6th Annual Race and Power Film Festival

The Ethnic Studies Department's 6th Annual Race and Power Film Festival is set to take place this year from Monday, April 29th to Sunday, May 5th.
The film festival will showcase movies and film directors that focus on underrepresented populations, including Native Americans, African Americans, Chicano/a/xs-Latino/a/xs, and Asian Americans. Films will address a variety of topics that are central to the discipline, including race/racism, colonialism, power relations, intersectionality, representation, empowerment, and activism. We hope the films will inspire critical thinking, empowerment, and social change.

Now Showing

The Ballad of Tita and the Machines
Tita, an injured elderly strawberry picker, reluctantly hires an AI Humanoid to substitute her and unexpectedly attracts the curiosity of the creators of this technology when their AI workers aren't to do her back-breaking work.
15 min | 2023
The Ballad of Tita and the Machines
Blurring the Color Line: Chinese in the Segregated South
"BLURRING THE COLOR LINE opens up critical conversations on where the Chinese community fit into the black and white dichotomy of the segregated south, how anti-Blackness was established and perpetuated, and how marginal groups were pitted against each other in the hierarchical structure of white supremacy."
54 min | 2022
Blurring the Color Line: Chinese in the Segregated South
Braves Wear Braids
The Braves Wear Braids (BWB) documentary looks at the spiritual meaning of braids, and the struggles faced by Indigenous youth to keep this important piece of the culture alive through interviews with Ethan Bear, elders, and other Indigenous men who speak to their own personal experiences with their braids.
29 min | 2022
Braves Wear Braids
Coming Around
A queer Muslim woman from Brooklyn grapples with the complexities of faith, sexuality, and her difficult decision to come out to the most important figure in her life - her strictly devout, psychiatrist mother.
75 min | 2023
Coming Around
Darkness to Light: Tribal Resilience in the Face of Violence
In a nation of people that have historically struggled to access resources following intergenerational tragedies, this film opens an opportunity to meet those working to provide the resources and needs of their communities. Witness the triumph of the human spirit!
42 min | 2024
Darkness to Light: Tribal Resilience in the Face of Violence
Finding Her Beat
A master of Japanese drumming and a Korean adoptee from Minnesota boldly convene an all-female troupe to perform taiko, the Japanese drumming art that has been off-limits to women for centuries.
89 min | 2022
Finding Her Beat
Gift of Fear
Mili watched in horror as her mother was murdered 11 years ago, becoming another Missing and Murdered Indigenous statistic. Now 17, Mili’s former crew kidnaps her girlfriend after Mili chooses her MMA team over the gang. Tribal cops and a Federal Missing and Murdered Unit agent are on the case, but Mili waited for the authorities once … she won’t wait this time.
113 min | 2023
Gift of Fear
A Good Neighbor
A Latina single mother fights against racism and climate change as she campaigns for city council in one of the nation’s most polluted ZIP codes.
53 min | 2023
A Good Neighbor
Greenwood: A Dreamland Destroyed
The film, “Greenwood: A Dreamland Destroyed,” depicts the loss of life and damage to African American culture during the 1921 race massacre, in which a horde of white supremacists destroyed the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, OK.
45 min | 2022
Greenwood: A Dreamland Destroyed
Hailing Cesar
A film about Eduardo Chávez’s journey to understand the legacy and struggle of his grandfather, the civil rights activist César Chávez.
62 min | 2024
Hailing Cesar
How To Sue the Klan
Five Black women from Chattanooga used legal ingenuity to take on the Ku Klux Klan in a historic 1982 civil case, fighting to hold them accountable for their crimes and bring justice to their community.
35 min | 2024
How To Sue the Klan
Liquor Store Dreams
So Yun Um’s debut feature is a moving portrait of two Korean American children of liquor store owners reconciling their dreams with those of their immigrant parents, against the backdrop of struggles for racial equity in Los Angeles.
85 min | 2022
Liquor Store Dreams
Nochebuena
A return home for Junior on Christmas Eve transports him back to a familiar life of old traditions, lots of coquito, and the one that got away.
78 min | 2023
Nochebuena
Supa Hair
After her Mother's passing, a young Dominican girl and her sister move to Arizona where she discovers the hair she so deeply despises actually holds an ancient power.
15 min | 2023
Supa Hair