Poverty Law Movies

I was emailed with the request that I solicit movie suggestions for use in poverty related courses.  I will post all suggestions I receive here (note, I sometimes don't check "comments" as often as I should, but eventually I promise comments will get approved). 

Movies:

• Al Norte (story of hardships during immigration, shown in many Spanish language classes)
• Wall Street (greed is good)
• All for the Taking (effects of urban renewal in Philadelphia)
• ... more as suggestions come in ...
• UPDATE: Two lists with some great suggestions were forwarded to me: Click Here, and Here.
• UPDATE 2: Suggestions From Sara Faherty:
  • Ending Welfare as We Know It
    • Produced, written and Directed by Roger Weisberg, Public Policy Productions. Ending Welfare As We Know It follows six welfare mothers over the course of a year as they struggle to comply with new work requirements, find reliable child care and transportation, battle drug addiction and depression, confront domestic violence, and try to make ends meet in the new era of welfare reform.

      By profiling families living in Wisconsin, Florida, and New Jersey, states that implemented their own reforms before the passage of the federal bill, the program offers the public a preview of welfare reform as it unfolds throughout the rest of the country. Each of the states featured has reduced its welfare caseload by imposing strict new rules, which include work requirements, time limits, and special provisions for teen mothers. Some states offer job training, education, childcare subsidies, life skills classes, and more. But which measures are most effective? More importantly, what has become of the people who have left the welfare rolls? 90 minutes.

  • I am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School
    • Directed by the innovative, award-winning team of Alan and Susan Raymond ("An American Family"), I AM A PROMISE paints an unflinching verité portrait of the children of Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia, an inner-city neighborhood where 90% of the students live below the poverty line. As seen through the viewpoint of devoted principal Deanna Burney, the film shows Stanton as underfunded, understaffed, and filled with children struggling to overcome their difficulties. For these at-risk kids, the only hope for their future survives only in the success of their education.

   

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu