Raising Bertie | American Documentary

Raising Bertie

POV Season 30

Feature Film
2017
90 Mins

Raising Bertie is an intimate portrait of three African American boys as they face a precarious coming of age in rural Bertie County, North Carolina. Like many rural areas, Bertie County struggles with a dwindling economy, a declining population, and a high school graduation rate below the state average. This powerful vÃ©ritÃ© film weaves the young men's narratives together as they work to define their identities and grow into adulthood while navigating complex relationships, institutional racism, violence, poverty, and educational inequity. A co-presentation with the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC).

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 ...

Still Tomorrow

Feature Film
2018

Interview

A village woman with no high school diploma becomes China's most famous poet, and her book of poetry the best-selling such volume in China in the past 20 years. Still Tomorrow follows Yu Xiuhua, a 39-year-old woman living with cerebral ...

Whose Streets?

Feature Film
2018

Clip

When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of the St. Louis area and beyond. Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the ...

Lindy Lou, Juror Number 2

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

For 20 years, Lindy has lived with an unbearable feeling of guilt. Committed to fulfilling her civic duty, Lindy sat with 11 other people on a jury that handed down the death penalty to a Mississippi man convicted of a ...

Singing With Angry Bird

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Jae-Chang Kim runs a children's choir in Pune, India. Although his quick temper earned him the nickname "Angry Bird," he has made significant changes in the lives of the choir children. But skeptical of the practical value of music ...

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.

From Damascus to Chicago

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the documentary short From Damascus to Chicago, two young Syrian siblings recently resettled in Chicago enroll in a dance class, while the film follows their family's experiences in navigating a new city and country.

Joe's Violin

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the Oscar-nominated Joe's Violin, a donated musical instrument forges an improbable friendship. 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Joe Feingold and 12-year-old Bronx school girl Brianna Perez show how the power of music can bring light in the darkest of times, and ...

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.

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

Margaret Byrne

Press Room

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 ‘POV Shorts’ Seventh Season Puts Center Stage Ten Short Acquisitions Telling Big Stories in an Arthouse Setting Beginning November 12, 2024 on the PBSApp and POV.org POV Announces the ‘Our America: Documentaries in Dialogue’ PBS Station 2024 Grantees

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