Movies: Sophie E. Constantinou

The first major uprising against police brutality, harassment, and societal oppression was not at Stonewall in 1969, but at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco three years earlier. Those who stood up were trans women and gay men. Now, nearly 40 year...

An intimate study of one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the 20th century tracking feminist icon Susan Sontag’s seminal, life-changing moments through archival materials, accounts from friends, family, colleagues, and lovers, as w...

School lunch chef Wanda McAfee-Conart reflects in her job and how it connects her to the sensory environment and to her own family history....

When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. Over 70 years later, the memories of some 2,000 slave-era survivors were transcribed and preserved by the Library of Congress. These first-person anecdotes, ranging from t...

A fascinating and unlikely reinvention story, The Royal Road simultaneously explores cinematic spiritual channeling, the conquest and colonization of Mexico and the American Southwest, fading historical Californian urban landscapes, and the passions ...

From the moment David Brower first laid eyes on the beauty of the Yosemite Valley, he wanted to the fight to preserve the American wilderness for future generations. The story of a true American legend, Monumental documents the life of this outdoorsm...

Take a journey with master graphic novelist Joann Sfar as he finds inspiration in his Algerian-Jewish heritage and the lively streets and cafes of his current home in France. This collaboration between Citizen Film, KQED Presents and Paris-based Les...

Jessie Weston is an ex-con recently released from prison after serving two years for auto theft. He is welcomed back into his small California down by his best friend Dillion and his older brother, Paul. But Jessie is not warmly received by his old g...

Chris Renfro doesn’t just grow and harvest grapes on a hillside high above San Francisco’s Highway 280 to make delicious local wine. He is dedicated to building a sustainable food community that nourishes every member of the local economy and ecosyst...

A blending of documentary and experimental narrative strategies, combining stunning 16mm landscape cinematography with a bold, lyrical voice-over to share two San Francisco stories: the history of the Golden Gate Bridge as “suicide landmark,” and the...

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really m...

Just over the border in Mexico is an area peppered with maquiladoras: massive sweatshops often owned by the world's largest multinational corporations. Carmen and Lourdes work at maquiladoras in Tijuana, and it is there that they try to balance the s...

Images set to a tape recording that slain San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk made in November 1977 to be played in case he was killed....

Born in Ozan, Arkansas in 1933, White traveled the world observing and documenting the Black experience from Nigeria to France to Chicago. He arrived in the Bay Area in 1958, and opened the first Black owned art gallery in San Francisco....

Race to Nowhere is a film containing stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s ...

Ian James has been creating leather goods for nearly a decade, but only recently realized his dream of opening his own shop. When James got laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic, he took the plunge and opened his namesake boutique in San Francisco. J...

This short film reveals the inspiration, motivation and political challenges at San Francisco City Hall during the frantic days leading up to the first government-sanctioned same-sex marriage....

Charlotte Biltekoff is the author of “Eating Right in America” where she traces the food reform movements throughout American history. She questions socially accepted ideas about “good and bad eaters” and what those assumptions reveal about food, cul...

Harry Hay was one of the founding fathers of the gay rights movement, and for more than 50 years was synonymous with the term "gay pride." Director Eric Slade's documentary about Hay looks at both his life and the movement he did so much to define. I...

Documentary - A documentary on a New York City woman who has spent most of her 93 years in the world of movies, TV, commercial, and print media....