American Documentary, Inc. | Outreach . Film Library: Poverty

FILM LIBRARY: POVERTY

"9 Star Hotel" documents the lives of a group of young Palestinian men working illegally as construction laborers in the Israeli city of Modi'in. Caught between Israeli security laws and a Palestinian Authority they see as having failed them, they work for Israeli contractors by day while hiding from police by night. Like youths everywhere, they pass their idle hours talking about love, marriage and future hopes. Israeli filmmaker Ido Haar has crafted a powerful vérité film that illuminates the plight of young men questioning their own culture while struggling to survive in the midst of bitter conflict.

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Borrow a DVD & Host a Screening | Buy the Film | Visit POV Film Website

Downloadable materials:
Discussion Guide | Further Reading List | Lesson Plan

Critical Condition
by Roger Weisberg

What happens if you fall sick and are one of 47 million people in America without health insurance? "Critical Condition" by Roger Weisberg ("Waging a Living," P.O.V. 2006) puts a human face on the nation's growing health care crisis by capturing the harrowing struggles of four critically ill Americans who discover that being uninsured can cost them their jobs, health, home, savings, even their lives. Filmed in vérité style, "Critical Condition" offers a moving and invaluable expose at a time when the nation is debating how to extend health insurance to all Americans. A production of Public Policy Productions in association with Thirteen/WNET New York and American Documentary | P.O.V.

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Borrow a DVD & Host a Screening | Buy the Film | Visit POV Film Website

Downloadable materials:
Discussion Guide | Further Reading List | Lesson Plan

The English Surgeon
by Geoffrey Smith

What is it like to have power over life and death, and yet to struggle with your own humanity? This is the story of acclaimed British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who has traveled to Ukraine for 15 years to treat patients who have been left to die; of his friend and medical colleague in Kyiv who carries on the fight despite official hostility and archaic surgical conditions; and of a young patient who hopes that Henry can save his life. Tense, heartbreaking and humorous, The English Surgeon is a remarkable depiction of one doctor's commitment to relieving suffering and of the emotional turmoil he undergoes in bringing hope to a desperate people. A BBC/ITVS International Production.

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Borrow a DVD & Host a Screening | Buy the Film | Visit POV Film Website

Downloadable materials:
Discussion Guide | Further Reading List | Lesson Plan

Good Fortune
by Landon Van Soest

Good Fortune is a provocative exploration of how massive international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa may be undermining the very communities they aim to benefit. In Kenya’s rural countryside, Jackson’s farm is being flooded by an American investor who hopes to alleviate poverty by creating a multimillion-dollar rice farm. Across the country in Nairobi, Silva’s home and business in Africa’s largest shantytown are being demolished as part of a U.N. slum-upgrading project. The gripping stories of two Kenyans battling to save their homes from large-scale development present a unique opportunity see foreign aid through eyes of the people it is intended to help.

*Premiere Date: July 13, 2010

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Borrow a DVD & Host a Screening | Buy the Film |Visit POV Film Website

Libby, Montana
by Drury Gunn Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis

Nestled below the rugged peaks of the Northern Rockies in Montana — as iconic a representation of America's "purple mountain majesties" as one can find — lies the worst case of community-wide exposure to a toxic substance in U.S. history. In the small town of Libby, many hundreds of people are sick or have already died from asbestos exposure. "Libby, Montana" takes a long working day's journey into a blue-collar community, and finds a different reality — one where the American Dream exacts a terrible price.

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Borrow a DVD & Host a Screening | Buy the Film | Visit POV Film Website

Downloadable materials:
Discussion Guide | Further Reading List | Lesson Plan

Presumed Guilty
by Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith

Imagine being picked up off the street, told you have committed a murder you know nothing about and then finding yourself sentenced to 20 years in jail. In December 2005 this happened to Toño Zúñiga in Mexico City and, like thousands of other innocent people, he was wrongfully imprisoned. The award-winning Presumed Guilty is the story of two young lawyers and their struggle to free Zúñiga. With no background in film, Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete set about recording the injustices they were witnessing, enlisting acclaimed director Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon, POV 2009) to tell this dramatic story. A co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting.

*Premiere Date: July 27, 2010

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Promised Land
by Yoruba Richen

Though apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994, economic injustices between blacks and whites remain unresolved. As revealed in Yoruba Richen’s incisive Promised Land, the most potentially explosive issue is land. The film follows two black communities as they struggle to reclaim land from white owners, some of whom who have lived there for generations. Amid rising tensions and wavering government policies, the land issue remains South Africa’s “ticking time bomb,” with far-reaching consequences for all sides. Promised Land captures multiple perspectives of citizens struggling to create just solutions. A co-production of the National Black Programming Consortium, American Documentary/POV and the Diverse Voices Project, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

*Premiere Date: July 6, 2010

Work with this film:
Borrow a DVD & Host a Screening | Buy the Film | Visit POV Film Website

Downloadable materials:
Discussion Guide | Further Reading List | Lesson Plan

FILMS FROM THE ARCHIVE

Films that are currently unavailable in our free lending library but that we recommend for group and classroom screenings.

The Boys of Baraka
by Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady

African-American boys have a very high chance of being incarcerated or killed before they reach adulthood. In Baltimore, one of the country's most poverty-stricken cities for inner-city residents, the Baraka School project was founded to break the cycle of violence through an innovative education program that literally removed young boys from low-performing public schools and unstable home environments. The Boys of Baraka follows four boys as they travel with their classmates to rural Kenya in East Africa, where a teacher-student ratio of one to five, a strict disciplinary program and a comprehensive curriculum form the core of an extraordinary new journey in their transformation to men. Winner of an NAACP Image Award. A co-presentation with the Independent Television Service (ITVS). Produced in association with American Documentary | P.O.V.