Participant Media
1) The help
Formats
Description
Mississippi during the 1960s: Skeeter, a southern society girl, returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends' lives, and a small Mississippi town, upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families. Aibileen, Skeeter's best friend's housekeeper, is the first to open up, to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community.
2) Green book
Pub. Date
[2019]
Description
When Tony Lip, a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley, a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on The Green Book to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism, danger, as well as unexpected humanity and humor, they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the...
3) Wonder
Author
Formats
Description
A boy with a facial deformity, who enters a middle school after being homeschooled for his whole life, struggles to fit in and get accepted by his classmates.
Pub. Date
[2017]
Description
Twelve-year-old Conor, dealing with his mother's illness, a less-than-sympathetic grandmother, and bullying classmates, finds a most unlikely ally when a monster appears at his bedroom window. Ancient, wild, and relentless, the monster guides Conor on a journey of courage, faith, and truth.
Pub. Date
[2019]
Formats
Description
Inspired by the powerful true story of a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex depicts a then-struggling attorney and new mother facing adversity in her fight for equal rights. When Ruth takes on a ground-breaking case, she knows the outcome could alter the courts' view of gender discrimination. Stronger together, Ruth teams up with her husband, Martin Ginsburg, to fight the case that catapults her into one of the most important public figures...
6) Spotlight
Pub. Date
[2016]
Description
The riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world's oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper's tenacious 'Spotlight' team of reporters delve into allegations of sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston's religious, legal, and government...
Pub. Date
[2017]
Formats
Description
For the one hundred and twenty-six people aboard the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, April 20, 2010, began like any normal day. Before day's end, the world would bear witness to one of the greatest man-made disasters in United States history. It reveals the brave acts of the men and women who rose to the challenge and risked everything to lead others to safety.
9) Roma
Series
Criterion collection volume 1014
Pub. Date
[2020]
Description
With his eighth and most personal film, Alfonso Cuaron recreated the early 1970s Mexico City of his childhood, narrating a tumultuous period in the life of a middle-class family through the experiences of Cleo, the indigenous domestic worker who keeps the household running. Charged with the care of four small children abandoned by their father, Cleo tends to the family even as her own life is shaken by personal and political upheavals
Description
Provided is an engaging and inspiring look at public education in the United States. This documentary has helped launch a movement to achieve a real and lasting change through the compelling stories of five unforgettable students such as Emily, a Silicon Valley eighth-grader who is afraid of being labeled as unfit for college, and Francisco, a Bronx first-grader whose mom will do anything to give him a shot at a better life.
12) Citizenfour
Series
Description
With unprecedented access, this gripping behind-the-scenes chronicle follows award winning director Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald's remarkable encounters with whistle-blower Edward Snowden in a hotel room in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents that provide evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the NSA.
13) Lincoln
Pub. Date
2013.
Description
A revealing drama that focuses on the 16th president's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country, and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.
Pub. Date
[2010]
Description
This book explores politically charged topics through a series of essays by thinkers at the leading edge of educational innovation. It shows how failing schools destroy neighborhoods--not the reverse--and how research reveals that dedicated, attentive teachers are what help at-risk kids succeed. Inspired the film directed by "An Inconvenient Truth"'s Davis Guggenheim.
15) Stillwater
Pub. Date
[2021]
Description
A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn't commit.
16) Food, Inc
Pub. Date
2008.
Description
Lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing how our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profits ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Reveals surprising - and often shocking truths - about what we eat, how it's produced and who we have become as a nation.
18) Captive state
Description
Chicago of the future looks vastly different than the iconic American city it is today. It has been occupied by aliens, and now the city is Ground Zero in a battle for control. Some residents are more than willing to work with the extra-terrestrial forces, but others are determined to resist. People on both sides believe that they are doing what is best for the city. Is Chicago better off with these alien occupiers, or should it return to its previous...
Pub. Date
[2015]
Description
An intimate portrait of Malala Yousafzai, who was wounded when Taliban gunmen opened fire on her in Pakistan's Swat Valley. The shooting of the then fifteen-year-old teenager sparked international media outrage. An educational activist in Pakistan, Yousafzai has since emerged as a leading campaigner for the rights of children worldwide and in December 2014, became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
20) Bridge of Spies
Pub. Date
[2016]
Description
James Donovan is a Brooklyn lawyer who finds himself thrust into the center of the Cold War when the CIA sends him on the near-impossible task to negotiate the release of a captured American U-2 pilot.