Angela Davis

Courtesy of The Freedom Archives 1972, 28 min. This extraordinary video is from a 16mm film “work print” made in 1971–1972, and includes interviews with George Jackson, Georgia Jackson (George and Jonathan Jackson’s mother) and Angela Davis, while she was still in the Marin County Courthouse Jail, before her acquittal. We have not been able to identify the other prisoners. As you will see, the film has no titles or other credits. The discovery of such amazing, previously unknown historic materials always leaves us thrilled and in awe, deepening our understanding of those times and affirming the mission of the Freedom Archives.

A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.

James Earl Jones narrates this fascinating and moving documentary about the life of the assassinated black leader through various sources.

FREE ANGELA is a feature-length documentary about Angela Davis and the high stakes crime, political movement, and trial that catapults the 26 year-old newly appointed philosophy professor at the University of California at Los Angeles into a seventies revolutionary political icon. Nearly forty years later, and for the first time, Angela Davis speaks frankly about the actions that branded her as a terrorist and simultaneously spurred a worldwide political movement for her freedom.

After Mexico 75 and Copenhagen 80, the United Nations choose the Dark Continent for the Third International Women’s Conference. Running in parallel to the official Governments Conference, is the Non Governmental Organizations Forum attended by 14 000 women. For 10 days, they meet on the Nairobi University Campus to discuss feminist and general political issues: peace, development, Apartheid, Islam, lesbianism, violence and sexual mutilation, Israel/Palestine, etc.

Using innovative animation and expert insights, this documentary based on Ibram X. Kendi's bestseller explores the history of racist ideas in America.

An original circa 72-minute documentary featuring a murder, Cold War conspiracies, Black Power, the end of the Empire, and how that connects to the policing and surveillance practices of today. It feeds a growing appetite for history from a different perspective, as we grapple with the legacy of empire, colonialism, and its impact on the modern world.

"Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight" covers renowned American artist Betye Saar’s large-scale work “Drifting Toward Twilight”— commissioned by The Huntington Library, Art Museum, & Botanical Gardens — a site-specific installation that features a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe and found objects, including birdcages, antlers, and natural materials harvested by Saar from The Huntington’s grounds. This film renders a portrait of Betye's process at 96 while also reflecting on her life, career, and memories of Pasadena.

In an Argentina divided between a deep conservatism and an unprecedented momentum in feminism, the film delves into the political journey and intimate lives of Claudia and Violeta. Trans women who identify as transvestites, the fight they lead with their comrades against the patriarchal violence is visceral and embodied. Convinced of their roles at the center of an ongoing revolution that intersects with so many struggles, in defiance of the old world they redouble their energy to invent a new present, to love and stay alive.

An experimental documentary, this work is unique as it portrays the injustices of the California prison system as seen through the eyes of HIV+ women incarcerated in this system. "Blind Eye To Justice" was named by Twillah Wallace, a current inmate and HIV+ woman. Animation and found footage create a powerful montage that evokes the atmosphere in women's prisons--the violations as well as the hope and courage of prison activists who fight quietly, and from the inside. As well as documenting the experience of many women including Patti Contrerras, Blind Eye To Justice educates audiences by providing an overview of the issues of human rights for HIV+ women caught in the criminal justice system.

In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of modernity. One of his first decisions was to break up the ORTF with the creation of three new television channels: TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3. Three new public channels but autonomous and competing. It is a race for the audience which is engaged then, and from now on the channels will make the war! This competition will give birth to a real golden age for television programs, with variety shows in the forefront. The stars of the song are going to invade the living rooms of the French for their biggest pleasure. This unedited documentary tells the story of the metamorphosis of this television of the early 1970s, between freedom of tone, scandals, political intrigues and programs that have become mythical.

Weaving together the voices of women entangled in the criminal justice system, along with leading scholars on prison abolition, this film provides a critical analysis of the disfunctionality and violence of the prison system.

Examines the evolution of the Black Power Movement in US society from 1967 to 1975. It features footage of the movement shot by Swedish journalists in the United States during that period and includes the appearances of Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and other activists, artists, and leaders central to the movement.

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Directed by one of Davis' former students, the documentary shows Davis speaking at public rallies and interacting with her students, as well as covering the controversial arrest of Davis in 1970.

Algerian director Hamid Benamra turns his focus to Mustapha Boutadjine, a charming, mercurial collage artist in Paris whose very work methods embody resistance, and celebrate those who work to liberate others. Boutadjine creates his portraits of Third World artists such as Miriam Makeba, and Algerian figures such as Assia Djebar from pieces of paper torn from high end fashion magazines and other, glossy, glitzy publications. Using this material is as much an act of rejecting bourgeois standards, which are often anti-North African in France, as much as elevating these figures and making them the social and visual standard against which we should judge ourselves, not the runway models of Chanel.

THE BLACK LIST: VOL. 2 profiles some of today's most fascinating African-Americans. From the childhood inspirations that shaped their ambitions, to the evolving American landscape they helped define, to the importance of preserving a unique cultural identity for future generations, these prominent individuals offer a unique look into the zeitgeist of black America, redefining the traditional pejorative notion of a blacklist.

In the aftermath of the arrest of Angela Davis, Jean Genet reads a text denouncing racist US policy, supporting the Black Panthers party and Angela Davis for a television show that will be completely censored.

A DEFA documentary celebrating the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in East Berlin in the summer of 1973. Blending reportage with staged elements, it presents the festival as a showcase of international solidarity, culture, and socialist ideals.

An intimate documentary exploration of heritage and history against the backdrop of a brewing Afro-centric revolution as the U.S. government prepares to invade the island nation of Grenada. First hand accounts from activists Angela Davis, Fania Davis and Fannie Haughton weave together director Damani Baker’s family portrait of utopian dreams, resistance and civil unrest with a film score composed by music luminary Meshell Ndegeocello.

The story of how the radical Huey P. Newton developed the Black Panther Party based on his 10-point program for social reform.

Featuring enlightening interviews with Angela Davis, June Jordan, and Alice Walker, this essential documentary is an exuberant celebration of Black American women and their achievements. Within the context of the civil rights, Black power, feminist, and LGBT movements, the trio reassess how women such as Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer revolutionized American society and the world.

African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs from popular hip-hop songs juxtaposed with interviews with African-American intellectuals and political theorists, including Cornel West, bell hooks and Angela Davis.

This artful and intimate meditation on the legendary storyteller examines her life, her works, and the powerful themes she has confronted throughout her literary career. Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics, and colleagues on an exploration of race, history, the United States, and the human condition.

Thirteen years, two inspiring women, both radical activists-one conversation. MOUNTAINS THAT TAKE WING is a historically rich and unique documentary about two formidable women who share a profound passion for justice. Through conversations that are intimate and profound, we learn about Davis, an internationally renowned scholar, writer and activist, and 88-year-old Kochiyama, a revered grassroots community activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Their shared experience as political prisoners and their dedication to Civil Rights embody personal and political experiences as well as the diverse lives of women doing liberatory cultural work.

Amid an escalating war in Iraq, rising terror levels and the threat of nuclear attack, a growing body of intellectuals, religious leaders and community organizers are getting tough with their questions about peace -- and that's no oxymoron. To shed light on the answers, filmmakers Gabriele Zamparini and Lorenzo Meccoli record a variety of speakers, including Noam Chomsky, Desmond Tutu, Scott Ritter, Pete Seeger, Howard Zinn and Gore Vidal.

Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison is America's first lady of literature. Her books encompass black American history but live and breathe in the present, rich in vivid characters, haunted by ghosts. Born poor in Ohio in 1931, she now lives in New York. She tells Alan Yentob how her father hated whites so much he wouldn't let them in the house. Her masterpiece, Beloved, shows the horrors of slavery perhaps better than any other artwork. She talks as she writes - with warmth and wit. Contributors include Angela Davis (whose biography she edited) and singer Jessye Norman.

Through clippings, the film draws a narrative line between the construction of racism in Brazil and the United States, having as base the European invasion of the continent, police violence, the genocide of the black people, the massacre of indigenous peoples, religious violence, the criminalization of funk music, structural racism in art and education, the importance of quota policy and the need urgent historical repair as a commitment by the Brazilian state to the black people.

United States of America, early 1980s. From the height of a fifty-story building located in the center of New York on a granite cliff in Manhattan, people on the streets seem small, and the problems that surround them from all sides are impossible to distinguish at all. But they are - these problems are difficult, painful and inescapable. In their tighter grip, today's America and its millions of citizens are beating...

While the 2016 election catalyzed the Women’s March and a new era of feminist activism, Tamika Mallory and Erika Andiola have been fighting for their communities for decades. Their stories expose the fundamental connection between personal and political and raise the question: what's intersectionality and can it save the world?

Between scenes from his concert in São Paulo's oft-inaccessible Theatro Municipal, rapper and activist Emicida celebrates the rich legacy of Black Brazilian culture.

Criminal Queers visualizes a radical trans/queer struggle against the prison industrial complex and toward a world without walls. Remembering that prison breaks are both a theoretical and material practice of freedom, this film imagines what spaces might be opened up if crowbars, wigs, and metal files become tools for transformation.

This vibrant and engaging video profiles the a capella activist group, Sweet Honey in the Rock. Singing to end the oppression of Black people world wide, SWEET HONEY embraces musical styles from spirituals and blues to calypso, and concerns ranging from feminism to ecology, peace and justice. This dynamic video features individual portraits, powerful concert footage and commentary by Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Holly Near.

Police Off Campus! Was produced and directed by the students of the UCLA Motion Picture and Television Division following a large protest at UCLA on May 5, 1970, in which students were mobilized murder of white students at Kent State by police the day earlier (May 4, 1970), as well as the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, the ongoing war in Vietnam, and the political repression of Black Panthers including the firing of Angela Davis from UCLA and the incarceration of Bobby Seale in connection with the Chicago 8 and the New Haven Black Panther trials. Police came onto UCLA’s campus and began beating and shooting at students. The police’s violence mobilized students to strike and hold a moratorium, halting coursework and business as usual for the University. Television students shot footage on ½” open reel video tape, or the Portapack Camera, the first commercially available portable video camcorder.

An inspiring exploration of the struggles and triumphs of low-income LGBTQ+ people and their communities in the queer coastal meccas of the U.S. and points in-between—from the Deep South, Midwest, Navajo Nation, and Southwest to the Borderlands. Distilled from interviews with over 200 queer people and their fierce allies, the documentary refreshingly challenges the myth of gay affluence to reveal an extraordinary world of resilient LGBTQ+ people trying to survive, thrive, and get everyone free amidst plenty, and in an era of unprecedented hatred and legislative attacks against them.

“Breaking Myths” aims to open the world’s eyes to the fragile and “catastrophic masculinity” of Brazil’s current President Jair Bolsonaro, a fanatical far-right politician who can best be described as the Brazilian Donald Trump — and who is up for a second term this October. The story is told through the lens of the critically acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker and LGBTQ activist Fernando Grostein Andrade (“Abe” Sundance 19), who directed, wrote, and produced the feature alongside creative partner Fernando Siqueira as the first release under his production company in California, FilmSoul Studios.

“In 2015, Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo released the acclaimed feature documentary SEMBÈNE!, on the life and career of Ousmane Sembène. For the following short documentary, the filmmakers have assembled footage from interviews that were not included in the original film, including musician Youssou N’Dour, activist and author Angela Davis, author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, filmmaker Clarence Delgado, and filmmaker and scholar Manthia Diawara” (Criterion Collection).

Documentary about the turbulent life, writings, and activism of philosopher Herbert Marcuse, visionary force for the youth movements worldwide during the '60s and 70s.

From Lucrezia Borgia to Malinche to Marie Curie: Women’s contributions have often been downplayed or misrepresented in the history books. Duels of History (re)tells their stories.

Angela Davis visiting the German Democratic Republic. A film about the people she met and her impressions.

Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, was a member of the Black Liberation Army and had been a fugitive sought by the U.S. since escaping prison in 1979. Shakur died on September 25, 2025 in Havana, Cuba, where she had received political asylum.

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world—except the United States. This documentary takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.

Inspired by Angela Davis's “Women, Race, and Class,” the film examines the intersecting struggles of race, class, and gender through the raw and unfiltered lens of the streets of São Paulo, Brazil, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, was a member of the Black Liberation Army and had been a fugitive sought by the U.S. since escaping prison in 1979. Shakur died on September 25, 2025 in Havana, Cuba, where she had received political asylum.