Films

Racial/Cultural Issues
Something The Lord Made is a moving story of men who defy the rules and start a medical revolution. Their patients are known as the "blue babies" - infants suffering from a congenital heart defect that turns them blue as they slowly suffocate.

Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) make a brilliant team. But even as they race against time to save one particular baby, the two occupy different places in society. Blalock is the white, wealthy head of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Thomas is black and poor, a skilled carpenter whose dream of going to college and becoming a doctor was ruined by the Great Depression, although he was naturally gifted with the intuition and dexterity of a great surgeon.

Even as they save lives and invent a whole new field of medicine, social pressures threaten to tear them apart. Ultimately, however, Thomas finds his dreams coming true in unexpected ways.
Comment: For me, the most unforgettable parts of this movie were at the beginning - watching those men step off the sidewalk so that others could pass. We forget that people who lived through this are still alive today.

Schindler's List is one of the most powerful movies of all time. It tells the compelling true story of the German businessman Oskar Schindler who comes to Nazi-occupied Poland looking for economic prosperity and leaves as a savior of more than 1,100 Jews. A charming and sly entrepreneur, Schindler bribes and befriends the Nazi authorities to gain control of a factory in Krakow by aryanization, which he staffs with Jewish slave - laborers, and soon he is making a fortune. But among the Jews who work for him is Itzhak Stern, the plant manager, who in his benevolence sees to it that Schindler's workforce includes the most vulnerable and cherished members of Krakow's Jewish community. Comment: This film has likely had more impact on me than anything I've ever seen. Watching this man move from a position of indifference towards others to valuing people above all else was an amazing, inspiring and challenging experience.

What's cooking? -- In LA's Fairfax district, where ethnic groups abound, four households celebrate Thanksgiving amidst family tensions. In the Nguyen family, the children's acculturation and immigrant parents' fears collide. In the Avila family, Isabel's son has invited her estranged husband to their family dinner. Audrey and Ron Williams want to keep their own family's ruptures secret from Ron's visiting mother. In the Seelig household, Herb and Ruth are unwilling to discuss openly their grown daughter's living with her lover, Carla. Around each table, things come to a head. A gun, an affair, a boyfriend, and a pregnancy precipitate crises forcing each family to find its center.
Comment: One of the great things about this movie is the underlying theme of diversity and commonality that runs through the families. With all of our differences, we're far more alike than we realize.

Mississippi Masala -- In 1972, an Indian lawyer and his family flee their home as Idi Amin seizes power. The lawyer will never forget the pain and indignity he suffered. Nearly 20 years later the family has settled in Mississippi and the lawyer's adult daughter, Mina (Sarita Choudhury) falls in love with a young black business entrepreneur, Demetrius (Denzel Washington). Their affair causes a rift in the community and forces the lovers' families to examine their ideas about racial and class differences while avoiding scandal.

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Inter-religious Issues

Women's Issues
Women Make Movies

Sexual Minority Issues
Making Love
Defying Gravity
Beautiful Thing
Boys Don't Cry
Philadelphia