These videos were selected because they are informative, unbiased, relevant, and accurate. They have received positive reviews by librarians and/or movie critics.
Just as important, they are interesting to watch. We hope that they will be able to answer some questions, or shed light on issues you may be concerned about. If your local library does not have a title, they can usually borrow it from another branch.
Dating Sex and Trouble
1990, 25 minutes
Counselors lead discussion among teenagers about date rape. This serious issue is dealt with realistically and respectfully.
Healthy Steps for Teen Parents
2001, 25 min. each Injoy Videos.
Volume 1: Prenatal Care. Volume 2: Labor & Birth. Volume 3: Postpartum.
This volume follows the real-life experiences of young parents as they adjust to the realities and joys of life with a new baby. Viewers get an intimate look of what giving birth is like, and in volume 3, five pregnant teens and two teen dads candidly share their prenatal experience. See how they deal with their changing world and the steps they take to insure a healthy baby.
Let's Talk About Sex
1995, 28 minutes
Teenagers in group discussion comment about sex topics including contraception, pregnancy, abstinence, STDs, and masturbation. A demonstration of proper condom use and classroom discussion of sexuality are included.
Now We're Talkin'
1995, 15 minutes
Topics pertaining to teen sexuality are addressed. Discussion groups and role-playing provide insight into teen pregnancy, STDs, and family planning.
One Teenager's Story
1995, 32 minutes
A college-bound high schooler, Tracy, learns that she is HIV-positive in this dramatization. Tracy does no do drugs, but has been sexually active with a college boyfriend. She gets testing and counseling.
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Lives of Adolescent Girls
1998, 35 minutes Media Education Foundation.
An interview with Mary Pipher, the author of the best-selling book of the same title, discusses the challenges facing today's teens, especially girls. Clips from Clueless, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and magazine and TV ads show the role of media and popular culture in shaping their image of their bodies and self-worth. Ends with statements by teenage girls.
Although this one is not Specifically about this topic, it addresses the pressure that teens feel to have sex and be sexual at a young age. Gives you some food for thought!
Sex and Other Matters of Life and Death
1996, 56 minutes
The video chronicles a year in the life of STAR Theater, a teenage theater company which performs for adolescents throughout New York City, trying to raise awareness about the risks young people face growing up in the age of AIDS. The documentary combines intimate profiles of the young actors with scenes from their performances. The fact that the daughter of the company's leader is fighting her own life-and-death struggle with AIDS makes the video poignant and powerful.
Teen Breastfeeding: The Natural Choice
(2 videos) 1998, 15-28 minutes each
This series advocates breast-feeding for teenage mothers. Advantages of breast-feeding described include financial savings, health benefits, and bonding. Tips on feeding techniques and solutions for common problems are detailed. Considers school schedules, sexuality, and social life; encouraging but nonjudgmental.
Teen Sexuality
1994, 30 minutes
Two physicians in discussion with a group of teenager. Emotional concerns, birth control and STD prevention, peer pressure, abstinence, condom use, and building relationships are among the topics addressed.
The Truth about Sex
1999, 45 minutes AIMS Multimedia
This program forces teens to face the realities of having sex too young, including unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Teens visit young parents coping with raising children, see a premature baby born with many health problems, talk to a woman whose body has been ravaged by AIDS, and participate in a mock AIDS test. Dr. Drew of Loveline talks to parents and teens about the difficulties of talking about sex.
Popular & Independent Films & Documentaries
@ 24/7.com Teens Talk About: Abstinence
2001, 20 minutes (part of a series)
In this video, teens talk to teens about abstinence and sexual pressure in a reality-based, unscripted style that speaks to today's adolescents. Teen viewers will come to realize that everyone faces pressure, but that everyone also has choices.
Each video package includes: a video highlighted with pop-up text featuring relevant statistics and topic-related questions; a Leader's Guide that helps facilitators lead teens in meaningful discussions; and access to the @24/7.com Web site, where teens can link to appropriate, authoritative Web sites for more information on the video's topic and send an e-mail to their favoritecast member.
@24/7.com Teens Talk About: Dating Relationships
2001, 20 minutes
In this video, teens talk to teens about dating relationships in a reality-based, unscripted style that speaks to today's adolescents.
Edge of Seventeen
1998, 99 minutes
A gay coming-of-age film set in 1984. Tells the story of Eric, a gangly teen in Ohio on his last day of school. Shows him coping with being gay and being with his friends.
Just Like Me: Talking about AIDS
1999, 21 min.. Films for the Humanities & Sciences
Six young men and women who became HIV-positive as teenagers share their individual stories. These poignant autobiographies explore the reality of contracting and living with the HIV virus.
Love Off Limits
1995, 44 min. SVE & Churchill Media
Two high school filmmakers, Jack and Sarah, tackle the meaning of love in their film and at the same time have to confront censorship.
O
2001
Tim Blake Nelson's sensitive and intelligent updating of Othello drops the pathological envy, racism, fear, and jealousy that drive Shakespeare's play into the hormonally heightened world of modern teenagers in a private boarding school.
Senior Year
PBS Series
"During the 1999/2000 school year, six young filmmakers followed 15 teens through their last year at Fairfax High, a school at the epicenter of the explosion of diversity reshaping L.A. and the country. The result is an entertaining, provocative, and inspiring portrait of a generation on the verge of creating a new world."
Although not specifically about relationships or sexuality, this series ends up dealing with theses issues a lot anyway.
She's All That
1999
"Freddie Prinze Jr. stars as a high school hottie who makes a bet with a fellow classmate that he can turn geeky Rachel Leigh Cook into a Prom Queen. Problems arise when hot shot Prinze becomes involved and in love with the transformed Cook."
Sol de Tentacion
1996
Story of a young girl, Sol, who lives with her father on an old ship. She falls passionately in love with a wealthy tourist, Armando, who is already engaged. The fiance breaks them up and they go their separate ways and marry others. Sol bears Armando's child who grows up to meet Armando's child and falls in love with him.
Complicated, star-crossed lovers story!
Teen Dads
1995, 18 minutes
A profile of four teen fathers who have chosen to play an active role in their children's lives.
An Online Documentary
Teen Sexuality in a Culture of Confusion
"Everyday, three thousand teenagers in the United States become pregnant. Eighty percent of young Americans have intercourse before they turn twenty. Thousands of people in their twenties are dying after having contracted HIV as teens.
Award winning photojournalist Dan Habib has produced Teen Sexuality in a Culture of Confusion to spur more open and honest discussion of these and other issues. This presentation, four years in the making, is an extraordinary inquiry and photographic documentation of young lives and the popular culture." (It Really Is!)