuse to stay buried, and some wounds never fully heal. In 2010, Luuk Meijer, a researcher at the Anne Frank House, discovers Max Heppner’s memoir, I Live in a Chickenhouse. The book implicates Luuk’s father in a wartime murder. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Theo van Daalen unearths an artifact of past violence that sets him on an obsessive journey to uncover the region’s hidden past. As their independent searches intertwine, flashbacks reveal the same world in 1942, where the Dutch Resistance sought to protect Jewish refugees, including two boys, Felix Goldman and Max Heppner, and their families. When [...]
Beyond the Gap
Beyond the Gap is a documentary that explores the educational achievement gap existing between young African-American males and other American students. Grandville Taylor, Deshon Smith and Raysean Jones, graduates of Washington High School in the San Francisco Unified School District, share their empowering stories of success to inspire other young African-American men and students of color to successfully overcome the achievement gap. This film will also provide possible solutions for educators, administrators, community members and families to eliminate the gap in educational opportunity.
End of Isolation
In the summer of 2022, 9 people embarked on a 2-month national tour to perform The BOX, a critically acclaimed play about prison resistance. In following this journey, the documentary also dives deep into the lives of visionary thought leaders and communities on the frontlines of reimagining justice across our country. If we think beyond prisons, what are we building in their place?
98 Days: Last Stand at City Hall
98 Days is a hybrid documentary tracing activist-filmmaker RJ Dawson’s journey from the 2020 Grand Park occupation, where Black Unity organizers and unhoused residents clashed with police and internal divisions to his current work with the Center of Independent Living Storytellers Initiative, a disability justice media project. The film contrasts the sacrifices of street protests with today’s accessible resistance tactics, asking how movements can wield narrative power without replicating trauma. At its heart, it’s a story about who controls the camera and whether marginalized communities can televise their revolution without being consumed by it.
Black Is Blue
BLACK IS BLUE is set in dystopian Oakland, where an ex-techie trans woman uses pirated AI technology to control a young trans lover, but their love and revenge plot against a DNA-harvesting corporation unravels, leading to a tragic end for all. Against the dystopian backdrop of another Bay Area tech boom gone bust, this is an erotic tale of a black trans couple brought together by technology. Their tragic love story is witnessed by a bot who stands by — eager to learn and protect— until it is transformed by them. Epic in presentation, taut and tense in character and [...]
