Black August (2007)

Director
Samm Styles

Main cast
Gary Dourdan

Genres
Drama

Description
The last 14 months of George Jackson's life was an existence under subjective and objective conditions in California's industrial prison complex. George Jackson would spend 11 years in jail (7 of which were in solitary confinement) for a $70 gas station robbery crime in 1960. He was 18 years of age when the sentence of one year-to-life was handed down to him.


Similar movies

"42" is the powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The film follows the innovative Dodger's general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show.
In the southern United States in the 1930s, a male-dominated African American woman fights her way through a troubled life.
Based on the incredible true story, The Express follows the inspirational life of college football hero Ernie Davis (Rob Brown), the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy.
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her colored chauffeur Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters in a time when those types of relationships where shunned upon. Oscar winning tragic comedy with a star-studded cast and based on a play of the same name by Alfred Uhry.
An Indian family is expelled from Uganda when Idi Amin takes power. They move to Mississippi and time passes. The Indian daughter falls in love with a black man, and the respective families have to come to terms with it.
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time, Jazz musicians are celebrated and racism is a non-issue. When they meet and fall in love with two young American girls, Lillian and Connie, who are vacationing in France, Ram and Eddie must decide whether they should move back to America with them, or stay in Paris for the freedom it allows them. Ram, who wants to be a serious composer, finds Paris more exciting than America and is reluctant to give up his music for a relationship, and Eddie wants to stay for the city's more tolerant racial atmosphere.
The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.
A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.
In 1983, in France experiencing intolerance and racial violence , three young teens and the priest Minguettes launching a largely peaceful march for equality and against racism, over 1,000 km between Marseille and Paris . Despite the difficulties and resistance encountered, their movement will bring about a real boost of hope in the way of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They unite with their arrival more than 100 000 people from all walks of life and give France its new face.
After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.
Cheated on, mistreated and stepped on, the women are holding their breath, waiting for the elusive "good man" to break a string of less-than-stellar lovers. Friends and confidants Vannah, Bernie, Glo and Robin talk it all out, determined to find a better way to breathe.
The biopic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader.
Black college graduate Richard Kelly (Cedric Sanders) reluctantly accepts a plea bargain requiring him to spend two semesters at an all-white seminary after he's wrongly accused of crimes committed during the 1965 Watts riots. Facing bigotry on all sides, he's close to cracking until he meets an elderly custodian (Louis Gossett Jr.) who helps him navigate the trials of racism. Lauren Holly also stars in this indie drama inspired by a true story.
Freedom Song (2000) is a made-for-TV film based on true stories of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1960s. It tells the story of the struggle of African Americans to register to vote in the fictional town of Quinlan. In the midst of the Freedom Summer, a group of high school students in the small town are eager to make grassroots changes in their own community. The young activists meet resistance not only from white southerners, but from their parents, who have experienced firsthand the violence that can result from speaking out.[1] As high school students band together with the support of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, they make strides in registering African-American voters and gaining awareness for their cause.
Barton MacLane stars as a tuna fisherman who has been wrongfully convicted of a murder he did not commit. His exemplary behavior in prison ensures that he is up for early parole. He realizes, however, that his movements will be limited, and he will be unable to join and wed his beloved. The only solution is to escape and hunt down the real killer, himself.
As every summer, Georges Lajoie, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite. They join old friends, the Schumachers and the Colins. Brigitte Colin, the daughter, is quite a pretty young girl now. One day, Georges rapes and murders her. He hides the body near the barracks of the immigrant Arab workers. The racism of the campers will do the rest... A virulent lampoon against the average Frenchman's racism.
The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot -- the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.
Four black students attend an Ivy League college where a riot breaks out over an “African American” themed party thrown by white students. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the film explores racial identity in 'post-racial' America while weaving a story about forging one's unique path in the world.
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Get on the Bus follows several Black men on a cross country bus trip to the Million Man March. On the bus are an eclectic set of characters including a laid off aircraft worker, a former Gang Banger, a Hollywood actor, a cop who is of mixed racial background, and a White bus driver, all make the trek discussing issues surrounding the march, manhood, religion, politics, and race.
A dramatization of the one possibly successful escape from the notorious prison.
Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.
Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.
An FBI agent (Debra Winger) falls in love with a white supremacist (Tom Berenger) whose group she infiltrates.
A Korean war vet and his bride face subtitle and sometimes extreme racism when they return to his home in rural California.
A group of POWs in a German prison camp during World War II play the German National Soccer Team in this powerful film depicting the role of prisoners during wartime.
Set in a California subdivision, the story follows four couples who have bought homes and are neighbors. Among the problems facing the couples are alcoholism, racism, and promiscuity. The story truly revolves around the idea of, "NO DOWN PAYMENT" and the over extended nature of some of the families economic situation. Tony Randal is in a role that you would never expect, a car salesman and looking for a good time. Other issues include discrimination against a former war hero for lack of education. The morality lesson is clearly the reason for the film.
During the Second World War, a special project is begun by the US Army Air Corps to integrate African American pilots into the Fighter Pilot Program. Known as the "Tuskegee Airman" for the name of the airbase at which they were trained, these men were forced to constantly endure harassement, prejudice, and much behind the scenes politics until at last they were able to prove themselves in combat.
A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.
A gloomy vision of the possibility of decent relations between whites and blacks anywhere, including the South. Undertaker L.B. Jones, the richest black man in his county of Tennessee, is divorcing his wife for infidelity with a white policeman. Taking a stand against racism, he is greeted with a hostile bunch of Southern bigots and other various stereotypes.
Controversial film about an underground organization that kidnaps and 'deprograms' African Americans who sell out or deny their cultural heritage. Spike Lee is the Executive Producer.
Love and unity in a school torn by racism and hate in the 1970s.
In the year 2022, a ruthless prison warden has created the ultimate solution for his most troublesome and violent inmates: Absolom, a secret jungle island where prisoners are abandoned and left to die. But Marine Captain John Robbins, convicted of murdering a commanding officer, is determined to escape the island in order to reveal the truth behind his murderous actions and clear his name.
On a March night in 1964, 37 neighbors in Queens, New York, witness the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese. None of them takes action or calls the police. 37 tells the story of a few of these people and what led up to the night when they unexplainably remained passive observers. The film is a convincing portrayal of a borough in change and a time characterized by racism, the Civil Rights Movement and political shifts. The actual event that inspired the film’s plot has been called a symbol for the moment when America lost its innocence. The director Puk Grasten skillfully weaves into her feature film debut various fates, dreams and family conflicts by leading us through an apartment building that comes to bear a collective failure.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security "escape-proof" camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
The officer (Stephen Boyd) is put in charge of a squad of all black troops charged with the mission of blowing up an important hydro dam in Nazi Germany. Their failure would delay the Allies advance into Germany, thus prolonging the war. These African-Americans a have little military training, but Captain Beau Carter has no choice. He leads the rag-tag and they turn out to be heroic.
In 1942 British soldier Jack Celliers comes to a japanese prison camp. The camp is run by Yonoi, who has a firm belief in discipline, honour and glory. In his view, the allied prisoners are cowards when they chose to surrender instead of commiting suicide. One of the prisoners, interpreter John Lawrence, tries to explain the japanese way of thinking, but is considered a traitor.
The story, set in Kansas during the 1920's, covers less than a year in the life of a black teenager, and documents the veritable deluge of events which force him into sudden manhood. The family relationships and enmities, the fears, frustrations and ambitions of the black teenager in small-town America are explored with a strong statement about human values.
Emanuelle, a reporter, comes just a little too close to exposing a corrupt official, and is sent to prison on trumped-up charges. In the prison, the inmates are constantly humiliated and tortured by the prison staff. Overly affectionate prisoners are forced underwater, while others are obliged to look on. Emanuelle finds an enemy in the deranged Albina, who "runs the prison." For the pleasure of the warden, Emanuelle and Albina are forced to fight each other with knives. Bad becomes worse when four men awaiting execution escape and take over the prison. Gore flows like water.
Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.
The story centers on a religiously conservative, married southern woman who receives a message from God instructing her to act as a surrogate mother and carry a child for two married gay men who live in Boston - a Jewish doctor and and African-American dance choreographer. All Hell breaks loose when the African American man comes to her home down south to micro-manage her pregnancy, and he won't leave.
A man must survive a prison where hardened criminals battle to the death for the warden's entertainment.
Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.
On a college campus in modern America, ideas that have long been neglected as "issues of the past" emerge as racial tensions and frictions grow between different student groups.
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
Caged tells the story of a teenage newlywed, who is sent to prison for being an accessory to a robbery. Her experiences while incarcerated, along with the killing of her husband, change her from a very frightened young girl into a hardened convict.
Kenya McQueen, a corporate lawyer finds love in the most unexpected place when she agrees to go on a blind date with Brian Kelly, a sexy and free-spirited landscaper.
It's a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17. For the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem - there seems to be a security leak. The Germans always seem to be forewarned about escapes and in the most recent attempt the two men, Manfredi and Johnson, walked straight into a trap and were killed. For some in Barracks 4, especially the loud-mouthed Duke, the leaker is obvious: J.J. Sefton, a wheeler-dealer who doesn't hesitate to trade with the guards and who has acquired goods and privileges that no other prisoner seems to have. Sefton denies giving the Germans any information and makes it quite clear that he has no intention of ever trying to escape. He plans to ride out the war in what little comfort he can arrange, but it doesn't extend to spying for the Germans.
Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.
An African American detective is asked to investigate a murder in a racist southern town.
Hallelujah! was, for its time, an impressive achievement. Director King Vidor, anxious to make a "personal" project for the impersonal MGM studios, proposed to film a spiritual story set in the deep South with blacks as the main characters. The Texas-born Vidor was familiar with certain particulars of African-American life, having witnessed the mass baptisms and religious ceremonies of the employees of his father's lumber mills. MGM, concerned that it would lose the "bigot trade," balked until Vidor offered to direct Hallelujah without salary.
A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.
This is the story of four African-American "yuppies" (a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, and a "playboy") who call themselves "The Brothers". When the playboy gets engaged, the other three friends find themselves having to come to terms with their own issues of commitment and honesty...
Pro quarter-back Paul Crewe (Sandler) and former college champion and coach Nate Scarboro (Reynolds) are doing in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards, Crewe enlists the help of Scarboro to coach the inmates to victory in a football game 'fixed' to turn out quiet another way.
After living in Madrid for many years as a teacher, Lucia returns to her hometown after her father's death results in the inheritance of his tomato farm. While fighting the community's racism toward the new illegal workers, Lucia falls in love with the farm's accountant, Curro, a man who shares her cause. The couple is forced to confront the racism of the town and as tensions come to head, they will have to make some decisions that could cost them everything.
The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.
The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.

© Valossa 2015–2024