Movies: Activist

How Winnie Mandela went from innocent country girl to a fighter against apartheid....

The film tells the story of 25-year-old Urmila Chaudary from Nepal. At the age of six she was sold by her family and was forced to work as a slave under appalling conditions for 12 years. Her dream is to end child slavery in Nepal. To this end she fi...

The movie explores Judy Heumann’s efforts to plan the 504 Sit In in San Francisco, an important protest that led to standardizing rights for the disabled....

Depicts Hamka's childhood in Maninjau, West Sumatra, where he showed a great interest in tradition and literature, despite neglecting his education at the pesantren and often clashing with his father. After his mother divorced his father, Hamka went ...

Marion Stokes secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. For Marion taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would be invaluable for f...

Revolutionary at 21. Lawmaker at 23. Most Wanted at 26. With intimate access to the leaders of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, Who is Afraid of Nathan Law? chronicles one of the world’s most famous dissidents in his fight for democracy against a sup...

Rita Semel, interfaith pioneer and Jewish activist, is a recipient of the San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Awards "for her life-long successes in creating healthy, just, and inclusive communities in the Bay Area and worldwide. She builds...

Journalist Alvaro Alvarez travels with former porn-star and men’s rights activist Philipp Tanzer to a Conference on Men’s Issues, shedding light on the controversial movement....

Joan Baez, the folk legend who was once Dylan’s lover, has called her final tour Fare Thee Well – perhaps because, like so many singers, she’s finding that goodbye is too hard a word....

The Balkans cradles Europe's last wild rivers and supports abundant wildlife and healthy, intact ecosystems. These rivers are "The Undamaged" – clean, pristine, and undammed. With over 2,700 small and large hydro power plants planned or under constru...

The story of Myo Myint, a political prisoner, who made the transformation from being a soldier in Burma's junta to a pro-democracy activist....

A documentary account by award-winning filmmaker John Ferry of the events that led up to the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island as told by principal organizer, Adam Fortunate Eagle. The story unfolds through Fortunate Eagle's remembra...

Willie Nelson - American Outlaw captures the most iconic moments from a one-night-only concert event honoring Willie Nelson and his music. This two-hour program is packed with over 20 original performances, never before seen interviews and captivatin...

Chanda Chevannes follows scientist Dr. Sandra Steingraber as she makes speeches against fracking and gets arrested protesting “the industrialization of the Finger Lakes.”...

The real dream of the American pastor Martin Luther King was never limited to civil rights. He hoped for a just America, where poverty would no longer have a place. Social equality was for him the only guarantee of a true emancipation. During the las...

This movie captures the motivations of an animal rights activist. Through his eyes, we explore the paradoxes in our society --- of being an animal lover and yet consuming some of them --- stemming from social conditioning and cognitive dissonance. Th...

The San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Awards presents Gonzalo Rucobo, co-founder and executive director of Bay Area Peacekeepers, with The San Francisco Foundation Award for helping former gang members reach their potential and successful...

Writer, journalist, explorer, filmmaker, communist militant, freedom fighter. Truths and lies. A plot twist. Politician. General De Gaulle's shadow. Overwhelmed by the weight of power. The numerous exploits of André Malraux (1901-1976)....

Letter from Tokyo is a documentary film that looks at art, culture and politics in Tokyo, Japan. Shot over three months during the summer of 2018, and with a particular focus on grass roots arts initiatives, the use of public space, and queer politic...

A silver haired woman, Mildred Norman, calling herself "Peace Pilgrim," walked more than 25,000 miles, from 1953 to 1981, on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She vowed to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until gi...