Program 2: Doc Shorts - Forecast, Home From Work, Freedom Waders, Bev Grant

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Public Good: A Fight for Democracy (Cricket) - Cricket, a city wastewater treatment mechanic in St. Petersburg, was on the frontlines during Hurricane Milton. While his own house flooded, he was working to serve his community. Cricket is one of countless public servants who keep America running. Now, their rights are under attack. (2025, 3m, Director: Thien Dinh)

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FORECAST is a documentary short film written, directed and edited by Justin M. Thomas that captures the pulse of Times Square, New York City on the eve of the 2024 US Presidential Election. Armed with a microphone and a camera, Justin roams the streets and exercises his insightful street journalism on a diverse gathering of voters eagerly awaiting the election results. As the evening unfolds, a chorus of hope and heartbreak reveals a sobering account on the state of not only US politics, but of American society itself. (2024, 13m, Director: Justin M. Thomas)
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Home From Work - In tourist towns across the United States, where housing is scarce, a growing number of workers have few options but to live in employer-provided housing. Home From Work follows two workers caught in this precarious limbo where losing a job could mean losing their home, and an employer grappling with his responsibility to his employees. As the film uncovers the legal gray areas of employee housing, it draws parallels to the company towns of the past, where employers maintained unchecked control over workers' lives. Home From Work exposes the emotional and economic toll of a system without safety nets while raising urgent questions about the future of labor rights in the face of increasing economic inequality. (2024, 11m, Directors: Alex Fleming-McNeil and Michael Beuttler) (Trailer)
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Freedom Waders: The Struggle to Integrate Chicago's Rainbow Beach - Freedom Waders tells a long-forgotten chapter of the civil rights movement. In 1960, Velma Murphy, President of the South Side NAACP Youth Council, began dating Norman Hill, a prominent civil rights activist. Inspired by sit-in campaigns of the South, the young couple organized wade-ins at Chicago's Rainbow Beach, braving mob violence.

The pair would go on to hold leadership positions in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Norman would act as National Staff Coordinator for the 1963 March on Washington. After over 60 years of marriage, the couple reflects on how the summer of 1960 forever changed their lives. (2023, 15m, Director: Alex Hinton)
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Bev Grant: A Lifetime of Liberation - A documentary short about the photographer, activist, and songwriter Bev Grant, discussing in her own words her involvement in the Women’s Liberation movement, her work as a photographer for the underground press, and her life as a songwriter. (2025, 39m, Director: Agitator Index) + Q&A
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