America ReFramed - Season 8
Season 8
The eighth season of AMERICA REFRAMED curates a diverse selection of independent films that brings to audiences compelling stories which illuminate the changing contours of our ever-evolving country. The documentary series presents an array of personal voices and experiences through which we learn from our past, understand our present and are challenged to seek new frameworks for America's future.
Episodes
Where the Pavement Ends
Transporting viewers to Missouri towns - then all-Black Kinloch and the all-white community of Ferguson, examining the shared histories and deep racial divides affecting both. Through recordings, photographs and recollections, WHERE THE PAVEMENT ENDS draws parallels between a 1960s dispute over a physical barricade erected between the towns and the 2014 shooting death by police of Michael Brown.
Jaddoland
JADDOLAND is an intimate portrait of the work and process of visual artist Lahib Jaddo while offering a fresh look at the immigrant story in America. Through an exploration of Jaddo's art and connections to her life in Texas, the film also drafts a unique picture of how art can help both the creator and the audience make sense of familial and cultural connections, loss, perseverance and life.
Tutwiler
TUTWILER takes audiences into Alabama's only maximum security women's penitentiary, Julia Tutwiler Prison, and explores the Alabama Prison Birth Project, helping expectant and new mothers learn childbirth and parenting skills while dealing with the pain of being separated from their children.
Little Miss Westie
A loving and insightful portrait of two transgender siblings - Luca and Ren - and their parents, set in the changing social climate following the 2016 presidential election. LITTLE MISS WESTIE takes audiences behind the scenes as the family navigates puberty, school, dating and more as the children begin living in their authentic genders and Ren participates in the Lil' Miss Westie Pageant.
Vision Portraits
Acclaimed director Rodney Evans takes viewers on a personal journey as he ponders how the deterioration of his vision will impact his life and work as a filmmaker. Interviewing blind and low vision artists - a photographer, a dancer and a writer - Evans embarks on a quest to learn how other artists have continued to create art and how their journeys might serve as inspiration for his own.
First Vote
With unparalleled access to a diverse cross section of politically engaged Chinese Americans, FIRST VOTE offers a character-driven verité look at Chinese American electoral organizing in North Carolina and Ohio. The film weaves their stories from the presidential election of 2016 to the 2018 midterms, and explores the intersections between immigration, voting rights and racial justice.
Blood Memory
For Sandy White Hawk, the story of America's Indian Adoption Era is not one of saving children but of destroying families and tribes. As an adoption survivor, Sandy sets out to reclaim the missing pieces of her stolen past only to discover that her's was not an isolated case. BLOOD MEMORY explores the communal healing that is sparked by the return of this stolen generation.
The Blessing
A Navajo coal miner, Lawrence, struggles with his part in the irreversible destruction of their sacred mountain at the hands of America's largest coal producer. This deep spiritual sacrifice has caused him decades of emotional turmoil while providing for his family.
Lawrence's daughter Caitlin is a senior at the local reservation high school. Caitlin searches for her inner identity amidst the expectations of her traditional father. A character-driven film captured over the course of five years, THE BLESSING brings the search for acceptance through this poetic social and environmental story.
Recently Updated Shows
Mountain Men
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live your life off the grid? Have you wished you could shed the complications of modern society and live in the wilderness, using only the things nature has provided? Meet Eustace Conway, Tom Oar and Marty Meierotto of the new History series Mountain Men, three men who have devoted their lives to survival in its simplest form. But how simple is it really for the Mountain Men?
From the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to the seven-month-long winters on the Yaak River in Montana to the frigid northern range of Alaska, the country is full of some very unforgiving terrain. Watch as these men face off against mudslides, falling trees, ravaging weather and even hungry animals, to make sure they obtain the food and supplies they will need to make it through the brutal winter months ahead.
Forged in Fire
Forged in Fire features world-class bladesmiths competing against each other to create some of the most iconic edged weapons from history. In each episode, four of the best bladesmiths in the country will come together to put both their skills and reputations on the line. Whether they are making a Japanese katana, a medieval broadsword, or an ancient throwing blade like the chakram, the weapons they forge will be fully functional and lethal works of art and war. The unique histories contained within each weapon will be creatively told during the forging process and the final weapons themselves will be assessed and ruthlessly tested by our panel of expert judges. These dynamic and explosive tests will be individually designed to push the weapons to their absolute limit. One by one, the bladesmiths will be eliminated until only one remains to be crowned the champion.
Revival
Revival is set on one miraculous day in rural Wisconsin when the recently deceased suddenly rise from their graves. But this is no zombie story as the "revived" appear and act just like they once were. When local Officer and single mother Dana Cypress is unexpectedly thrown into the center of a brutal murder mystery of her own, she's left to make sense of the chaos amidst a town gripped by fear and confusion where everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect.
The Wanted Man
The Wanted Man charts the rise and fall of Felix Carmichael, the elusive and powerful head of notorious British crime syndicate ‘The Capital.' Untouchable for twenty years, Carmichael is finally apprehended, but while he's held in the infamous Staplehurst prison, it becomes clear that he's been betrayed by one of his own. As the traitor moves to dismantle the empire he has built, Carmichael must risk everything in a daring escape. Willing to stop at nothing to take his revenge, if he succeeds, he'll be a wanted man once more.