California Newsreel

Check out the latest addition to our Films On Demand database, the California News Reel. As the oldest non-profit, social issue documentary film center in the United States, California News Reel has inspired, educated, and engaged audiences with their cutting-edge, social justice films for nearly 45 years.

Here are a few select films now available:

Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968
Subject: Sociology
 © 2009
The killing of four white students at Kent State University in 1970 left an indelible stain on the national consciousness, but most Americans know nothing of the three black students killed at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg two years earlier. This documentary offers the definitive account of that tragic incident and reveals the environment that allowed it to be buried for so long. (57:00 min.)

Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story
Subject: Sociology
© 2008
Yonkers in the 1980s was typical of many American cities in its pattern of housing and school segregation. Real estate agents steered African-Americans to all-black neighborhoods and brought whites to other, more exclusive districts. Spurred by the local NAACP, the Justice Department ordered the City of Yonkers to integrate—a charge the City Council refused to comply with, defiantly taking its case all the way to the Supreme Court. (53:00 min.)

This Is Nollywood
Subject: Area Studies, Communication
© 2007
First came Hollywood, then Bollywood, and now Nollywood, Nigeria’s booming film industry, which released 2,000 feature features in 2006 alone. This program explains why Nigerian film production, little known outside its own country until recently, is becoming recognized as a phenomenon with broad implications for the cultural and economic development of Africa. (56:00 min.)