Films
Here are the award-winning documentary videos we produce and distribute to thousands of universities, community organizations, schools, libraries and public interest organizations all over the world. Our documentaries cover a wide range of topics. Many of them include free study guides, resources and curricula -- click on the title to learn more about a specific film, watch the first minutes, and more.
Before it Kills Us All
An earlier version of this film that was shorter and had different music
won the following:
*Boston Independent Film Awards
*Blow Up International Art House Film Festival*
*Tokyo Shorts*
*Montreal Independent Film Festival
*The London New Wave Film Festival
*Worldwide Women's Film Festival.
*Amsterdam Short Film Festival*
*Toronto International Women’s Film Festival*
*Santa Barbara International Film Festival*
*Toronto Indie Shorts*
*Social World Film Festival*
*Nue World Studios Film Festival*
*London Indie Short Film Festival*
*Stockholm Short Festival*
*Palm Springs Shorts Festival*
This experimental video uses mostly found footage to trace the history of two centuries of toxic violence alongside a parallel narrative of women’s resistance and resilience. This new 17 minute version now features the music of the brilliant composer Missy Mazzoli.
Both haunting and hopeful, Margaret Lazarus’ Before It Kills Us All makes a powerful argument that the future is female. Using found footage, Lazarus, an Oscar-winning director of documentary films, traces a disturbingly violent world history wrought by patriarchal power structures and charts a more hopeful future through female leadership and community.
Jennifer Lange, Wexner Center for the Arts
click here if you want to read more about “Before It Kills Us All" or view it.
BirthMarkings
*Official Best of Fest"
*Community Choice, International Museum of Women, selection*
*Winner of Best Documentary, Ovation Film Festival* (among others)
"New England Film Festival and current retrospective"
This 19 minute documentary reframes and destabilizes the observer's reaction to the changes in a woman's body after she's given birth. Women talk with ambivalence, humor and love about the scars, marks and stretched skin that brands them as mothers.
"Startlingly original...Fantastic to use in women and gender studies." Robbie Pfeufer Kahn, Professor of Sociology, UVM, author of Bearing Meaning: The Language of Birth
click here if you want to read more about "BirthMarkings" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Rape is... Available in a Spanish translation “Violar Es”
*PASS Award, National Council on Crime and Delinquency*
*USA Film Festival* (among others)
This 30 minute documentary explores the meaning, severity, and consequences of rape. It looks at rape from a global and historical perspective, but focuses mainly on the domestic cultural conditions that make this human rights violation the most underreported crime in America. This film will get everyone talking about sexual abuse in homes, prisons, and social settings.
"Quite simply, this is the best film on rape I have ever seen." Joan Zorza, editor, Sexual Assault Report, Domestic Violence Report
click here if you want to read more about "Rape Is" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
The Strength to Resist : Media's Impact on Women and Girls
*Moab Film Festival, People's Choice Award**Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival* (among others)
Over 30 years ago, we produced and directed the original films "Killing Us Softly" and "Still Killing Us Softly." In response to viewers who expressed the need for a new approach to the topic, we produced this 33 minute documentary. It documents the fight against the toxic and degrading messages to girls and women that dominate the media and features the voices of young girls, media specialists, eating disorder specialists and psychologists.
"I was extremely pleased to discover that "The Strength to Resist" was not another re-do of the lecture series I had seen in the past. There were so many different, rich and intellectually informed perspectives. The focus was on solutions. I am so glad this excellent and long overdue film is available to my classes."
Lynda Dickson, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
click here if you want to read more about "The Strength to Resist" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Strong at the Broken Places : Turning Trauma into Recovery
*DoubleTake/ Full Frame Film Festival *Council on Crime & Delinquency PASS Award*
*PASS Award, National Council on Crime and Delinquency
One of the “Outstanding Documentaries of the Year” UCLA Department of Film and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A 30 minute documentary about people, devastated by trauma and loss, who find common ground for their journeys to recovery. Whether the source of trauma is substance abuse, domestic violence, war, or crime, the path to recovery is often very similar.
"Most people find it hard to imagine how survivors of life's worst atrocities can ever recover. This film shows how it is done. In these direct and intimate interviews the everyday courage, humor and wisdom of survivors becomes a gift to all of us." Judith L. Herman, MD Author of Trauma and Recovery, Consultant to the film
click here if you want to read more about "Strong at the Broken Places" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Defending our Lives Available in Spanish “Defendiendo Nuestras Vidas”
*ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER for Best Documentary Short*
"Outstanding Independent Film" New England Film Festival (among others)
About the magnitude and severity of domestic violence in this country, this 30 minute film features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies.
"I have used this film as a training tool since I started my advocacy days. Despite new options and a plethora of more recently developed training materials available - none are as relevant and powerful. This documentary frames the issues as it must be: a human rights crisis. We cannot afford to lose sight of what is highlighted in this film. Anyone following current events knows that the issue of domestic violence has not been "solved" - we have a long way to go despite our achievements." Karen McCall, Education Coordinator, A Safe Place NHclick here if you want to read more about "Defending our Lives" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Healing the Wounds: A Life Without Vengeance
*PASS Award, National Council on Crime and Delinquency*
Why do so many movies and television programs use revenge as the main motivation of their characters? Why is the media fantasy that we will exact violent revenge if someone does violence to our family and friends so pervasive, particularly among those of us who have not experienced violence in our lives? How is revenge used as the justification for violence and war in popular culture?
This 26 minute documentary starts critical discussions on media literacy, violence and human behavior that are essential to our understanding of our actions and motivation.
"I've shown many films about violence to my students, this is the first one that truly engaged them. It began an extraordinary discussion."
Alison Sullivan, Massachusetts High School Teacher
click here if you want to read more about "Healing the Wounds" or view it
Pink Triangles
*Best Documentary, San Francisco Int'l Lesbian & Gay Film Festival*
*First Place, National Council on Family Relations Film Festival*
*Screened at the London Film Festival * (among others)
"The mosaic of voices and perspectives about the topic of homosexuality was groundbreaking at the time of Pink Triangle's release, as it synthesized the root causes of historic and contemporary discriminatory laws, policies, and cultural mindsets. Today, as we are attempting to reconcile historic discrimination within our collective consciousness, Pink Triangles provides an educative value that cannot be overstated."
Deb Fowler
Executive Director
History UnErased
Putting LGBTQ history in its rightful place--the classroom.
click here if you want to read more about "Pink Triangles" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Eugene Debs and the American Movement
*National Collection, British Film Institute*
*Screened at the
Labor History Film Festival* (among others)
A 42 minute documentary of worker struggle during the turbulent rise of capitalism in the United States is centered on the life and times of Eugene Debs. The film is movingly narrated in Debs' own words, read from his speeches and writings. Read by Shubert Sebree, his last surviving friend and comrade who was 94 in the 1970's when the recording was made.
The film documents fifty years of long-suppressed history. Using extensively researched photographs, drawings and newsreel footage, it tells a story of the bloody strikes and brutal government reaction to the American workers' attempts to organize.
"It's quite a challenge to piece together an audiovisual presentation of a period that preceded the audiovisual age ...happily this film does so in a manner that is both emotional and educational."
Labor Studies Journal
click here if you want to read more about "Eugene Debs and the American Movement" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Not Just A Job
*Blue Ribbon Winner, American Film & Video Festival*
*Silver, National Educational Film & Video Festival* (among others)
"Not Just a Job," a 35 minute documentary shows a diverse group of eight women as they explore their individual values, interests and skills in a career development workshop. This program is an introduction to a process that, taken step by step, helps each woman arrive at the best career possibilities for her.
"Not Just a Job should be in every public library and certainly in every college placement office. Instead of being paralyzed by the career planning process, the viewer is helped to begin career exploration."
Robert Jay Jr., career counselor, Vocations Inc.
click here if you want to read more about "Not Just a Job" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Life's Work
*ECPO/MAPA Conference*
This two part documentary video includes four full one hour examples of career counseling. The first documentary video to explore career counseling as practiced in the field. The film features four prominent career counselors as each conducts a session with the same client. Part One is with Howard Figler author of the Job Search Handbook and Priscilla Claman of Career Strategies, a firm working with primarily corporate clients. Part two is with Acy Jackson, Director of Career Placement at Colgate University and Barbara Sher, career counselor and author of the best selling Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want.
"Life's Work' is excellent. It demonstrates four clearly delineated career counseling styles by gifted counselors working with an interesting and motivated client. This series will surely be a treasure for years to come."
Sharon Shostrom, Psychology and Educational Films,
Producers of Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (the Gloria films)
click here if you want to read more about "Life’s Work" or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
Rape Culture
*American Film & Video Festival*
"Rape Culture" examines the relationship between our culture's sexual fantasies and rape through film and other media in a 30 minute film. The film defined and publicized the term "rape culture" for the first time. Produced in 1974, released in 1975, the version you are seeing was updated in 1983 to include sections with NY Women Against Rape.
"While other films on rape often deal only with technical details of prevention and prosecution (which tend to trivialize the issue rather than contribute to an understanding of the problems), 'Rape Culture' is a real consciousness-raiser."
Leigh Marlowe, Media Editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Taking Our Bodies Back : The women health's movement
*American Film & Video Festival*
This classic film documents the women's health movement and shows women regaining their rights in dealing with the medical industry. In 30 minutes it explores critical concepts and possibilities: including self-help, informed surgical consent, drug company advertising, home birth, and the power of support groups.
"We are delighted to support and endorse this beautiful film... Every frame is full of valuable information about women's health issues; self-help, abortion, childbirth and many others, all done with dignity and power."
Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Authors of Our Bodies Our Selves
The Last Empire : Intervention and Nuclear War
*Global Village Film Festival”
Joseph Papp Documentary Festival at the Public Theater
*Blue Ribbon, American Film & Video Festival*
*USA Film Festival*
*Second Annual World Peace Film Festival*
*Filmosav India*
Produced in 1986- before the fall of the USSR...Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn on a history of U.S. nuclear threats and intervention around the world. This 30 minute film was produced with the assistance of the American Friends Service Committee and Boston Mobilization for Survival.
"'The Last Empire' is a history lesson that the U.S. has never learned. Slowly and carefully, Lazarus and Wunderlich build an indictment of the U.S. tradition of aggressive foreign policy, dating back to the beginnings of the republic. The analysis is delivered by soft-spoken expert observers with impeccable credentials - Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, retired Admiral Gene LaRocque, et al. - but their message is explosive."
Global Village Film Festival
click here if you want to read more about “The Last Empire” or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.”
Hazardous Inheritance
*NAAS Science, Books and Film Festival*
*NE Regional Artist's Fellowship*
This 26 minute film is about the widespread hazards in the workplace that can cause cancer, infertility, miscarriage and birth defects.
"An excellent video! The medical and legal issues are presented clearly and in a way that makes the information immediately useful to workers and union representatives. I recommend it highly."
Mike J. Wright, Director of Safety and Health for the United Steelworkers of America
click here if you want to read more about “Hazardous Inheritance” or view it and see if you want to order the DVD or streaming rights.
