Elijah’s Liquor Store is set in Koreatown circa 1999. It’s the story of Elijah Gooden, a 43-year-old African-American man from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Georgia Tech University and worked in corporate America before moving his family to Los Angeles to start his own business. He and his family experience culture shock and adversity as they struggle to build their livelihood in an area dominated by Asian-American business owners.

Although Elijah is the main narrator of the story, the different cast of patrons he interacts with, provides a broad insight into society as a whole. His customers are white, black, Asian and Latino. He employs a Korean and Latino worker. His neighbor next door is Korean. It's worlds apart from what he knew in Atlanta, and despite the varying degrees of suspicion, contempt, resentment and prejudice that he faces, Gooden tries to overlook racial lines and instead, focus on the humanity of every person and the frailties of their condition.

In the end, relationships are re-examined and ideologies are challenged. Communities that have long been separated by language and cultural barriers as well as painful histories and even media propaganda find that change begins with one person. When one person shifts, everything shifts. When one person is committed to change, that person can powerfully bring about change. If our society needs a wake up call, then Elijah’s Liquor Store is the alarm clock.

Chinatown, Los Angeles: a French hit man has just killed someone. Pursued by the people who hired him, he phones his lover to explain that he must escape. He leaves Los Angeles with nothing but his car, his gun and his dog. High Winds is the story of a man on the run whose past is closing in, a man who can’t afford to look back.

Ms. Pullman (Sarita Choudhury) is a court-appointed arbitrator who must take on the dreaded Helms family lead by bitter patriarch August (John Lordan), his underachieving son Brian (Luke Rosen) and his wily, widowed ex-son-in-law Jonny (Sean Hayden), an industrial plastics engineer who has created a strange deathbed keepsake in memory of his deceased wife Susan, a victim of the flesh-eating disease. Now the family is at odds over who should own it.  A dark comedy about love, loss and greed.

Life gets turned upside down for Kimberlee and Aimee Fung when their father decides to leave his well-paying corporate executive job in San Francisco and move the family to Bakersfield, CA. Moving in with grandparents and helping out with the family business, a massage parlor called “Touch of the Orient,” add to the remodeling of their lives.

If the social pressure of starting at a new high school in the middle of the school year weren’t enough, Kimberlee and Aimee are among only a handful of Asian American kids at North High. They soon realize that every choice they make—from where to sit at lunch to what clubs to join—will determine where and if they fit in.

A documentary of love, joy, and pardon about one family's survival from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Socheata learns a family secret, hidden away for 25 years, that leads her and her family back to Cambodia to get answers. She discovers what her parents hid in shame is in fact her family's great heroism while proving that healing is only possible when you begin to tell the story.

Winner of the 2006 Grand Jury Award at Dances with Films. In “Shift”, Alex is hired to work the graveyard shift of a mailroom where he enters an industrial world of working men dominated by exhaustion and simmering rage. During the day, he’s pursuing his dreams of acting and also developing his friendship with a girl from a wealthy family. In contrast to his day life, Alex starts to see the world differently as he spends more time with the men in the mailroom. Without taking sides or jumping on a soapbox, Shift provides a window into the lives of those who struggle as they are working day and night and the theme of economic classes casts its shadow on Shift and its characters.

An image captures a feeling, a story shares a message, a movie becomes a movement. The sixth annual Media That Matters Film Festival offer 16 inspiring films by youth and independent filmmakers committed to changing the world, in 8 minutes or less. The collection includes:

Slip of the Tongue, 4:06 min, Youth Slam
Directed Karen Lum and produced by Youth Sounds Factory
Winner of the Jury Award
“What’s your ethnic make up?” A young man makes a pass at a beautiful stranger and gets an eye-opening schooling on race and gender.
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A Girl Like Me, 7:08 min, Youth Documentary
Directed by Kiri Davis and produced by Reel Works Teen Filmmaking
Winner of the Diversity Award
Color is more than skin deep for young African-American women struggling to define themselves.
» Learn more about this film

In Transit, 5:51 min, Documentary
Directed and produced by Bent Jorgen Perlmutt, Nelson Walker III and Louis Abelman
Winner of the Global Health Award
War may be over in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but many Congolese women continue to battle for their reproductive health.
» Learn more about this film

Water Warriors, 6:17 min, Documentary
Directed and produced by Liz Miller
Winner of the Environment Award
When water costs soar, residents of Highland Park, Michigan demand to know who will foot the bill.
» Learn more about this film

How Wal-Mart Came to Haslett, 3:16 min, Expose
Directed and produced by Meerkat Media Collective
Winner of the Changemaker Award
Michigan youth investigate the dubious circumstances under which a Wal-Mart appeared on a wetland in their small town.
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The Rules of the Game, 8:24 min, Documentary
Directed and produced by Garance Burke and Monica Lam
Winner of the Community Discourse Award
A Native American tribe’s dreams of prosperity clash with small town values in Rohnert Park, California.
» Learn more about this film

Permission, 1:00 min, Public Service Announcement
Directed by Vance Malone and produced by Public Interest
Winner of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Rights Award
Whose permission would you need to get married to the person you love?
» Learn more about this film

Eyes on the Fair Use of the Prize, 2:11 min, Advocacy Short
Directed and produced by Jacob Caggiano
Winner of the Fair Use Award
Copyright abuse or Fair Use? Learn how much is at stake when vital films are pulled from public discourse.
» Learn more about this film

Book 'Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated, 3:03 min, Youth Documentary
Produced by Youth Rights Media
Winner of the Criminal Justice Award
In New Haven, Connecticut the pipeline from school to prison is shorter than you might think.
» Learn more about this film

(Hate) Machine, 4:45 min, Satire
Directed and produced by Phil Caron
Winner of the Media Literacy Award
When media messages are constructed, sometimes truth hits the cutting room floor.
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In the Morning, 4:25 min, Dramatic Narrative
Directed by Danielle Lurie and produced by Katie Mustard
Winner of the Women’s Rights Award
When a young Turkish woman is raped, there is nothing honorable about revenge.
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Bread, 4:56 min, Documentary
Directed by Marcelo Bukin and produced by Rec Stop and Play/Global Humanitaria
Winner of the Global Justice Award
Guatemalan brothers Edwin and Edson crush rocks with their father so their family has enough to eat.
» Learn more about this film

Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary), 5:57 min, Documentary
Directed and produced by Kirsten Kelly and Anne de Mare
Winner of the Good Food Award
Journey to the “Asparagus Capital of the World” to discover why one little vegetable is so important.
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Recycle, 6:00 min, Documentary
Directed and produced by Vasco Lusa Nunes and Ondi Timoner
Winner of the Sustainability Award
Poet Miguel Diaz transforms poverty into cultivation in the middle of a Los Angeles street.
» Learn more about this film

Night Visions, 7:07 min, Documentary
Directed and produced by Kathy Huang
Winner of the War and Peace Award Sponsored by Netflix
Individuals enlist in the U.S. military for different reasons, but they all return from war, changed.
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If you want to purchase a DVD of these short films, instead of downloading them, please go to the Media That Matters website.

Part of the Bay Area Video Coalition's youth film program, where high school students direct, act in, and edit the films.