Building Babel | American Documentary

Building Babel

America ReFramed Season 2

Feature Film
2013
89 Mins

Building Babel follows a year in the life of Sharif El-Gamal, developer of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," a Muslim-led community center two blocks from the World Trade Center. With unlimited access to his home and office, the film paints a portrait of a Muslim-American businessman up against impossible odds.

Building Babel

Feature Film
2013

Trailer

Building Babel follows a year in the life of Sharif El-Gamal, developer of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," a Muslim-led community center two blocks from the World Trade Center. With unlimited access to his home and office, the film ...

Dark Money

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Dark Money, a political thriller, examines one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials. The film takes viewers to Montana frontline in the fight to preserve fair ...

Survivors

Feature Film
2018

Clip

Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmaker Arthur Pratt, Survivors presents an intimate portrait of his country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the sociopolitical turmoil that lies in its wake. During one of the ...

93Queen

Feature Film
2018

Interview

Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, 93Queen follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City. With unprecedented and ...

Voices of the Sea

Feature Film
2018

Interview

Revealing stark realities for the poorest of rural Cubans with unique access and empathy, this is the story of a 30-something mother of four longing for a better life. The tension between wife and aging husband—one desperate to leave ...

Nowhere to Hide

Feature Film
2018

Clip

Nowhere to Hide follows nurse Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change in one of the world's most dangerous and inaccessible areas: the "triangle of death" in central Iraq. Initially filming stories of survivors and the hope of a ...

StoryCorps Shorts: The Temple of Knowledge

Short Film
2018

Short Film

Ronald Clark's father was a custodian of a branch of the New York Public Library at a time when caretakers, along with their families, lived in the buildings. With his daughter, Jamilah, Ronald remembers literally growing up in a library ...

A Conversation with My Black Son

Short Film
2018

Short Film

For generations, parents of black boys across the U.S. have rehearsed, dreaded and postponed The Conversation. But when their boys become teenagers, parents must decide how to handle discussions about race. In this short film originally published by The ...

Mother's Day

Short Film
2018

Short Film

Once a year on Mother's Day, a charity bus service takes children to visit their mothers in prison across California. Nearly one in ten of the state's children have a parent in prison. Many are unable to regularly visit their ...

StoryCorps Shorts: Driven

Short Film
2016

Short Film

Wendell Scott was the first African American inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. His son, Frank, remembers what it took for his father to cross the finish line at racetracks throughout the South in the '60s and '70s.

StoryCorps Shorts: School's Out

Short Film
2016

Short Film

Following the federal mandate to integrate schools in the 1950's, Reverend James Seawood recalls how African Americans were forced out of Sheridan, Arkansas, the fate of his beloved school, and the human cost of "urban renewal."

Graven Image

Short Film
2018

Short Film

Using over 100 years of archival footage, director Sierra Pettengill explores the history of the largest Confederate monument: Georgia’s Stone Mountain.

The Changing Same

Short Film
2019

Short Film

In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where resident and poet L. Lamar Wilson runs a particular marathon in hopes of lifting the veil of racial terror caused by the town’s buried history. A co-presentation ...

Stay Close

Short Film
2019

Short Film

Stay Close blends home videos and animation in an expressionistic montage to tell the underdog story of Keeth Smart, an African American fencer from Brooklyn who overcomes a gauntlet of hardships on his road to the Olympics.

Crisanto Street

Short Film
2020

Short Film

In the shadow of Silicon Valley, a hidden community thrives despite difficult circumstances. For one resident, eight-year-old Geovany Cesario, impending change is bittersweet.

Edgecombe

Short Film
2020

Short Film

Through the deeply personal truths of three local residents, Edgecombe examines the ways trauma repeats and reinvents itself in rural black communities.

Gentlemen of Vision

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Gentlemen of Vision follows a year in the life of coach, counselor and founder Marlon Wharton, and his 2015-2016 class of young Black males as he strives to rewrite future prospects for his students. While striving for excellence in school ...

For Ahkeem

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Expelled from high school, Daje Shelton is only 17 years old when she is sentenced by a judge – not to prison, but to an alternative school, the Innovative Concept Academy. It offers Daje one last chance to earn a high ...

Agents of Change

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Agents of Change examines the racial conditions on college campuses across the U.S. in the late 1960’s, focusing on student demands at two seminal protests: San Francisco State in 1968 and Cornell University in 1969. Many of the ...

100 Years

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

100 Years: One Woman's Fight for Justice is the compelling story of Elouise Cobell, a petite Blackfeet warrior from Montana, the great granddaughter of the legendary, Mountain Chief. As an advocate for Native American financial self-determination and independence, she conducted ...

The Invisible Patients

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Through the story of Jessica Macleod, Ph.D., a dedicated nurse practitioner in Evansville, Indiana, and her four homebound and marginalized patients, The Invisible Patients sheds light on some of the most urgent healthcare issues facing our nation today: from ...

Race/Related

Interactive
2016

Clip

In 2016 POV partnered with The New York Times on the "embedded mediamaker" project, in which three filmmakers fluent in digital media spent several months working at the Times, creating interactive video projects about race and ethnicity. The work was ...

Snapchat Films

Interactive
2016

In 2016, POV produced the first independent films ever for Snapchat Discover, distributed in partnership with the short-form digital content creator NowThis. In Lizzie Jacobs' We'll Still Be Here, dominoes players keep their beloved game alive while a neighborhood changes ...

Whiteness Project

Interactive
2014

Whiteness Project is an interactive investigation into how Americans who identify as white, or partially white, understand and experience their race. Whiteness Project conducts interviews with people from all walks of life and localities in which they are asked about ...

89 Steps

Interactive
2014

In the late 1950s, Marta's mother found refuge for her family in Williamsburg after leaving her village in Puerto Rico and enduring homelessness and hunger elsewhere in New York. When Marta became a single mother, she fought hard to stay ...

Empire

Interactive
2014

The Dutch East and West India Companies once controlled vast trading networks that stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Indonesian archipelago, and from New York to South America's Wild Coast. Although they came in pursuit of short-term ...

Film Credits

David Osit Producer, Director, Writer

Press Room

American Documentary Welcomes Back Nationally Recognized Public Media Veteran Jon Abbott in His Return to the Board of Directors American Documentary Celebrates A Swim Lesson and Until He’s Back Among the Year’s Standouts in 97th Academy Awards® Documentary Shortlist POV, WHUT / Howard University Television, and From Prison Cells to PHD Host Event on Gun Violence Reduction Featuring THE BODY POLITIC Featuring Brandon Scott, Mayor of Baltimore, MD

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