Sam Ball

Join former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, historian David Kennedy and a diverse group of Americans to explore whether a unifying set of beliefs, an American creed, can prove more powerful than the issues that divide us.

In their effort to engage communities around the country in facilitated arguments, Eric Liu and the Aspen Institute’s American Citizenship and Identity Program are disseminating stories and clips that show what developing the will and skills to argue productively looks like.

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.

In 1939, Yiddish was the spoken language of three-quarters of the world's Jews. But when leading Jewish scholars convened in 1980, they estimated that only 70,000 Yiddish books remained in the world. This engaging, often funny documentary film chronicles the adventures of an enterprising 23-year-old named Aaron Lansky, who rallied together an international network of volunteers and set out to rescue the world's Yiddish books. Twenty years later, the National Yiddish Book Center has collected 1.5 million Yiddish books and helped save a rich diverse, and surprisingly modern literature from oblivion. With rare archival images, and a lyrical portrayal of the National Yiddish Book Center's warehouse and cultural complex, A Bridge Of Books celebrates a pursuit that has become a powerful vehicle for the transmission of history, culture and identity across several generations.

"People of the Graphic Novel" is a playful introduction to the history of an art form: from the first "funny pages" to seminal artists including Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman.

In July 1945, 19-year-old rifleman Stuart Canin found himself on the veranda of President Harry S. Truman’s temporary “little White House” in Potsdam, Germany. The president asked Canin to play the violin in order to break the ice of tense negotiations that would determine the post WWII fate of the world. Canin would become an internationally acclaimed concertmaster for Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano, John Williams, but he was never so nervous as when he was summoned by the Commander in Chief to perform for Stalin and Churchill on the eve of the Cold War.

Join former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, historian David Kennedy and a diverse group of Americans to explore whether a unifying set of beliefs, an American creed, can prove more powerful than the issues that divide us.

Join former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, historian David Kennedy and a diverse group of Americans to explore whether a unifying set of beliefs, an American creed, can prove more powerful than the issues that divide us.

Join former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, historian David Kennedy and a diverse group of Americans to explore whether a unifying set of beliefs, an American creed, can prove more powerful than the issues that divide us.

In their effort to engage communities around the country in facilitated arguments, Eric Liu and the Aspen Institute’s American Citizenship and Identity Program are disseminating stories and clips that show what developing the will and skills to argue productively looks like.

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.

In 1939, Yiddish was the spoken language of three-quarters of the world's Jews. But when leading Jewish scholars convened in 1980, they estimated that only 70,000 Yiddish books remained in the world. This engaging, often funny documentary film chronicles the adventures of an enterprising 23-year-old named Aaron Lansky, who rallied together an international network of volunteers and set out to rescue the world's Yiddish books. Twenty years later, the National Yiddish Book Center has collected 1.5 million Yiddish books and helped save a rich diverse, and surprisingly modern literature from oblivion. With rare archival images, and a lyrical portrayal of the National Yiddish Book Center's warehouse and cultural complex, A Bridge Of Books celebrates a pursuit that has become a powerful vehicle for the transmission of history, culture and identity across several generations.

In 1939, Yiddish was the spoken language of three-quarters of the world's Jews. But when leading Jewish scholars convened in 1980, they estimated that only 70,000 Yiddish books remained in the world. This engaging, often funny documentary film chronicles the adventures of an enterprising 23-year-old named Aaron Lansky, who rallied together an international network of volunteers and set out to rescue the world's Yiddish books. Twenty years later, the National Yiddish Book Center has collected 1.5 million Yiddish books and helped save a rich diverse, and surprisingly modern literature from oblivion. With rare archival images, and a lyrical portrayal of the National Yiddish Book Center's warehouse and cultural complex, A Bridge Of Books celebrates a pursuit that has become a powerful vehicle for the transmission of history, culture and identity across several generations.

"People of the Graphic Novel" is a playful introduction to the history of an art form: from the first "funny pages" to seminal artists including Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman.

"People of the Graphic Novel" is a playful introduction to the history of an art form: from the first "funny pages" to seminal artists including Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman.

In July 1945, 19-year-old rifleman Stuart Canin found himself on the veranda of President Harry S. Truman’s temporary “little White House” in Potsdam, Germany. The president asked Canin to play the violin in order to break the ice of tense negotiations that would determine the post WWII fate of the world. Canin would become an internationally acclaimed concertmaster for Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano, John Williams, but he was never so nervous as when he was summoned by the Commander in Chief to perform for Stalin and Churchill on the eve of the Cold War.

Take a journey with master graphic novelist Joann Sfar as he finds inspiration in his Algerian-Jewish heritage and the lively streets and cafes of his current home in France. This collaboration between Citizen Film, KQED Presents and Paris-based Les Films du Poisson was telecast on PBS stations around the U.S. in 2012.

Take a journey with master graphic novelist Joann Sfar as he finds inspiration in his Algerian-Jewish heritage and the lively streets and cafes of his current home in France. This collaboration between Citizen Film, KQED Presents and Paris-based Les Films du Poisson was telecast on PBS stations around the U.S. in 2012.

Young refugee storytellers curate their own prized possessions. Then, they collaborate with a team of digital artists and documentarians on a series of short films and “show and tell” multimedia events. For example, a shipping container is outfitted with luminous LED screens showcasing “video ads” for refugees’ “memory objects.” Inside the shipping containers, short documentaries are shown, followed by immersive video chats. Immersive media installations have been presented at UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life and –in collaboration with Shared Studios– on New York’s Times Square.

What happens when 18-year-olds from Oakland to Appalachia come together to imagine the future of the presidency?

Under Their Skin: Tattoos of Memory and Resilience is a character-driven film featuring grandchildren of survivors (3Gs) who have made the controversial decision to tattoo their grandparents’ concentration camp numbers on their own bodies. The film follows subjects as they navigate personal relationships and public interactions that alternately celebrate and challenge their decision—and raise questions about the reenactment of trauma, and the act of transforming that trauma into healing. In interweaving storylines, we will meet 3Gs whose stories reveal that historical remembrance is an essential part of engaging with social issues and the rise of hate and intolerance today.

“Factory-made wheelchairs are huge, heavy and ugly.” To counter this reality, wheelchair riders Ralph Hotchkiss and Omar Talavera began making beautiful, all-terrain wheelchairs. Their work draws on the resourcefulness of disabled people in the Third World, who have no choice but to build their own chairs. A well-crafted piece in its own right, Zimbabwe Wheel illustrates that wheelchairs can be truly empowering works of art: hand-crafted machines that are inexpensive, durable, and tailored to the needs of the rider.” Working on your chair is like working on your whole sense of self,” says a student, describing a feeling no factory-made chair can provide.

“Factory-made wheelchairs are huge, heavy and ugly.” To counter this reality, wheelchair riders Ralph Hotchkiss and Omar Talavera began making beautiful, all-terrain wheelchairs. Their work draws on the resourcefulness of disabled people in the Third World, who have no choice but to build their own chairs. A well-crafted piece in its own right, Zimbabwe Wheel illustrates that wheelchairs can be truly empowering works of art: hand-crafted machines that are inexpensive, durable, and tailored to the needs of the rider.” Working on your chair is like working on your whole sense of self,” says a student, describing a feeling no factory-made chair can provide.

This playful short film was produced in collaboration with the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco as part of a multimedia installation entitled "We are not permanent but we are not temporary." The installation was designed to explore the impermanence of life, searching, wandering, and the welcoming of strangers.

During the Great Depression, the Group Theater—including Stella Adler, Harold Clurman, Elia Kazan and Clifford Odets—gave voice to a new generation of immigrants.

Citizen Film created a short film in collaboration with the National Writing Project, for classroom use. The film models a “better argument” between MoveOn co-founder Joan Blades and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler. The National Writing Project is disseminating the film to thousands of classroom teachers around the country along with prompts for reflection, dialogue and persuasive writing inspired by this short film. After viewing the film, students discuss its themes. They choose a theme to write about and their instructor guides them to craft an argument that is not only well researched, but also addresses a wide audience, including people who hold positions ideologically opposed to their own.

This documentary recounts the adventure of a young Jewish mother who escaped the Nazis and joined the French Resistance. The film’s hauntingly poetic landscape conveys the intensity and mysterious exhilaration of her wartime years. Understatedly eloquent and witty, 92-year-old Andree “Poumy” Moreuil reflects on how the very act of resisting oppression transcends isolation and fear.

An offbeat film about Ben Katchor, who has been hailed as the creator of the last great American comic strip. Katchor’s Yiddish-inflected voice guides us through a vast and shadowy landscape of old skyscrapers, neglected warehouses, lay-away stores and all-night cafeterias.

A quirky chorus of Bay Area teens grapple with ambivalent feelings about being Jewish and participating in mainstream American life.

Citizen Film partnered with co-producer WTTW Chicago Public Media, the National Writing Project (NWP), Facing History and Ourselves, PBS LearningMedia and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate program to provide content for high school civics, history and language arts classes around the country. This content includes a suite of video assets designed to frame classroom discussions and writing about civic themes. We also partnered with PBS to create a short film illustrating the impact of this education campaign on students.

Citizen Film partnered with co-producer WTTW Chicago Public Media, the National Writing Project (NWP), Facing History and Ourselves, PBS LearningMedia and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate program to provide content for high school civics, history and language arts classes around the country. This content includes a suite of video assets designed to frame classroom discussions and writing about civic themes. We also partnered with PBS to create a short film illustrating the impact of this education campaign on students.

Citizen Film partnered with co-producer WTTW Chicago Public Media, the National Writing Project (NWP), Facing History and Ourselves, PBS LearningMedia and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate program to provide content for high school civics, history and language arts classes around the country. This content includes a suite of video assets designed to frame classroom discussions and writing about civic themes. We also partnered with PBS to create a short film illustrating the impact of this education campaign on students.