Film library
Watch Give me water, a film documenting a girl’s story about her daily two kilometer walk to collect water from a natural spring. (Kenya, edited clip 1.39 mins)
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Are you interested in watching a film? We have dozens of films here at the Plan USA office that we would love for students and teachers to borrow and share with others.
Topics:
Children and poverty
Child soldiers
Child labor
Child trafficking
HIV/AIDS
Other
Many of our films were written, directed and produced by the children we work with as part of Plan's Children and Media programs. Several of the films have even won national and international awards for their insight and honesty about sensitive topics such as child abuse, early marriage, the life of street children, HIV/AIDS and child labor.
Please browse a selection of available videos below (organized by topic). If you'd like to borrow a copy, send us an e-mail at YUGA@planusa.org with the name of the video you're interested in, your name and contact information. You can also view many of the videos produced by Plan on YouTube.
You can also browse our reviews of movies that are available at your local video store (but that we don't have available here). To assist in your viewing and learning experience, we've provided discussion questions for these movies as well.
Children and poverty
"Is This Life?"
Length: 12 mins
This film has subtitles
Made by Plan India
Many young girls in poor families become victims of incest, beatings and rape. Having endured this and much more, Jannat, Renu, Guddi and Nasreen talk about the difficulties they have encountered.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Girls Call "
Length: 10 minutes
Produced by Plan India
The film is a true story that portrays two 12 year old girls who are forced by their parents to drop out of school and be married. The girls are apprehensive and afraid about becoming wives, and both become impregnated within one year of their marriage. The girls are interviewed by other youth and they explain how they feel about arranged marriages, school, and what issues are forcing them to lead these lives.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Lakshmi’s Story"
Length: 7 min
The film was made by children of DRF Plan.
Appropriate for all ages, however there are subtitles.
This is an animated film that focuses on the true-life story of Lakshmi, a young girl who looks after her mother and younger sister by sorting garbage or begging on the streets of Hyderabad. The film probes her fears and dreams and reflects upon her lonely and thankless existence.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Petroleum and Poverty"
Length: 9 min
Documentary
Director John Holst
Esmeraldas documents the intense human suffering that occurred when a Texaco oil refinery exploded and destroyed an Afro-Ecuadorian community.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Seeds of Hope"
Length: 6:12 min
International Documentary
Directed/Produced by Sarah Hesterman
A group of women in a South African township learn how to sustain themselves and their children.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"The Sixth Section"
Length: 8:10 min
Directed/Produced by Alex Rivera
Social documentary
During the cold winter in upstate New York, a group of immigrants works together to give back to their hometown of Boqueron, Mexico.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Struggling to Survive"
Length: 7:37 min
Youth documentary
Co-Directed by Dana Hall, Ashley Potter, and Mary Profitt
Teenagers in Eastern Kentucky turn their cameras on the living wage crisis in their community.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Victims of the Garbage Dump"
Length: 9 min
This film has subtitles.
Rabia is only 7 years old, but she supports her entire family. Her brothers are sick with fever and tuberculosis, her younger sister has a terrible skin disease, her mother is confined to bed and her father has asthma—his medicine costs 10 Rupees per day. Every morning Rabia goes to the dump to search for things she can sell. Barefoot children who search the dumps are often cut and bruised by sharp pieces of broken glass, but they do not worry unless it is a very bad wound, for going to see a doctor costs precious money.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
Child exploitation
Back to top
"Bonded Generation" (child labor)
Length: 11 min
The film was made by children of Myrada, Plan India.
Though the government maintains that bonded labor no longer exists, the children of Karnataka State in India reveal otherwise. This startling film exposes the truth; that bonded labor still exists and that it is thriving in the interior villages of Karnataka. The film explores the reasons in which the tradition still finds form and explains the social implications of being branded a bonded laborer.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Seeds of Sorrow" (child labor)
Length: 9:30 min
This film was made by the children of Samuha, Plan India.
Did you know that the farmers who grow seeds for big seed companies prefer children to work on their fields? Many of these farmers use children as laborers for the tedious task of bending and carefully cross-pollinating flowers for hours as the job requires flexible bodies and small hands. Who would be better suited for the job than children? "Seeds of Sorrow" brings to light the lucrative practice of growing seeds, which is consuming the future of thousands of children in the Koppal district of Karnataka.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Dark Alley"
Length: 8 min
Produced by Plan India
This is a drama based on a real story that begins with a father who was a cycle-rickshaw driver. A devastating illness causes him to go blind and the burden of providing for his family of 10 (4 girls and 4 boys) falls to the mother. She soon finds that scavenging vegetables at the marketplace is not enough to support her family so she resorts to selling her body and also her daughters’. What begins as a short term solution quickly becomes a way of life. As a daughter moves out of the home for different reasons, the next daughter is inducted into this precarious lifestyle to sustain the family—while all along the oldest son gambles away his mother’s and sister’s earnings.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Life in Darkness" (child trafficking)
Length: 16 min
Made by children and youth of HELP-Plan.
The film argues that the children of sex workers are most likely to fall prey to their mother’s profession when they grow up. They base their argument on five reasons; the environment in which the children grow up, lack of education, lack of parental love, the strong hold of pimps and brokers and social apathy. The film effectively demonstrates that most children of sex workers grow up to be either sex workers, pimps or brokers.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
“Lives of Sale”
Length: 58 min
Type: Documentary
Recommended for High School and up
This documentary shows the connection between immigration and human trafficking. It shows why immigrants are willing to risk anything — even slavery — for the American Dream. It exposes the rarely seen human side of illegal immigration, especially the growing black market of human beings. This film also looks at alternatives to these realities.
Discussion questions
"Where does the Journey End?" (child trafficking)
Length: 12:24 min
This film was made by children of HELP-Plan.
The sex trade is rapidly increasing across India, and the majority of victims are from economically marginalized sections. The film looks at the various factors that are responsible and questions how any civil society can allow the lives of young innocent girls to end up in the sex trade; a trade that most victims can only escape by death or disease.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
HIV/AIDS
"I Promise Africa"
Length: 2:40 min
Public Service Announcement
Directed/Produced/Written/Edited by Jerry Henry
While making a documentary about orphans in Africa, a filmmaker preserves the voices of a generation that will soon be silenced.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Iron Will"
Length: 5:09 min
By Fanta Régina Nacro, Burkina Faso, based on an original idea by Malick Diop Yade, age 18, from Pikine, Senegal
Moussah is a young man who has a hard time keeping his interest in women in check. For him, temptation is ever-present. With a friend already ill with HIV/AIDS, he is well aware of the dangers he faces. His male friends tell him about the prevention strategy they've chosen as an alternative to condoms. But poor Moussah doesn't realize that the expression they are using "iron underpants" is their way of talking about "mind over matter" in the sexual realm. As a result, he gets himself into a hilarious mess!
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"iThemba"
Length: 5:19 min
Documentary
Co-Directed/Produced by Keefe Murren and Nelson Walker III
The Sinikithemba Choir turns stage into soapbox, singing for the five million HIV positive South Africans.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"Living with Slim"
Length: 28 min
In many African countries, HIV/AIDS is called “Slim.” In this film, seven African children, ranging in age from 6 to 17 years old, talk about what it’s like to be HIV positive. The children discuss how old were they when the found out they were HIV positive; how they felt when they first learned they were infected; how they are treated at home and at school; how the illness affects their daily lives, and their dreams for the future. The children come from different economic backgrounds which greatly effects their ability to fight the disease.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
"My Brother"
Length: 8:30 min
Created by Cheick Oumar Sissoko, Mali and based on an original idea by Justin Corréa, 23, Senegal.
Mamadou, age 13, thinks he's pretty cool. He has all the latest clothes and a big brother with a motorbike. But he also thinks it's cool to treat people badly. At school, Mamadou refuses to sit next to Bokary, who has become an orphan due to AIDS, because, he says, "prevention is better than cure." His teacher, enraged, sends Mamadou to an information center to prepare an essay on AIDS. There, an unexpected encounter makes him realize that AIDS might just be closer to home than he thinks…
Discussion questions:
Back to top
“Pills, Profits, Protest”
Documentary
Length: 60 minutes
Recommended for High School and up
This documentary is about Activism around global AIDS treatment. More than 64.9 million people have been infected with HIV since the pandemic began and this documentary looks at what grassroots organizations are doing to prevent it. The demand for access to affordable treatment for 40 million people living with HIV, most of whom live in poor countries, represents one of the most successful political movements of contemporary history.
Discussion Questions:
"The Voice of Reason"
Length: 4:50 min
By Fanta Régina Nacro, Burkina Faso, based on an original idea by Haby Fall, age 20, from Tambacounda, Senegal
When wealthy Babacar asks Arouna for his daughter's hand in marriage, Arouna is delighted. But later, alone with his conscience, Arouna remembers some worrying facts about Babacar; his many mistresses, the fact that he doesn't take AIDS seriously. Can Arouna's concern for his daughter's welfare hold out against the attraction of the material things and the promise of financial security that Babacar offers?
Discussion questions:
Back to top
Other
“The World According to Sesame Street”
Length: 99 minutes
Global Documentary
Directed and Produced by Linda Goldstein Knowlton and Linda Hawkins Costigan
The World According to Sesame Street” is an innovative documentary exposing the many challenges faced by producers to bring children’s programming to other cultures. The film, set in Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa, reveal the important role that television plays in child development, especially in the difficult areas they grow up in.
Discussion questions:
Back to top
Topics:
Children and poverty
Child soldiers
Child labor
Child trafficking
HIV/AIDS
Other
Many of our films were written, directed and produced by the children we work with as part of Plan's Children and Media programs. Several of the films have even won national and international awards for their insight and honesty about sensitive topics such as child abuse, early marriage, the life of street children, HIV/AIDS and child labor.
Please browse a selection of available videos below (organized by topic). If you'd like to borrow a copy, send us an e-mail at YUGA@planusa.org with the name of the video you're interested in, your name and contact information. You can also view many of the videos produced by Plan on YouTube.
You can also browse our reviews of movies that are available at your local video store (but that we don't have available here). To assist in your viewing and learning experience, we've provided discussion questions for these movies as well.
Children and poverty
"Is This Life?"
Length: 12 mins
This film has subtitles
Made by Plan India
Many young girls in poor families become victims of incest, beatings and rape. Having endured this and much more, Jannat, Renu, Guddi and Nasreen talk about the difficulties they have encountered.
Discussion questions:
- Why is it a crime to be a female in a poor family?
- How can girls and women protect themselves from being raped or abused?
- Why don’t these women run away from their abusive husbands?
Back to top
"Girls Call "
Length: 10 minutes
Produced by Plan India
The film is a true story that portrays two 12 year old girls who are forced by their parents to drop out of school and be married. The girls are apprehensive and afraid about becoming wives, and both become impregnated within one year of their marriage. The girls are interviewed by other youth and they explain how they feel about arranged marriages, school, and what issues are forcing them to lead these lives.
Discussion questions:
- Why can’t Ratanamma be a wife and attend school?
- What troubles does Ratanamma face?
- What are the main reasons parents marry off daughters who are still children?
Back to top
"Lakshmi’s Story"
Length: 7 min
The film was made by children of DRF Plan.
Appropriate for all ages, however there are subtitles.
This is an animated film that focuses on the true-life story of Lakshmi, a young girl who looks after her mother and younger sister by sorting garbage or begging on the streets of Hyderabad. The film probes her fears and dreams and reflects upon her lonely and thankless existence.
Discussion questions:
- What could be some possible reasons why Lakshmi’s mother doesn’t work?
- Why is Lakshmi afraid to make friends?
- How do you think Lakshmi feels about her life?
Back to top
"Petroleum and Poverty"
Length: 9 min
Documentary
Director John Holst
Esmeraldas documents the intense human suffering that occurred when a Texaco oil refinery exploded and destroyed an Afro-Ecuadorian community.
Discussion questions:
- Why would the Ecuadorian government allow an oil refinery to be built in the Amazon?
- How did the oil spill affect the people’s daily lives?
- What did Texaco or the Ecuadorian government do, to help the people whose lives were destroyed by the explosion?
Back to top
"Seeds of Hope"
Length: 6:12 min
International Documentary
Directed/Produced by Sarah Hesterman
A group of women in a South African township learn how to sustain themselves and their children.
Discussion questions:
- What are some community development methods?
- What are some of the benefits of the project?
- Why is it better for the women to work together on each garden, instead of working alone on their own garden?
Back to top
"The Sixth Section"
Length: 8:10 min
Directed/Produced by Alex Rivera
Social documentary
During the cold winter in upstate New York, a group of immigrants works together to give back to their hometown of Boqueron, Mexico.
Discussion questions:
- Why did the men in this film risk their lives to come to the US? Is it because they love the country and the culture and want to live like people in the US?
- If you are in a foreign country why is it important to form groups with people who are in a similar situation?
- What kinds of struggles to immigrant communities face?
Back to top
"Struggling to Survive"
Length: 7:37 min
Youth documentary
Co-Directed by Dana Hall, Ashley Potter, and Mary Profitt
Teenagers in Eastern Kentucky turn their cameras on the living wage crisis in their community.
Discussion questions:
- Do you assume that if you work full time (40 hours a week) you will be able to support yourself or your family?
- Would you assume that if you have a college degree you would be able to find a good paying job anywhere?
- Do you think poverty only exists in developing countries and not in the US?
Back to top
"Victims of the Garbage Dump"
Length: 9 min
This film has subtitles.
Rabia is only 7 years old, but she supports her entire family. Her brothers are sick with fever and tuberculosis, her younger sister has a terrible skin disease, her mother is confined to bed and her father has asthma—his medicine costs 10 Rupees per day. Every morning Rabia goes to the dump to search for things she can sell. Barefoot children who search the dumps are often cut and bruised by sharp pieces of broken glass, but they do not worry unless it is a very bad wound, for going to see a doctor costs precious money.
Discussion questions:
- Do you think children as young as Rabia should have to support their entire family if they are the only healthy one?
- What kinds of diseases are caught in the garbage dump?
- Why don’t the children in the garbage dump go to school and create better lives for themselves?
Back to top
Child exploitation
Back to top
"Bonded Generation" (child labor)
Length: 11 min
The film was made by children of Myrada, Plan India.
Though the government maintains that bonded labor no longer exists, the children of Karnataka State in India reveal otherwise. This startling film exposes the truth; that bonded labor still exists and that it is thriving in the interior villages of Karnataka. The film explores the reasons in which the tradition still finds form and explains the social implications of being branded a bonded laborer.
Discussion questions:
- What is a bonded laborer?
- If a child’s father and grandfather are bonded laborers does that mean the child is destined to be a bonded laborer too?
- Why do you think Indian society thinks it acceptable to abuse bonded laborers?
Back to top
"Seeds of Sorrow" (child labor)
Length: 9:30 min
This film was made by the children of Samuha, Plan India.
Did you know that the farmers who grow seeds for big seed companies prefer children to work on their fields? Many of these farmers use children as laborers for the tedious task of bending and carefully cross-pollinating flowers for hours as the job requires flexible bodies and small hands. Who would be better suited for the job than children? "Seeds of Sorrow" brings to light the lucrative practice of growing seeds, which is consuming the future of thousands of children in the Koppal district of Karnataka.
Discussion questions:
- Why are farmers growing seeds instead of crops?
- Why do farmers prefer to hire girls?
- How do children from neighboring villages end up on the seed farms?
- Do you think it is more important for children to go to school, or to help support their families?
Back to top
"Dark Alley"
Length: 8 min
Produced by Plan India
This is a drama based on a real story that begins with a father who was a cycle-rickshaw driver. A devastating illness causes him to go blind and the burden of providing for his family of 10 (4 girls and 4 boys) falls to the mother. She soon finds that scavenging vegetables at the marketplace is not enough to support her family so she resorts to selling her body and also her daughters’. What begins as a short term solution quickly becomes a way of life. As a daughter moves out of the home for different reasons, the next daughter is inducted into this precarious lifestyle to sustain the family—while all along the oldest son gambles away his mother’s and sister’s earnings.
Discussion questions:
- How and why did the women in the film get involved in prostitution?
- Do you think the mother should have resorted to selling her body to take care of her family? What was more important money or their reputation in the village?
- Why didn’t the oldest son work and provide for the family? Do you think it should have been his responsibility to provide for the family or the mother’s?
Back to top
"Life in Darkness" (child trafficking)
Length: 16 min
Made by children and youth of HELP-Plan.
The film argues that the children of sex workers are most likely to fall prey to their mother’s profession when they grow up. They base their argument on five reasons; the environment in which the children grow up, lack of education, lack of parental love, the strong hold of pimps and brokers and social apathy. The film effectively demonstrates that most children of sex workers grow up to be either sex workers, pimps or brokers.
Discussion questions:
- Do you think working in the sex industry is a profession that people chose to do?
- Why do sex workers bring their children into the trade?
- Do you think sex workers make a lot of money?
Back to top
“Lives of Sale”
Length: 58 min
Type: Documentary
Recommended for High School and up
This documentary shows the connection between immigration and human trafficking. It shows why immigrants are willing to risk anything — even slavery — for the American Dream. It exposes the rarely seen human side of illegal immigration, especially the growing black market of human beings. This film also looks at alternatives to these realities.
Discussion questions
- What are some reasons people risk their lives to live in the United States?
- What are some major decisions immigrants have to make?
- What are some reasons that people fall into the hands of traffickers?
- What kind of alternatives to illegal immigration and human trafficking are there?
"Where does the Journey End?" (child trafficking)
Length: 12:24 min
This film was made by children of HELP-Plan.
The sex trade is rapidly increasing across India, and the majority of victims are from economically marginalized sections. The film looks at the various factors that are responsible and questions how any civil society can allow the lives of young innocent girls to end up in the sex trade; a trade that most victims can only escape by death or disease.
Discussion questions:
- How do men lure girls into the sex trade?
- In what ways do parents use their children to obtain money?
- Why isn’t Rani welcome back home after she has been rescued?
Back to top
HIV/AIDS
"I Promise Africa"
Length: 2:40 min
Public Service Announcement
Directed/Produced/Written/Edited by Jerry Henry
While making a documentary about orphans in Africa, a filmmaker preserves the voices of a generation that will soon be silenced.
Discussion questions:
- Why do you think the filmmaker chose to not have any spoken dialogue during the film?
- What is being done to prevent the spread of HIV from mother to child?
Back to top
"Iron Will"
Length: 5:09 min
By Fanta Régina Nacro, Burkina Faso, based on an original idea by Malick Diop Yade, age 18, from Pikine, Senegal
Moussah is a young man who has a hard time keeping his interest in women in check. For him, temptation is ever-present. With a friend already ill with HIV/AIDS, he is well aware of the dangers he faces. His male friends tell him about the prevention strategy they've chosen as an alternative to condoms. But poor Moussah doesn't realize that the expression they are using "iron underpants" is their way of talking about "mind over matter" in the sexual realm. As a result, he gets himself into a hilarious mess!
Discussion questions:
- Within a group of friends, peer pressure is sometimes harmful and sometimes beneficial. How would you describe the peer pressure you saw in this film?
- When it comes to the dangers of HIV/AIDS, can you think of common examples of negative peer pressure?
- Aziz says that his iron underpants are in his head. What does he mean?
- If you choose abstinence as your HIV prevention strategy, does that mean that you have to keep with it your whole life? Under what conditions might you switch to another strategy?
Back to top
"iThemba"
Length: 5:19 min
Documentary
Co-Directed/Produced by Keefe Murren and Nelson Walker III
The Sinikithemba Choir turns stage into soapbox, singing for the five million HIV positive South Africans.
Discussion questions:
- What do you think about the fact that there are antiretroviral drugs available, but not to everyone in need?
- Why wouldn’t everyone who is affected by HIV/AIDS want to be an educator for the disease? Wouldn’t education prevent others from becoming infected?
- What kind of impact did the choir have at the conference they attended? Why?
Back to top
"Living with Slim"
Length: 28 min
In many African countries, HIV/AIDS is called “Slim.” In this film, seven African children, ranging in age from 6 to 17 years old, talk about what it’s like to be HIV positive. The children discuss how old were they when the found out they were HIV positive; how they felt when they first learned they were infected; how they are treated at home and at school; how the illness affects their daily lives, and their dreams for the future. The children come from different economic backgrounds which greatly effects their ability to fight the disease.
Discussion questions:
- Why is AIDS called Slim in Africa?
- What are some symptoms that the youth experience?
- Why do people lie about having HIV/AIDS?
Back to top
"My Brother"
Length: 8:30 min
Created by Cheick Oumar Sissoko, Mali and based on an original idea by Justin Corréa, 23, Senegal.
Mamadou, age 13, thinks he's pretty cool. He has all the latest clothes and a big brother with a motorbike. But he also thinks it's cool to treat people badly. At school, Mamadou refuses to sit next to Bokary, who has become an orphan due to AIDS, because, he says, "prevention is better than cure." His teacher, enraged, sends Mamadou to an information center to prepare an essay on AIDS. There, an unexpected encounter makes him realize that AIDS might just be closer to home than he thinks…
Discussion questions:
- What kinds of difficulties are encountered by children orphaned by AIDS?
- What causes some people to reject those affected by HIV/AIDS?
- What can we do to overcome the discrimination of people affected by HIV/AIDS?
Back to top
“Pills, Profits, Protest”
Documentary
Length: 60 minutes
Recommended for High School and up
This documentary is about Activism around global AIDS treatment. More than 64.9 million people have been infected with HIV since the pandemic began and this documentary looks at what grassroots organizations are doing to prevent it. The demand for access to affordable treatment for 40 million people living with HIV, most of whom live in poor countries, represents one of the most successful political movements of contemporary history.
Discussion Questions:
- What are people doing about the HIV/AIDS pandemic?
- What do people want from governments?
- Why do you think people are fighting so hard for this cause?
- Do you think their goals will be met?
"The Voice of Reason"
Length: 4:50 min
By Fanta Régina Nacro, Burkina Faso, based on an original idea by Haby Fall, age 20, from Tambacounda, Senegal
When wealthy Babacar asks Arouna for his daughter's hand in marriage, Arouna is delighted. But later, alone with his conscience, Arouna remembers some worrying facts about Babacar; his many mistresses, the fact that he doesn't take AIDS seriously. Can Arouna's concern for his daughter's welfare hold out against the attraction of the material things and the promise of financial security that Babacar offers?
Discussion questions:
- Arouna knew that Babacar had many mistresses and that he didn't take HIV seriously. Why then did he decide to give his daughter to Babacar in marriage?
- In our community, do people take risks related to HIV with their own lives, or with somebody else's for material gain? Under what circumstances?
- In a world with HIV, why might forced marriage be a particularly dangerous idea?
Back to top
Other
“The World According to Sesame Street”
Length: 99 minutes
Global Documentary
Directed and Produced by Linda Goldstein Knowlton and Linda Hawkins Costigan
The World According to Sesame Street” is an innovative documentary exposing the many challenges faced by producers to bring children’s programming to other cultures. The film, set in Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa, reveal the important role that television plays in child development, especially in the difficult areas they grow up in.
Discussion questions:
- How does the Kosovo team plan on addressing both Slav and Albanian cultures? Do you think this is an effective plan?
- Why do you think the United States had such negative reactions to Sesame Street addressing HIV/AIDS?
- Why were some people of Bangladesh hesitant to support the production of Sesame Street?
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