GOOD DOCS
Selections from the award-winning collection of documentaries that do good in the world
Photo: Denise Jans
GOOD DOCS are films that do good in the world. The award-winning collection engages and inspires students by featuring rarely heard stories about individuals and communities working towards a more equitable world. GOOD DOCS champions creative expression and complex films that provoke critical thinking. GOOD DOCS represents established documentarians and passionate new filmmakers driven by their experiences as educators, academics, journalists, artists, social workers, community members, and activists. GOOD DOCS films and the GOOD TALKS speaker series offer powerful educational experiences to students and communities everywhere. Bring these films to your classroom or next event here.
For your viewing pleasure, HTI Open Plaza has curated 15 documentaries from GOOD DOCS that engage issues of faith and social justice impacting our communities.
FAITH
‘What Do You Believe?’…Then and Now
What Do You Believe? (2002)
What Do You Believe Now? (2019)
What happens to your spiritual and religious beliefs over time? Seventeen years after the 2002 documentary What Do You Believe?, in which six diverse American teenagers shared their spiritual struggles and aspirations, the 2019 film What Do You Believe Now? revisits them to reveal how their beliefs have changed. In this new “before and after” film What Do You Believe Now?, a Catholic, Pagan, Jew, Muslim, Lakota, and Buddhist offer their deeply personal faith journeys, life challenges, and evolving ideas about higher powers, life purpose, the nature of suffering, religious intolerance and death. They do so against the backdrop of a society in flux and amidst growing religious polarization and disengagement. Designed to be a stand-alone film, What Do You Believe Now? is an invaluable addition to any discussion on religious diversity and millennial spirituality in America.
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In this award-winning documentary featured on PBS, a religiously diverse group of teens reveal their inner struggles and personal beliefs about faith, morality, suffering, death, prayer, the purpose of life and the divine. Without a hint of dogma they candidly discuss everything from hormones to heaven, deflating misperceptions and stereotypes and making a strong case for a more tolerant America. What Do You Believe? features Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim, Native American, Jewish, Pagan as well as Christian teens. Accompanied by an in-depth 28-page activities guide, What Do You Believe? is an excellent resource for comparative religion courses and exploring and promoting diversity in high schools and youth programs.
Run Time: 49 minutes | Language: English | Director: Sarah Feinbloom | Associate Producer: Klara Grunning Harris
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Run Time: 68 minutes | Language: English | Director: Sarah Feinbloom | Producers: Sarah Feinbloom & Alex Regalado
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Filmmaker Sarah Feinbloom, Founder and Executive Director of GOOD DOCS, captures how theology and identity transform in her follow-up documentary What Do You Believe Now? READ
The Return of Elder Pingree
Memoir of a Departed Mormon (2020)
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Run Time: 84 minutes | Language: English and Spanish with English, Spanish, and Italian subtitles | Director: Geoff Pingree | Producer: Geoff Pingree
Lapsed Mormon Geoff Pingree retraces the steps he took twenty-five years earlier in Guatemala as devout missionary 'Elder Pingree'. Combining archival material and contemporary footage as it moves from jungle village to national capital, The Return of Elder Pingree pairs the young Elder Pingree's earlier, single-minded journey with the older Geoff Pingree's ambivalent return to Guatemala now as he seeks to discover what has become of the Guatemalans who once trusted him with their religious faith, attempts to understand the violent and unsettling political conditions of which he was ignorant as a regimented missionary, and grapples with the basic human dilemma of how one might do good in the world.
Sepa, Nuestro Señor De Los Milagros (1987)
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Run Time: 72 minutes | Language: Spanish, English & German with Spanish, English, German & Italian subtitles | Director: Walter Saxer | Producer: Walter Saxer | DOP: Rainer Klausmann | Editing: Micki Joanni | Music: Jindrich Konir | Sound Mix: Haymo Henry Hayder | Commentary: Mario Vargas Llosa | Camera Assistant: Jorge Vignati Ojeda | Production Manager: Gustavo Cerff Arbulú | Co-Production: Alive Film & TV Production, Zurich
Sepa, Nuestro Señor De Los Milagros is the name of an open air penal colony created in 1951 by the Peruvian Government within the national effort to colonize the Amazon territories by promoting agricultural practices amongst inmates in a 37.000 hectares piece of land in the jungles of Central Peru. The 1987 documentary directed by Walter Saxer is the only window into this experimental penal colony in Peru, where no camera has ever entered and little has been written about.
ACTIVISM
The First Rainbow Coalition (2019)
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Run Time: 55 minutes | Language: English | Director & Producer: Ray Santisteban
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Director and producer of The First Rainbow Coalition Ray Santisteban outlines the historical significance of the movement and its relevance today. READ
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Dr. Felipe Hinojosa talks to Ray Santiesteban, director of the documentary about the groundbreaking 1960s Chicago alliance between the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and Young Patriots. LISTEN
The First Rainbow Coalition charts the history and legacy of a groundbreaking multi-ethnic coalition that rocked Chicago in the 1960s. Comprised of activists from the Black Panthers, the Young Patriots (southern whites), and the Young Lords (a former Puerto Rican street gang), Chicago’s Rainbow Coalition (1969-1971) united poor Blacks, Whites, and Latinos to openly challenge police brutality and substandard housing in one of the most segregated cities in America.
Bridging past and present, The First Rainbow Coalition examines the legacy of the Rainbow Coalition, exploring how contemporary problems that displace the poor in urban areas, such as gentrification and the relationship between the police and poor and minority communities, are fundamentally linked to the defining issues around which the Rainbow Coalition was organized. A thought-provoking film that sparks new dialogue about the 1960s, The First Rainbow Coalition provides an unparalleled platform for contemporary discussions on race and class in an increasingly divided United States.
Adios Amor
The Search for Maria Moreno (2018)
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Run Time: 59 minutes | Language: English & Spanish | Director: Laurie Coyle | Producer(s): Laurie Coyle and Jane Greenberg
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Director Laurie Coyle candidly discusses how her film Adios Amor became a poetic love letter to migrant mother and activist Maria Moreno, and her transformative role in the 1960s farmworkers movement. READ
In Adios Amor, the discovery of lost photographs sparks the search for a hero that history forgot— Maria Moreno, a migrant mother who sacrificed everything but her twelve kids in the passionate pursuit of justice for farmworkers. Years before César Chavez and Dolores Huerta launched the United Farm Workers, Maria picked up the only weapon she had—her voice—and became an outspoken leader in an era when women were relegated to the background. The first farm worker woman in America to be hired as a union organizer, Maria’s story was silenced and her legacy buried—until now.
Cesar’s Last Fast (2014)
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Run Time: 93 minutes | Language: English & Spanish with English subtitles | Director: Richard Ray Perez | Producer: Molly O'Brien
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Cesar’s Last Fast director Richard Ray Perez discusses César Chavez and farmworkers today. READ
Cesar’s Last Fast is a Sundance feature documentary about the private sacrifice and spiritual conviction behind César Chavez’s struggle for the humane treatment of America’s farm workers. A panorama of Mexican American and American history, civil rights, non-violent protest tactics, the environment, labor struggles, Catholic and Indigenous religious practices, this important documentary offers unprecedented insight into Chavez's life and the historic farmworker movement. By featuring never-before-seen footage of Chavez’s 1988 “Fast for Life,” a 36-day act of self-imposed penance, Cesar’s Last Fast give viewers a detailed and intimate account of Chavez's response to the resistance he faced in his all-consuming quest to stop growers from spraying pesticide on farm workers. The day-to-day realities of this water-only fast comprise the film’s dramatic arc, through which the filmmakers interweave the historic events that defined the life mission of America’s most inspiring Latino leader. A remarkably relevant story today, Cesar’s Last Fast is a crucial resource not only to today’s farm workers and labor activists. For young people, the film is a moving introduction to a pioneering social justice movement, and the individuals and communities who continue to creatively confront the inequalities they face every day.
Powerlands (2022)
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Run Time: 75 minutes | Language: English, Spanish, Zapotec, Diné, Blaan, Visayan, & Wayuunaki with English and Spanish subtitles, French and others coming soon | Director: Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso | Producers: Jordan Flaherty, Emily Faye Ratner, & Ewa Jasiewicz
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In Powerlands, Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a young Navajo filmmaker, investigates the displacement of Indigenous people and the devastation of the environment caused by the same chemical companies that have exploited the land where she was born. She travels to the La Guajira region in rural Colombia, the Tampakan region of the Philippines, the Tehuantepec Isthmus of Mexico, and the protests at Standing Rock. In each case, she meets Indigenous women leading the struggle against the same corporations that are causing displacement and environmental catastrophe in her own home. Inspired by these women, Ivey Camille brings home the lessons from these struggles to the Navajo Nation.
MIGRATION
Purgatorio (2013)
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Run Time: 52 minutes | Language: In English and Spanish with English & Spanish Subtitles | Directors: Rodrigo Reyes & Inti Cordera
Rodrigo Reyes’ provocative essay film Purgatorio re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell. By capturing a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes that live on the US/Mexico border, the filmmaker reflects on the flaws of human nature and the powerful absurdities of the modern world. An unusual border film, in the auteur tradition of caméra-stylo, Purgatorio ultimately becomes a fable of humanity, an epic and visceral experience with powerful and lingering images.
Welcome Strangers (2020)
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Run Time: 21 minutes | Language: English, Spanish, & Cameroonian Pidgin English with English & Spanish subtitles | Director: Dia Sokol Savage | Producers: Garret Savage & Dia Sokol Savage
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Every night at 6pm, just outside of Denver, Colorado, detained immigrants are legally released from an ICE facility onto unfriendly, industrial streets. Most of the men and women are asylum-seekers. They have little idea where they are and have nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Welcome Strangers is a short documentary that tells the story of Sarah Jackson, a young woman who searches the streets for these immigrants and invites them as guests into her home, Casa de Paz. She is assisted by Oliver, the lead host, who was also held at the ICE facility for seven and a half months as an immigrant from West Cameroon. Sarah, Oliver, and over a thousand volunteers work to provide hospitality and help reunite the guests with their families.
La Bonga (2023)
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Run Time: 77 minutes | Language: Spanish with English & French subtitles | Directors: Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes | Producers: Gabriella García-Pardo, Diogenes Cabarcas & Nevo Shinaar | Executive Producer: Kellen Quinn | Editor: Laura Huertas Millán
On April 5, 2001, shortly after a nearby massacre at the hands of paramilitaries, two hooded strangers delivered a letter to the farming town of La Bonga. The note accused the people of sympathizing with the FARC, the largest guerrilla group in Colombia. They were given 48 hours to either leave or be forcibly removed. The entirety of La Bonga fled that same day. Prompted by the tenuous Colombian peace agreements of 2016 and led by the only person who has attempted to live there again––María de los Santos––the townspeople decide to resurrect a celebration honoring their patron saint. To do so, they must confront the jungle and face the realities of reconstructing a place that no longer is. La Bonga is a symbolic journey through the jungles of the Caribbean to resurrect a place that only exists in memory. In an act of resistance, the festival lets the loss go, as it celebrates collective memory and community.
GENDER & SEXUALITY
On the Divide (2021)
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Run Time: 79 minutes | Language: English & Spanish with English subtitles | Directors: Leah Galant & Maya Cueva | Producers: Diane Becker, Melanie Miller, Amanda Spain & Elizabeth Woodward
On the Divide follows the stories of three Latinx people living in McAllen, Texas, who, despite their conflicting views, are connected by the most unexpected of places: the last abortion clinic on the U.S./Mexico border. Despite their pro-life or pro-choice views, Mercedes, Rey and Denisse do not fit neatly on either side of the abortion debate, and their stories reveal that the issue is not as black and white as it might seem. As threats to the clinic and their personal safety mount, these three are forced to make decisions they never could have imagined. On the Divide goes beyond the clinic walls to explore the complex stories of those who have an unlikely stake in the issues surrounding abortion. In a community lacking healthcare options, what does it mean to go against your beliefs in order to survive?
Silent Beauty (2022)
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Run Time: 87 minutes | Language: English and some Spanish with English subtitles | Director: Jasmín Mara López | Producer: Jasmín Mara López | Editor: Sarah Garrahan | Director of Photography: Bron Moyi
When director Jasmin Mara López sees a photo of her niece with her grandfather, she is flooded by painful memories of her own childhood sexual abuse at his hands—and the following 24 years of her silence. In the cinematically striking and poetic documentary Silent Beauty, López bravely films her story as a willful act to accept difficult truths while finding beauty in the process of healing. As she defies the cultural silence that pervades her family and confronts her abusive grandfather, who is a Baptist minister, a world of generational abuse unfolds, and she quickly discovers she is not alone. Through archival family footage and intimate moments with her family, López has created a film about confronting painful truths and the beauty one can feel when they reach the other side of grief.
Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016)
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Run Time: 72 minutes | Language: English & Spanish with Spanish subtitles | Director: Cecilia Aldarondo
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Read interview with Cecilia Aldarondo, who discusses turning the camera on family for Memories of a Penitent Heart
Combining a wealth of recently discovered home movies, video, and written documents with artfully shot contemporary interviews and vérité footage, Memories of a Penitent Heart is a documentary that cracks open a Pandora’s box of unresolved family drama. The intimate lens of the film refracts on a wider cultural context: the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, and in particular, how families treat their LGBT members in a Latin American cultural and religious context. A story about the mistakes of the past and the second chances of the present, Memories of a Penitent Heart is a cautionary tale about the unresolved conflicts wrought by AIDS, and a nuanced exploration of how faith is used and abused in times of crisis.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Give and Take (2012)
After seven of their drivers died from COVID-19, a car service in Queens, NY started hosting a community fridge on the sidewalk outside their offices. A small business started by immigrants, Fenix XL now serves a largely immigrant community with 24-hour access to free food. Fanny, who lost her cleaning job when schools were closed, now relies on this fridge to survive. The first community fridge in NYC started outside a Bed Stuy apartment in February 2020; there are now over 100 across the city, inspiring a movement around the world.
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Run Time: 11 minutes | Language: English and Spanish with English subtitles | Director: Gareth Smit | Producer: Justin Levy | Composer: Andrew Orkin