The film focuses on four troubled children in Marina Middle School in San Francisco: an African American boy trying to cope with his brother’s murder; a highly social Latino girl with no interest in academics; a tough and disruptive Latino girl who is frequently in trouble with school administrators; and a defiant Latino boy who sees himself as unfairly persecuted by his primary teacher and other school officials.  The film shows chaos in the classroom – children fooling around, shoving, pushing, and yelling.  They are disrespectful and uncontrollable.

How can teachers help these children develop the social, emotional, and attention skills they need to succeed in and out of the classroom?  Instead of just forcing the children to listen, the school administrators decide to experiment with “mindfulness,” a new program in self-reflection that is being introduced to a handful of public schools across the nation.

While the mindfulness instructor’s efforts are initially met with defiance, contempt for authority figures, and poor discipline, the teacher from Berkeley helps the four children and their classmates take greater control over themselves.  A new sense of calm begins to permeate their worlds, in class and at home.

The root of the children’s problems may be unique to each person, but the practice of mindfulness meditation has positive influence on all of them. Room To Breathe is an inspiring film that demonstrates a simple method that appears to have the potential to transform the ways in which children relate to their peers, their teachers, and their world, to reduce violence and bullying, and to create marked improvements in academic performance.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013
6:30 PM Doors open, reception| 7:00 PM Film screening
8-9pm PM Discussion
Free

Room to Breathe Official Trailer from Sacred Planet Films on Vimeo.

“Out In America” delivers a compelling, multi-layered portrait of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Americans through their own words and experiences. The film connects common themes running through numerous personal stories about growing up, coming out, nurturing relationships, overcoming social and familial challenges, fighting discrimination and HIV and achieving individual status and respect in America.

After the film, the Queer- Straight Alliance at Piedmont High School will discuss challenges for young people  who  are out or not yet out in America.  This film allows audience members to view and share in the touching quality of the relationships shown in the film.

Two free Screenings

1.   Wednesday, April 24, 2013
@ Ellen Driscoll Theater (Havens Elementary School)
325 Highland Ave / Piedmont 94611
6:30 pm: Reception | 7 pm: Film | 8:20 pm: Facilitated community discussion
____

2. Tuesday, April 30, 2013
@ The New Parkway
474  24th Street / Oakland 94612
6:30 pm

It’s been 23 years since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Today, we take for granted the curb cuts that allow wheelchairs to roll, buses that lower to bring on the disabled, and wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, among many other changes. The Act mandated all these accommodations — because before this, the disabled were on their own.

Lives Worth Living shows us the struggle for visibility and access by disabled people in the United States. The movement started here in Berkeley and spread across the country.

The film features Fred Fay, a quadriplegic who refused to live on the sidelines just because he couldn’t walk, and Ed Roberts, who fought for access to UC Berkeley and started the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley — and the Ed Roberts Campus now commemorates his life’s work

Lives Worth Living is told as an oral history, using archival footage. We see protestors climb from wheelchairs and drag themselves courageously up courthouse steps; we watch as quadriplegic activists maneuver their chairs in front of public buses that are not equipped to accommodate them.  The film ends with the dramatic battle for the Americans with Disabilities Act, one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in America’s history. The thousands of individuals who came together to change attitudes and laws demonstrated the power of humanity, cooperation, and self-determination, and what can be accomplished against seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

TWO FREE screenings:

1.   Wednesday, March 13, 2013
@ Ellen Driscoll Theater (Havens Elementary School)
325 Highland Ave / Piedmont 94611
6:30 PM Doors open: Reception | 7 PM Film | 8 – 9 PM Discussion
____

2. Tuesday, March 19, 2013
@ The New Parkway
474  24th Street / Oakland 94612
6:30 pm

“In a rich collection of 16-millimeter film, old news clips and still photographs, the Lovings don’t look like two people caught up in a cause; they seem like two people caught up in each other.” The New York Times

The other heroes of this amazing story are the two very young ACLU lawyers who persevered to bring the case from their receipt of Mildred’s modest letter asking if there was anything they could do, to their arguing the case before the highest court in the land.

“It ranks alongside Let Us Not Praise Famous Men in its stark beauty and searing honesty.” A perfect way to celebrate Black History Month, or Valentine’s Day.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Location: The New Parkway Theater at 474 24th Street, Oakland, CA 94612
Screening: 7pm, with facilitated discussion afterwards form 8:30 – 9.00pm
(food is available for purchase at the Theater)

www.lovingfilm.com

However, Lubbock has some of the highest rates of pregnancy and STDs in the nation. Shelby joins a student group that wants to bring comprehensive sex education to Lubbock high schools, and from this experience becomes an activist. Interwoven with Shelby’s evolution is her changing relationship with her parents, who support her despite her movement away from their beliefs. This is a film told on many levels, from the personal to the political.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open, free reception| 7:00 PM Film screening
8:15 PM Discussion
Free

Seems hard to believe that in 1969 people in New York City were being arrested, convicted and losing their jobs, for being gay. “It was the Rosa Parks moment,” says one man. June 28, 1969: NYC police raid a Greenwich Village Mafia-run gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. For the first time, patrons refuse to be led into paddy wagons, setting off a 3-day riot that launched the Gay Rights Movement.

“Told by Stonewall patrons, reporters and the cop who led the raid, Stonewall Uprising recalls the bad old days when psychoanalysts equated homosexuality with mental illness and advised aversion therapy, and even lobotomies; public service announcements warned youngsters against predatory homosexuals; and police entrapment was rampant. At the height of this oppression, the cops raid Stonewall, triggering nights of pandemonium with tear gas, billy clubs and a small army of tactical police. The rest is history.” – Karen Cooper, Director, Film Forum

“The most thorough exploration….of what came to be known as gay pride.” Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Thursday, June 21, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open| 7:00 PM Film screening
8:20 PM Discussion facilitated by ADFS
Free

“A unique and very American coming-of-age story that delves into the psyche of race through a fresh and careful dissection of a family’s struggle.”
-Tribeca Film Festival

Thursday, May 3, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open, free snacks, coffee and tea | 7:00 PM Film screening
8:20 PM Community discussion facilitated by ADFS
Free

www.OffandRunningtheFilm.com

They come from all ethnicities and sects — Arab, Kurd, Christian, Sunni, Shiite — but the joy they discover in playing and working with the young American man who coaches them reveals an Iraq united in a way we don’t see in the headlines.

David Fine will attend the screening, and be there to fill you in on how Salaam Dunk was made, and what’s happened since.

Thursday, March 29, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open and informal reception | 7:00 PM Film screening
8:20 PM Discussion with filmmaker David Fine
Free

Date and Time
January 16, 2012, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Location
Piedmont Community Hall, 711 Highland Avenue, Piedmont, CA 94611 (Map)

Event Details
- Music by Oaktown Jazz
- Presentations by Piedmont Unified School District students
- Potluck Lunch: People are encouraged to bring a dish to share that reflects their heritage
(side dish, salad, dessert or bread).
- We will show a new film about Dr King at about 1:30pm: “At the River I Stand”

For more info contact LoisCorrin@gmail.com or call 510-420-1534.

::

AT THE RIVER I STAND
The 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
Produced and directed by David Appleby, Allison Graham and Steven Ross

This moving documentary recounts the two months leading to Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968, after he had come to Memphis to support the strike of 1300 Memphis sanitation workers.

Spring 1968 in Memphis marked the dramatic climax of the Civil Rights movement. At the River I Stand skillfully reconstructs the two eventful months that transformed a strike by Memphis sanitation worker into a national conflagration, and disentangles the complex historical forces that came together with the inevitability of tragedy at the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This 58-minute documentary brings into sharp relief issues that have only become more urgent in the intervening years: the connection between economic and civil rights, debates over strategies for change, the demand for full inclusion of African Americans in American life and the fight for dignity for public employees and all working people.

http://newsreel.org/video/AT-THE-RIVER-I-STAND

Press Release
“America’s embattled public education system provides kindling for numerous negative news stories—school shootings, drugs, gang violence. Accidental Hero: Room 408 provides a powerful exception to those stereotypes. Following an East Bay public high school teacher and his class, the film tells the story of Tommie Lindsey, an extraordinary man who is changing lives by introducing his students to a little known academic sport called “forensics.” Accidental Hero has important messages about the tremendous potential that young people from diverse backgrounds can realize when they are given the support of good teachers and ample educational tools.”
(56 minutes) by Terri DeBono and Steve Rosen

Welcome to the world of forensics: students train and compete in oratory, debate, and dramatic interpretation of events. By letting students draw on their cultural backgrounds – sometimes pent up pain or anger – the teacher channels emotions into spellbinding performances in this engrossing documentary. Film contains strong language.

Thursday, January 19, 2012
6:30 PM Reception with light snacks | 7:00 – 8:00 PM Film Screening
8:00 – 9:00 PM Community Discussion
Free

http://www.pbs.org/accidentalhero/film/