Artistically inspired by Luis Buñuel's film "Un Chien Andalou" Alan Glover's film "Birth" surrealistically depicts the onset of cultural/political consciousness of a young African-American adult. In this short, black and white production, the protagonist confronts metaphors of racism and struggle in education, work, politics, and family. The confrontational device used throughout all of his struggles is the swordfight. As a symbol of his lack of consciousness there are no spoken words until his just-in-time cultural epiphany