Research Guides: Streaming Media: Theme: Leaders

Theme: LEADERS

UCI Libraries wants to help you discover, learn about, and celebrate people and ideas that history has overlooked because of the color of their skin, gender identity, or sexual orientation. This series, ReWatching History: Uncovering Diversity in Our Past, will point to streaming videos already in our collection that you can watch anytime.

This page focuses on LEADERS. Videos covering many different topics are included, such as the early Korean feminist leader, Na Haesuk; immigrant restaurant workers unionizing to stand up for their basic rights; and grass roots fights to oppose big agri-business and promote heirloom and non-GMO food items. We hope that you enjoy discovering more about these overlooked people!

Arts & Humanities

Barbara Hannigan: Opera Conductor
MUSIC. Barbara Hannigan might be best known as a star soprano, but this documentary explores her creative process as she begins to conduct a full-length opera, a field heavily dominated by men, for the first time.
Dawn Walton: Director of Eclipse Theatre Company
DRAMA. Dawn Walton is the founder of UK's foremost Black-led theatre company, Eclipse Theatre. She discusses a bit of the ten-year history of the company, as well as how they're looking to continue diversifying theatre in the UK.
Donmar Shakesepare Trilogy: A Discussion with the All-Female Team
DRAMA. GENDER STUDIES. The Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy is a highly awarded production of Julius Caesar, Henry IV, and The Tempest by an all female cast and crew. Fueled by an inequality between the number of roles offered to women, the team discusses the value of being able to work in a way they wouldn't usually with this unique casting.
Every Child is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Author Piri Thomas
POETRY. LITERATURE. An incendiary mix of documentary, poetry, storytelling, drama, and performance, Every Child is Born A Poet explores the life and work of Piri Thomas (b. 1928) the Afro-Cuban-Puerto Rican author of the classic autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets (1967). The documentary traces his journey of becoming a writer.
A Footnote in Ballet History?
DANCE. In the 1960s, the so-called "Bolshoï Five"—Magda Saleh, Diane Hakak, Aleya Abdel Razek, Wadoud Faizy, and Maya Selim—made ballet history, laying the groundwork for the beginning of Egyptian ballet. This documentary tells their story, interviewing them and their colleagues. We also follow Magda Saleh as she becomes the Cairo Ballet School's first doyenne and the first director of the new Cairo Opera.
Maestras: The Long Journey of Women to the Podium
MUSIC. When a woman steps onto the conductor's podium, she is always one of "the first": the first to lead a world-class orchestra, the first to conduct the closing night of London's "Proms," the first to win a prestigious conducting prize. Is the world of orchestral conducting finally ready to change its attitudes toward female conductors for good?
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
LITERATURE. As a singer, dancer, activist, poet and writer, she inspired generations with lyrical modern African-American thought that pushed boundaries. Best known for her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Random House), she gave people the freedom to think about their history in a way they never had before.
New Woman: Her First Song
GENDER STUDIES. ASIAN STUDIES. The artistic and masterful documentary film shows the emergence of feminism in Korea in the early twentieth century primarily through the life of early feminist Na Haesuk, a celebrated writer and painter.
On the Record
The documentary follows Drew Dixon as she grapples with her decision to become one of the first women of color, in the wake of #MeToo, to come forward to publicly accuse hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct.

Social Sciences

Challenges to Safety, Identity, and Mental Health Amidst Violence Exposure and Discrimination Among Minority Youth
PUBLIC HEALTH. PSYCHOLOGY. Usha Tummala-Narra discusses her research on the challenges faced by ethnic minority youth that are exposed to discrimination and violence.
Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker
LGBTQ STUDIES. PSYCHOLOGY. Dr. Hooker's finding sent shock waves through the psychiatric community and culminated in a major victory for gay rights - in 1974 the weight of her studies, along with gay activism, forced the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official manual of mental disorders.
Complicit
SOCIOLOGY. ASIAN STUDIES. BUSINESS. Breaking the silence in China’s cell phone factories, Yi's research leads him to several workers and their families trying to survive while burdened with their health care costs.
Everything Must Fall
EDUCATION. AFRICAN STUDIES. Can a diverse group of college kids find common ground with their school’s faculty and janitorial staff to bring the school administration to its knees? Can they banish a nation’s crippling student debt, guarantee workers benefits and living wages, and implement free college for all? In this galvanizing examination of the fight for free higher education, acclaimed documentarian Rehad Desai takes his own alma mater as a case study in a growing intersectional global movement.
The Hand that Feeds
BUSINESS. At a popular bakery cafe, residents of New York's Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma Lopez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.
John Lewis
POLITICAL SCIENCE. AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES. Follow the courageous journey of John Lewis, a civil rights hero, congressional leader, and human rights champion whose unwavering fight for justice spanned the past 57 years.
An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Civil Rights Activist Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
POLITICAL SCIENCE. This is the amazing true story of one woman who helped change the world, reminding us that what is right and what is easy are rarely the same thing.
Renewal
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES. RELIGION. Renewal is the first feature-length documentary film to capture the vitality and diversity of today's religious-environmental activists. From within their Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim traditions, Americans are becoming caretakers of the Earth. With great courage, these women and men are re-examining what it means to be human and how we live on this planet.
She Did That
ENTREPRENEURSHIP. This documentary explores the passionate pursuits of Black women entrepreneurs. SHE DID THAT offers a peek inside the lives of Black women committed to opening doors for future generations.
She Started It
ENTREPRENEURSHIP. TECHNOLOGY. An essential documentary on women tech entrepreneurs, SHE STARTED IT upends the popular perception of a male-dominated Silicon Valley. Featuring interviews with leading female CEO's and entrepreneurs, it follows several passionate, trailblazing young women as they strive to launch their companies in the ruthlessly competitive world of tech start-ups.
Straight/Curve: Redefining Body Image
PSCYHOLOGY. The exciting documentary Straight/Curve: Redefining Body Image examines the industries and obstacles responsible for this body image crisis and showcases the dynamic leaders fighting for more diversity of size, race and age. Straight/Curve: Redefining Body Image sets out to change the imagery we are seeing and to bolster a movement that is redefining society's unrealistic and dangerous standards of beauty to impact society at large.
Young Lakota: A Native American Leader Fights for Reproductive Rights
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES. PUBLIC HEALTH. In this award-winning documentary, Cecilia Fire Thunder- the first female President of the Oglala Sioux tribe, defies a proposed South Dakota law criminalizing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, by threatening to build a women's clinic on the sovereign territory of the reservation

Engineering, Medicine, & Sciences

Ancient Species = 紅穀子
FOOD STUDIES. ASIAN STUDIES. The film documents a story of XIONG Jie-feng, a determined farmer. Different from other Chinese young people who prefer working in the cities, XIONG decides to go back to his hometown, a village in Yunnan province, and starts to plant the 'red rice seed', a kind of ancient species, which must be planted in a traditional and organic way without chemicals.
Leadership for Innovation: With Linda Hill
ENTREPRENEURSHIP. What kind of leadership is needed when innovation is your competitive advantage? From her research on companies that have achieved breakthrough innovations, Professor Hill found a common leadership approach. Leaders at Pixar, eBay Germany, Google, HCL Technologies, and IBM, among others, build communities of people who are both "willing and able to innovate." They develop willing teams by pulling people together with a shared purpose, values, and rules of engagement.
Sinesipho: Why Must I Die?
PUBLIC HEALTH. HIV-positive mother, Busi Maqungo, living in a shanty town in South Africa, has become an AIDS activist.
Vandana Shiva: Against Genetically-Modified Foods
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES. FOOD STUDIES. A scientist, philosopher, feminist, author, environmentalist, and activist, Vandana Shiva is a one-woman movement for peace, sustainability and social justice. After hearing the leaders of world agri-business describe their plan to control the world's supply of food and pharmaceuticals through the use of patented, genetically-engineered seeds, Shiva founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, dedicated to opposing such ventures.