New Day Films (Firm)
1) Deej
Description
After spending his early years in foster care, without access to language, DJ Savarese (“Deej”) found not only a loving family but also a life in words, which he types on a text-to-voice synthesizer. As he dreams of college, he confronts the terrors of his past, society’s obstacles to inclusion and the often-paralyzing beauty of his own senses.In this first-of-its-kind collaboration between a veteran filmmaker and a nonspeaking autistic, Robert...
Pub. Date
1985.
Description
Breaking Silence is the definitive film on incest and child sexual abuse. Personal stories told by survivors and their families, woven with telling drawings by abused children, give viewers a realistic understanding of how incest destroys trust and bonding, and limits the lives of its victims. Breaking Silence celebrates survivors who are finding the courage to “break silence” and regain their lives..
Pub. Date
2005.
Description
Is it ever rational to choose death? On Independence Day at Stern Ranch, 77-year-old solar energy pioneer Bob Stern finds out he's seriously ill - possibly dying. Meanwhile, an elderly in-law is dying on artificial life support. Bob decides to cheat that fate and take his own life. His family tries to stop him. Bob sets up a video camera. Daughter Susan Stern (Barbie Nation) explores "rational suicide," the "right-to-die" and the difficult end-of-life...
Pub. Date
1996.
Description
Why Does America Have the Worst Public Transit in the Industrialized World, and the Most Freeways? Taken for a Ride reveals the tragic and little known story of an auto and oil industry campaign, led by General Motors, to buy and dismantle streetcar lines. Across the nation, tracks were torn up, sometimes overnight, and diesel buses placed on city streets. The highway lobby then pushed through Congress a vast network of urban freeways that doubled...
Pub. Date
1986.
Description
Manuela and Ben Aparicio, sister and brother, brought by their parents in search of a better future, arrived in the Fillmore, California from a rural village in Mexico. Twenty years later, they share their stories of dislocation and their determination to succeed. They sensitively portray their struggles to learn English, excel in school, resist efforts to be pushed into vocational programs and be accepted by their American neighbors. Their story,...
Pub. Date
2010.
Description
A companion to New Day's Power and Control: Domestic Violence in America, the 20-minute film explores best practices in three jurisdictions: Duluth, MN, home of the influential "Duluth Model;" Baltimore, MD, home of an infamously high crime rate; and the South Bronx, the nation's busiest domestic violence patrol area.. Seasoned officers responding to tense, actual domestic calls show how to safely approach a fighting couple, interview, determine primary...
Pub. Date
2017.
Description
This documentary profiles the late Kanalu Young whose dive into shallow water at age 15 left him quadriplegic. Angry and defiant, he begins to change when he discovers an untold story of Hawaiian history which fires him up to become a leader of his people.. Winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Short Documentary at the Guam International Film Festival.. "At long last, a portrait of both disability and Native Hawaiian identity at the crux of political...
Pub. Date
2016.
Description
KUKAN, a landmark color film that revealed the atrocities of World War II China to audiences around the world, was the first ever American feature documentary to receive an Academy Award in 1942 and was considered lost for decades. When filmmaker Robin Lung discovers a badly damaged film print of KUKAN, she pieces together the inspirational tale of the two renegades behind the making of it -- Chinese American playwright Li Ling-Ai and cameraman Rey...
Pub. Date
2017.
Description
WATER WARRIORS is the story of a community’s successful resistance against the oil and gas industry. When an energy company begins searching for natural gas in New Brunswick, Canada, indigenous and white families unite to drive out the company in a campaign to protect their water and way of life.. Official Selection at the Tribeca Film Festival and DOC NYC.. Winner of Best Short Documentary at the Blackstar Film Festival. Winner of Best Documentary...
Pub. Date
2012.
Description
As seen on National Geographic's Short Film Showcase 2016, Director Russell O. Bush's Vultures of Tibet explores the recent commercialization of a sacred Tibetan funeral tradition known as Sky Burial. In Sky Burial, Tibetans ritually feed the bodies of their dead to wild Griffon Vultures as an offering to benefit other living beings. With the modernization of Western China and the expansion of tourism in Tibet, burial sites are now highlighted on...
Pub. Date
2001.
Description
When forced to work at city jobs for well below the prevailing wage and deprived of the chance to go to school, these individuals decide to fight back, demanding programs that will actually help them move off of welfare and into jobs. A Day's Work, A Day's Pay traces the personal and political evolution of its three main characters. Juan Galan successfully organizes WEP workers while battling the demons of his own poverty-stricken childhood. Jackie...
Pub. Date
2013.
Description
Nine To Ninety is the love story of Phyllis and Joe Sabatini, who at age 89 and 90 live in the home of their daughter and son-in-law, where they relish time with their young granddaughter Jacqueline. But as the family struggles to make ends meet and the grandparents’ health problems escalate, Phyllis becomes determined to free her daughter from the burden of caring for everyone from nine to ninety.. When Phyllis makes a difficult decision to move...
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
The Land (2015) is a short documentary film about the nature of play, risk and hazard set in The Land, a Welsh "adventure” playground. At The Land children climb trees, light fires and use hammers and nails in a play-space rooted in the belief that kids are empowered when they learn to manage risks on their own..
Pub. Date
2013.
Description
A poetic short featuring the voice of an undocumented young Latina woman who was brought to the U.S. as a child. The film introduces viewers to a personal voice on the immigration debate: DACA, the Dream Act, and other immigration reform, speaking about what it's like to grow up and face an uncertain future as a young undocumented person in America.. Because she doesn't want to appear on camera, found footage from American culture illuminates the...
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
A Chance To Dress explores the complexity of gender expression through the story of MIT Professor Emeritus and open cross dresser Dr. John "Tephra" Southard.. The film follows the difficulties in coming out to his friends, neighbors and colleagues, but also his sense of liberation after a lifetime of secrecy.. 76 year old Professor Emeritus John Southard recently came out to his family, friends and M.I.T colleagues as a cross-dresser after nearly...
16) Badger Creek
Pub. Date
2017.
Description
A documentary portrait of a Blackfeet (Pikuni) family, the Mombergs, who live on the lower Blackfeet Reservation in Montana near the banks of Badger Creek.. In addition to running a prosperous ranching business, they practice a traditional Blackfeet cultural lifestyle that sustains and nourishes them, including sending their children to a Blackfeet language immersion school, participating in Blackfeet spiritual ceremonies and maintaining a Blackfeet...
17) I Learn America
Pub. Date
2013.
Description
In I Learn America, five resilient immigrant teenagers come together at the International High School at Lafayette and struggle to learn their new land.. The International High School is a New York City public school dedicated to serving newly arrived immigrant teenagers, with more than 300 students speaking two-dozen languages from 50 countries.. Meet the students:. SING is a refugee from Myanmar who has recently relocated to Brooklyn, leaving his...
Pub. Date
2016.
Description
When you think of busing in Boston, chances are it’s about a dark episode in the city’s history that sparks images of violence, intolerance, and racial tension. And while most of the historical spotlight has been on forced busing to desegregate the city’s schools and its legacy, there’s another Boston busing story that is lesser known.. This film highlights one of the longest running voluntary school desegregation programs in the country,...
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
From the rough-edged courts of Astoria, Queens and recruited by Coach Pat Summitt for the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols, Chamique Holdsclaw was hailed as the “female Michael Jordan,” impressing crowds with her artistry, athleticism and drive. A 3-time NCAA champ and No.1 draft pick in the WNBA, Holdsclaw seemed destined for a spectacular professional career—until her long-suppressed battle with mental illness threatened to derail her...
Pub. Date
2010.
Description
She was called "that awful woman" by her neighbors, and “that atheist mother” by newspapers across the country. Her friends stopped returning phone calls rather than risk speaking with her. She was branded a communist, and the Illinois State Legislature nearly outlawed her and her husband from ever working at the state university again. She received up to 200 letters a day, some of the writers claiming they would pray for her; many wishing for...