Welcome to Berkeley Media LLC

Berkeley Media LLC is one of America’s foremost distributors of independently produced documentaries and educational media. Our collection of some 200 titles has won more than 900 awards and honors at major festivals and at screenings by academic associations worldwide. The producers we represent come from around the world and are among the most lauded in their fields.

Our collection has been chosen to consist of titles that are notable both for their educational utility and merit and for their high production values and creative artistry. If you have questions or comments about Berkeley Media LLC, please email us at: info@berkeleymedia.com

Featured Film:

    Featured New Releases

  • Dance With the Wodaabes

    This widely acclaimed and visually stunning ethnographic documentary explores, from the point of view of its participants, the complex cultural significance of one of Africa’s most spectacular but frequently misunderstood and sensationalized ritual celebrations.

  • Indelible Lalita

    This intimate, poignant, and thought-provoking documentary relates the remarkable story of an Indian woman, Lalita Bharvani, who completely loses her skin pigment as she migrates from Bombay to Montreal. In telling Lalita’s story, the film incisively explores the intersection of racial, national, age, and gender identities in the globalized world.

  • Mr. Coperthwaite: A Life in the Maine Woods

    Bill Coperthwaite is a Thoreau-like figure for our time. This “intense, revelatory” four-part series presents an unforgettable portrait of his remarkable life — one shaped by nature, work, poetry, and the rhythm of the changing seasons. It reminds us of the central, but often overlooked, place of nature in American life and culture.

  • My Louisiana Love

    This profoundly poignant exploration of environmental injustice and loss focuses a revelatory light on an otherwise invisible American tragedy: the destruction of the Mississippi River wetlands and the way of life of the Houma Indians who live there.

  • 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness

    This colorful, entertaining, gently ironic documentary presents a vivid and sensitive portrait of a side of China that is little known outside the country: the world of ethnic tourism.

  • The Pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i: The Walk Experience

    Once a year in the Cuzco region of Peru, the former center of the Inca empire, some 50,000 pilgrims flock to the highest sanctuary of the world to participate in the largest pilgrimage of the Andean region. The pilgrimage combines longstanding Andean principles and practices and those brought into the tradition by Catholicism.

  • Visions of Mary Frank

    This intimate and revelatory documentary, by the noted filmmaker, photographer, and musician John Cohen, profiles the life and art of staunchly individualistic New York artist Mary Frank. In the words of one critic, “This beautiful film is a profound demonstration of the continuity from art to life to art-making…” and “one of the most powerful and intimate portraits of an artist… ever.”

    Featured Best Sellers

  • Anonymously Yours

    This sobering and poignant documentary on sex-trafficking in Southeast Asia interweaves four young women’s stories to reveal an institution that enslaves as many as 40 million women worldwide.

  • Discovering Dominga

    This unforgettably dramatic and powerful documentary relates the extraordinary story of a young Iowa housewife who discovers she is a survivor of one of the most horrific massacres in Guatemalan history. The film follows her remarkable journey of transformation and discovery as she returns to Guatemala in search of her heritage and ultimately joins efforts to bring the perpetrators of the massacre to justice.

  • Gender and Communication: Male-Female Differences in Language and Nonverbal Behavior

    This universally praised video explores the influence of gender on both verbal communication (including speech, language, and vocabulary) as well as the nonverbal channels of communication such as vocal paralanguage, haptics (touch), kinesics (movement, gestures, and posture), proxemics (spatial behavior) and other “unwritten” languages.

  • Popol Vuh: The Creation Myth of the Maya

    This much-honored animated film employs authentic imagery from ancient Maya ceramics to create a riveting depiction of the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation myth. Similar to the Biblical story of Genesis in its breadth, scope, and themes, the Popol Vuh is the origin of many myths and beliefs that spread throughout North America and formed the foundation of most Native American religious, philosophical, and ethical beliefs.

  • The Pornography of Everyday Life

    This trenchant and provocative documentary essay demonstrates how pornography (defined as the sexualized domination, degradation, and objectification of women and girls and social groups who are put in the demeaned feminine role) is in reality a prevalent mainstream worldview and appears in virtually every aspect of daily life.

  • You Don't Know Dick

    Simply put, this is the most profound, compelling, and thought-provoking documentary ever made on gender identity. It provides extraordinarily honest and riveting portraits of six men who once were women.

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