Videos on the U.S. and American Studies

Desire 2005

Julie Gustafson, Tim Watson, Isaac Webb, and Women Make Movies (Firm)

"Starting in Desire, a New Orleans public housing development, filmmaker, Julie Gustafson collaborates with diverse teenage girls to create autobiographical videos about their developing sexuality and identity ... the complex economic forces that shape the young women's hopes, dreams and choices"--Container. 1 videodisc (84 min.)

MEDIA 10-788

Faubourg Tremé the untold story of Black New Orleans c2008

Dawn Logsdon, Lolis Eric Elie, Lucie Faulknor, JoNell Kennedy, Serendipity Films LLC, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, WYES-TV (Television station : New Orleans, La.), California Newsreel (Firm), Independent Television Service, and National Black Programming Consortium

Long ago during slavery, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor co-habitated, collaborated, and clashed to create much of what defines New Orleans culture up to the present day. Founded as a suburb (or faubourg in French) of the original colonial city, the neighborhood developed during French rule and many families like the Trevignes kept speaking French as their first language until the late 1960s. 1 videodisc (68 min.)

MEDIA 10-1265

New Orleans c2007

Amanda Pollak, Stephen Ives, Jenny Carchman, Michelle Ferrari, Jeffrey Wright, Insignia Films, WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.), WGBH Educational Foundation, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, and PBS Home Video

A profile of the city of New Orleans, focusing especially on its pre-Katrina history. 1 videodisc (111 min.) :

MEDIA 10-2475

A village called Versailles c2009

S. Leo Chiang, Joel Goodman, Walking Iris Films, Independent Television Service, Center for Asian American Media, and New Day Films

"A documentary about Versailles, a community in eastern New Orleans first settled by Vietnamese refugees.  After Hurricane Katrina, Versailles residents impressively rise to the challenges by returning and rebuilding before most neighborhoods in New Orleans, only to have their homes threatened by a new government-imposed toxic landfill just two miles away.  [It] recounts the empowering story of how this group of people, who has already suffered so much in their lifetime, turns a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance for a better future"--Container. 1 videodisc (67 min.)

MEDIA 10-1820

When the levees broke a requiem in four acts c2006

Spike Lee, Sam Pollard, Jacqueline Glover, Sheila Nevins, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Ray Nagin, Al Sharpton, Harry Belafonte, Soledad O'Brien, Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Kanye West, Cliff Charles, Geeta Gandbhir, Nancy Novack, HBO Documentary Films, Forty Acres & a Mule Filmworks, Home Box Office (Firm), and HBO Video (Firm)

The world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Many were shocked, not only by the scale of the disaster, but the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery efforts. Structured into four acts, each dealing with a different aspect of the events that preceded and followed Katrina's catastrophic passage through New Orleans. Tells the personal stories of those who endured this harrowing ordeal and survived to tell the tale. 3 videodiscs (ca. 256 min.)

MEDIA 10-1511

Desire 2005

Julie Gustafson, Tim Watson, Isaac Webb, and Women Make Movies (Firm)

"Starting in Desire, a New Orleans public housing development, filmmaker, Julie Gustafson collaborates with diverse teenage girls to create autobiographical videos about their developing sexuality and identity ... the complex economic forces that shape the young women's hopes, dreams and choices"--Container. 1 videodisc (84 min.)

MEDIA 10-788

Fatal flood 2001

Chana Gazit, Liev Schreiber, and John M Barry

"In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans, inundating hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted the majority black population against an aristocratic plantation family, the Percys-- and the Percys against themselves."--Container. 1 videocasette (60 min.)

DANA, MEDIA 1773, 2-4351

Faubourg Tremé the untold story of Black New Orleans c2008

Dawn Logsdon, Lolis Eric Elie, Lucie Faulknor, JoNell Kennedy, Serendipity Films LLC, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, WYES-TV (Television station : New Orleans, La.), California Newsreel (Firm), Independent Television Service, and National Black Programming Consortium

Long ago during slavery, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor co-habitated, collaborated, and clashed to create much of what defines New Orleans culture up to the present day. Founded as a suburb (or faubourg in French) of the original colonial city, the neighborhood developed during French rule and many families like the Trevignes kept speaking French as their first language until the late 1960s. 1 videodisc (68 min.)

MEDIA 10-1265

The Joy that kills 1988

Tina Rathborne, Sue Jett, Tony Mark, Frances Conroy, Elizabeth Franz, Jeffrey De Munn, Lee Richardson, Rosalind Cash, and Kate Chopin

The story of a woman in the upper class Creole society which dominated New Orleans in the 1870s, a world with a strict code of behavior one of whose strongest tenets required a wife to subordinate her will and her very being to her husband. 1 videocassette (56 min.)

MEDIA 2-476

Ruby Bridges 1998

Chaz Monet, Penelope Ann Miller, Kevin Pollak, Michael Beach, Jean Louisa Kelly, Peter Francis James, Patrika Darbo, Euzhan Palcy, Toni Ann Johnson, Anne Hopkins, Walt Disney Home Video (Firm), and Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Firm)

Based on the true story of six-year-old Ruby, one of the first Black students to integrate public elementary school in New Orleans. 1 videocassette (90 min.)

DANA 2065

The storm c2005

Marcela Gaviria, Martin Smith, Will Lyman, Rain Media, Inc, WGBH Educational Foundation, WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.), and PBS Home Video

"The storm" investigates the political storm surrounding the devastation of America's Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. Veteran Frontline producer/reporter Martin Smith will lead a team to ask hard questions about the decisions leading up to the disaster and beyond. 1 videocassette (ca. 60 min.)

MEDIA 2-7318

Trouble the water c2009

Tia Lessin, Carl Deal, Louverture Films (Firm), Elsewhere Films (Firm), and Zeitgeist Films

This documentary takes the viewer inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never seen on screen.  Incorporating home footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts -- an aspiring rap artist trapped with her husband in the 9th ward -- directors/producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal weave this insider's view of Katrina with a devastating protrait of the hurricane's aftermath.  Trouble the Water takes audiences on a journey that is by turns heart-stopping, infuriating, inspiring and empowering.  It is not only about the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but about the underlying issues that remained when the flood waters receded -- failing public schools, record high levels of incarceration, poverty, structural racism and lack of government accountability. 1 videodisc (96 min.)

DANA 469

A village called Versailles c2009

S. Leo Chiang, Joel Goodman, Walking Iris Films, Independent Television Service, Center for Asian American Media, and New Day Films

"A documentary about Versailles, a community in eastern New Orleans first settled by Vietnamese refugees.  After Hurricane Katrina, Versailles residents impressively rise to the challenges by returning and rebuilding before most neighborhoods in New Orleans, only to have their homes threatened by a new government-imposed toxic landfill just two miles away.  [It] recounts the empowering story of how this group of people, who has already suffered so much in their lifetime, turns a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance for a better future"--Container. 1 videodisc (67 min.)

MEDIA 10-1820

When the levees broke a requiem in four acts c2006

Spike Lee, Sam Pollard, Jacqueline Glover, Sheila Nevins, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Ray Nagin, Al Sharpton, Harry Belafonte, Soledad O'Brien, Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Kanye West, Cliff Charles, Geeta Gandbhir, Nancy Novack, HBO Documentary Films, Forty Acres & a Mule Filmworks, Home Box Office (Firm), and HBO Video (Firm)

The world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Many were shocked, not only by the scale of the disaster, but the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery efforts. Structured into four acts, each dealing with a different aspect of the events that preceded and followed Katrina's catastrophic passage through New Orleans. Tells the personal stories of those who endured this harrowing ordeal and survived to tell the tale. 3 videodiscs (ca. 256 min.)

MEDIA 10-1511