Study Guide Themes Archives: Social Justice

The Interrupters

The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. From acclaimed director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, this film is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn, persistence of violence in our cities.

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Life After Death

Life after Death follows the everyday lives of best friends, Kwasa and Fils, as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide. Both boys embody the struggle of a generation left behind in the wake of violence and destruction.

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Lemon Tree

Salma, a Palestinian widow (living there for decades), has to stand up against her new neighbor, the Israeli Defense Minister, when he moves into his new house opposite her lemon grove, on the green line border between Israel and the West Bank. A complex, dark and sometimes funny look at the ongoing struggle in the Middle East, in which all players find themselves alone in their struggle to survive.

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Legacy

Legacy tells the story of a Chicago family living in the projects and their transcending of hardships. Shot over a five-year period, this emotional feature looks, with an intimate eye, into three generations of powerful women – how they winter through the murder of a son, welfare, drug addictions, and the violence of their community and life in the projects.

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The Last Just Man

An examination of the Rwandan Genocide through the eyes of Lt. General Romeo Dalaire, the Canadian commander of UN peacekeeping operations at the time, The Last Just Man is a compelling and revealing historical deconstruction of the forces behind a tragic failure to achieve peace

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