Ashes and Embers

An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.

In 1902, an African-American family living on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina prepares to move to the North.

A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.

An enigmatic drifter from the South comes to visit an old acquaintance who now lives in South-Central LA.

Charlie Banks, chronically unemployed, struggles to find dignity and a meaning for life in the impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts.

The story of Dorothy and her husband T.C. He is a discharged Vietnam veteran who thought he would return home to a "hero's welcome." Instead he is falsely arrested and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Her life revolves around the welfare office and a community facing poverty and unemployment. As a result of the film's events, both the main characters become radicalized and Dorothy eventually turns to violence.

A naive young woman moves from the South to stay with her aunt and uncle in Compton. As an outsider, she struggles at first to find her footing, but soon falls into the middle of a community of rebellious youth. She soon becomes more and more aware of the social injustices of the big city.

A young African-American man, living in Los Angeles without direction in his life, reluctantly agrees to be the best man for his brother, an upwardly mobile lawyer.

In this meditative film the everyday lives of poor Ethiopian peasants are shown using documentary as well as storytelling techniques, with its drama arising out of the timeless yet persistent issues of their lives.

Eddie Warmack, an African American jazz musician, is released from prison for the killing of a white gangster. Not willing to play for the mobsters who control the music industry, including clubs and recording studios, Warmack searches for his mentor and grandfather, the legendary jazz musician Poppa Harris.

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field