Exhibitions & Events
Available for Streaming from TWN
Grants & Resources for Filmmakers
Third World Newsreel (TWN) is pleased to announce that it has been recommended for a National Endowment for the Arts grant
under its "Grants for Arts Projects" for the year starting July 1st, 2021! 
Thanks, NEA! More workshops and seminars in our future!
Thu, Jun 24, 2021 6:00 PM EST
Black Nations/Queer Nations? Film & Talk with Shari Frilot and More
I'm Free Now, You Are Free
Upcoming Screenings

A short documentary about the reunion and repair between Mike Africa Jr and his mother Debbie Africa—a formerly incarcerated political prisoner of the MOVE9. In 1978, Debbie, then 8 months pregnant, and many other MOVE family members were arrested after an attack by the Philadelphia Police Department; born in a prison cell, Mike Africa Jr. spent just three days with his mother before guards wrenched him away, and they spent the next 40 years struggling for freedom and for each other.
In-Person Premiere!
Making the Impossible Possible Documentary
Queens World Film Festival at Queens Theater
July 3, 2021, 4 PM EST
We are thrilled to announce the first in-person premiere of MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE, a documentary on the student-led campaign to radically change higher education in New York City.

Join us at Queens Theater in Flushing for the 2021 Queens World Film Festival to watch MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE and five additional short films that remind us equity is not a noun.

“What a powerful film! I'm so honored to know this legacy through all of your stories. Thanks for the inspiration.”
- Dr. Anna Ortega-Williams, Asst. Professor, Hunter College

“Fantastic film! The story of the formation of the Puerto Rican Studies Department at Brooklyn College became the model for similar critical curricula adopted by many Universities and Colleges around the U.S., some of which remain in place today because of the activists and scholars captured in this film.”
- Michelle Materre, Founder and Director, Creatively Speaking

Produced by Gisely Colón López, Tami Gold and Pam Sporn
Edited by Sonia Gonzalez-Martinez and Pam Sporn
Featuring music by Arturo O’Farrill, Oscar Hernández and BombaYo
A Production of the Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and Empowerment (APREE)
Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes Documentary
at the Senga Nengudi: Topologies Exhibit
Through July 25, 2021
Barbara McCullough's Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes will be part of this exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art!

This video investigates the use of ritual in the work of artists using different media. Here ritual is defined as the creation and utilization of objects, words or tones used in a repetitive or habitual way to generate a spiritually cathartic experience. Through this catharsis, the artist is able to transcend one level of reality to touch upon her/his cultural past. This experimental documentary features the artists: David Hammons, Betye Saar, Houston and Kinshasha Conwill, N'Senga Nengudi, K. Curtis Lyle, Ojenke, Kamaau Da'oud, Kenneth Severin and Freedom in Expression.

Topologies: Situated at the intersection of sculpture and performance, Senga Nengudi’s provocative works reimagine the possibilities for abstract art through an exploration of both the Black female body and the collective practices of community and ritual. A leader of the 1970s Black American avant-garde, Nengudi has built a powerful and innovative body of work rooted in her commitment to collaboration. Featuring sculptures made from everyday materials like pantyhose, water, and air conditioning units, and incorporating archival documentation, video, and sound, the exhibition traces the arc of the artist’s career over the last five decades, celebrating Nengudi as a pioneering artist of our time.
Mississippi Triangle
Available on Vimeo on Demand

This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and whites live in a complex world of cotton, labor, and racial conflict. The history of the Chinese community, originally brought to the South to work on cotton plantations after the Civil War, is framed against the harsh realities of civil rights, religion, politics, and class in the South. Rare historical footage and interviews of Delta residents are combined to create this unprecedented document of inter-ethnic relations in the American South. A Third World Newsreel production.

"Technique for us is secondary. The people themselves have a rich life experience, a knowledge of history and their culture and community organization. And these people are far more qualified to make films than people who have learned their skills in a school." -Christine Choy
In a Perfect World...
Available on Vimeo on Demand

IN A PERFECT WORLD… Explores all the requisite dynamics of what it is to be a man raised by a single mother. The inspiration for the film came from the director's own relationship with her son who has a largely absentee father.

Over the course of several years, independent filmmaker and producer Daphne McWilliams began interviewing men about the relationships they had with their mothers and, to varying degrees, their absentee fathers. At the same time, she was raising her own son, Chase, as a single parent. She noticed that as Chase entered his teens, their relationship took a dramatic turn as he began coping with his most formative years and becoming an adult without the consistent presence of his own father. McWilliams realized it was time to turn the camera on her own family to document her son's painful abandonment issues while seeking to help him express and understand his feelings.
Palante, Siempre Palante!
Available on Vimeo on Demand

In the midst of the African American civil rights struggle, protests to end the Vietnam War and the women's movement for equality, Puerto Rican and Latino communities fought for economic and social justice. From Chicago streets to the barrios of New York City and other urban centers, the Young Lords emerged to demand decent living conditions and raised a militant voice for the empowerment of the Puerto Rican people in the United States. Palante, Siempre Palante documents the history with on-camera interviews, archival footage, photographs and music. The documentary surveys Puerto Rican history, the Young Lords' activities and philosophy, the torturous end of the organization and its inspiring legacy.
TWN Evening Seminars
From fundraising to editing, cameras, and lighting, to talks about the making of films, we have videos to keep you learning your craft and hearing about filmmakers' experiencesfree virtual training.
Learn More


More Info

Cycle 1 Deadline: Tuesday, June 22 at 10:00 AM
Cycle 2 Deadline: Tuesday, July 20 at 10:00 AM
Cycle 3 Deadline: Tuesday, August 10 at 10:00 AM

Deadline: July 2, 2021

Deadline: Jul 26, 2021

Opens: 2021

Opens: 2021

Deadline: 2021

Deadline: 2021

Opens: Spring 2021

Deadline: 2021

Deadline: 2021

Deadline: 2021

Deadline: 2021

Opens: 2021

Deadline: 2021

Deadline: 2022

Deadline: Open

Deadline: Open

Deadline: Open

Deadline: Open

Deadline: Open


Learn More

Learn More

Learn More


UnionDocs Workshops & Seminars 

Black and Latino Filmmaker's Coalition and Workshops

Center for Communication

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts Classes

The Standby Program's Preservation and Post-Production Services

Cinema Tropical's Weekly Newsletter

Documentary Magazine

Filmmaker Magazine

TWN Stock Footage

More Resources for Filmmakers
Third World Newsreel Briefly includes interviews with JT Takagi, Executive Director, Bev Grant, Newsreel filmmaker, Desi del Valle, former staff and TWN Workshop Fellow, and Kazembe Balagun, TWN Workshop Fellow. Thanks to Pablo Arribas of LaVitrola.cl for the interview and trailer and the TWN family for their support!

Read Third World Newsreel's updated monograph with articles about our history and films.
TWN is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, the National Film Preservation Foundation, and the Peace Development Fund, as well as individual donors.

TWN also gratefully acknowledges support from an NEA CARES grant, the NY Community Trust, and a Humanities New York CARES Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal CARES Act. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in our programs do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.