Bibliographies:

Immigrants and Cultural Outsiders Within Europe:
A Bibliography of Books and Articles in the UC Berkeley Library

Filmmakers: Michael Haneke

Filmmakers: Fatih Akin

Filmmakers: Helma Sanders-Brahms

Filmmakers: Alexander Kluge

Filmmakers: Vincente Minnelli

Filmmakers: Edgar Reitz

Videographies:

Media Resources Center Movie Database:  Movies by Major Studio

Fantasy Films (including filmed fairy tales)

Sports Films

Beauty in China. These days, ambitious young women in China feel they have to Westernize their appearance through plastic surgery in order to get ahead. They undergo lengthy, painful, and expensive surgery and hospitalization, often financed by their parents who can ill afford it.  To accomplish the "right look," they visit surgeons to have their legs lengthened, their eyes westernized and their breasts enlarged. Some of the women end up with terrible physical problems as a result. It is a startling fact that every week some 16,000 Chinese undergo face surgery. The film includes a beauty contest for "Miss Nip & Tuck," in which all the contestants are women who have had plastic surgery. Many of their families have spent their life savings to pay for this investment in their daughters. The winner's family paid over $3,000 (which represented 2 years' salary) for her various plastic surgeries. The surgeons are happy to accomodate this business when one operation to lengthen legs costs $10,500. When one compares the attitude in China towards women during the Cultural Revolution when they were discouraged from dressing in anything but Mao jackets, the phenomenon is a startling illustration of China's rapid push into modernity.  DVD X348

Campaneras.  Musically stunning and emotionally compelling this film follows a group of Latina musicians as they break the gender barrier to perform mariachi music in America with passion and gusto. Long the purview of male musicians, the 12 member Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles was the first all female mariachi band. Since their inception in 1994, other female groups have been formed who perform professionally, expanding the popularity of the music, which is an important part of their cultural heritage.  Along with a brief history of mariachi music, the film interweaves portraits of the women who often find their personal lives conflict with their desire to be full-time musicians. The issues raised are universal to women everywhere: how to balance family life with career, how to achieve equal pay, and how to deal with emotional conflict. Campaneras offers rich material for discussion as well as engaging performances! DVD X349

Jesus Politics. Various aspects of the 2008 presidential election have been the source of much heated discussion, but with this documentary Israeli director Ilan Ziv (SIX DAYS) focuses specifically on the religious side of the race. JESUS POLITICS approaches the election from the position of various activists on either side of the party divide, beginning with the efforts in the primaries. But Ziv goes farther back in time, examining the tangled roots of religion and politics in the 18th and 19th centuries.  DVD X295

The Judge and the General.  In 1998, judge Juan Guzman, a longtime Pinochet supporter, was assigned to prosecute the ex-Chilean dictator for human rights crimes. This engrossing documentary follows the twists and turns of this landmark case, one that influenced the application of human rights law around the world.  As a young man, Juan Guzmán had served briefly as a clerk in the Court of Appeals during the worst years of repression under Pinochet. Judges of that court had to decide on thousands of habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of victims, many of whom had disappeared into secret detention centers. Nearly all the petitions were denied, and Juan Guzmán wrote some of those denials. Had they been granted, many lives would have been saved.    In describing those days, Guzman chillingly tells the filmmakers of this documentary, ?If I would have been a young lieutenant ordered to shoot people, I would have shot.? DVD X355...

The Judge and the General. In 1998, judge Juan Guzman, a longtime Pinochet supporter, was assigned to prosecute the ex-Chilean dictator for human rights crimes. This engrossing documentary follows the twists and turns of this landmark case, one that influenced the application of human rights law around the world.   As a young man, Juan Guzmán had served briefly as a clerk in the Court of Appeals during the worst years of repression under Pinochet. Judges of that court had to decide on thousands of habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of victims, many of whom had disappeared into secret detention centers. Nearly all the petitions were denied, and Juan Guzmán wrote some of those denials. Had they been granted, many lives would have been saved.   In describing those days, Guzman chillingly tells the filmmakers of this documentary, ?If I would have been a young lieutenant ordered to shoot people, I would have shot.?  DVD X355

Every year in October, the Head of the Media Center has the pleasure of attending the National Media Market and previewing the best and brightest new, independently produced and distributed documentary works. This year's Market was exceptionally exciting: the number of great new titles was almost overwhelming. Following are descriptions of some of favorite 2008 NMM buys:

Miss Navajo: For most of us, pageants conjure up smiling beauty-queen hopefuls parading around in bathing suits or glittery gowns. But most of us have never witnessed the Miss Navajo Nation competition, a unique pageant that celebrates women and tradition in Navajo culture. DVD X363

Revue:

As he did with his critically-acclaimed BLOCKADE, a documentary re-creation of the WWII siege of Leningrad, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa has once again scoured the Russian film archives for REVUE, selecting excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 1960s. DVD X34

Politicians come and politicians go, but NBC's Meet the Press seems to be forever. The program made its TV debut on November 6, 1947, making it the longest-running program ever on network television.   The program's first hostess was its creator Martha Rountree, and the first guest on the program was James A. Farley, the former Postmaster General of the United States and former Democratic National Committee Chair.

Since it's debut, the program has featured interviews with a panoply of political and cultural movers and shakers, including the U.S. presidents.  MRC has recently acquired a group of the presidential interviews (with host Tim Russert) on DVD:

Richard M. Nixon: Sept. 14, 1952 DVD X221

Herbert Hoover: December 11, 1955 DVD X213

John F. Kennedy: Jan. 3, 1960 DVD X220

Lyndon B. Johnson: Oct. 9, 1960 DVD X225

Ronald Reagan: Jan. 9, 1966. DVD X219

Gerald R. Ford: Nov. 9, 1975. DVD X218

Ronald Reagan: Mar. 7, 1976 DVD X227

Richard M. Nixon: April 10, 1988. DVD X215

Bill Clinton: November 9, 1997 DVD X214

Lehman Brothers, WaMu, AIG...it's beginning to look more and more like 1929. In recognition of the recent events, MRC has compiled a filmography of current and historical movies that have, one way or the other, focused on the homelessness and rootless...

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/homelessnessmovies.html