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3.11: Surviving Japan - Chris Noland was living in Tokyo on March 11, 2011 when the massive earthquake hit the northeast coast of Japan. He recorded the effects of the earthquake on his apartment, and then realized he should and could do something to help. He connected with a foreign NGO and began his first ever stint as a volunteer. Noland's earnest narration and tears as he uncovers diaries and keepsakes runs in stark contrast to the devastated landscapes in the cities he visits, first to clear and rebuild, and then to investigate the effects of the Fukushima meltdown. Noland's interviews with victims, politicians, and nuclear experts and images paint a tragic future, though the final scenes of a huge rally-50,000 citizens protesting nuclear energy give hope that Fukushima may change society.
5 Broken Cameras - A deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the film was assembled by Burnat and Israeli co-director Guy Davidi. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. "I feel like the camera protects me," he says, "but it's an illusion."
9/11 Press for Truth - Adapting Paul Thompson's definitive Complete 9/11 Timeline (published by HarperCollins as 'The Terror Timeline'), the filmmakers collaborate with documentary veterans Globalvision ('WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception', 'Beyond JFK') to stitch together rare overlooked news clips, buried stories, and government press conferences, revealing a pattern of official lies, deception and spin. As a result, a very different picture of 9/11 emerges, one that raises new and more pressing questions.
94 Elements - There are 94 naturally occuring elements, from hydrogen to plutonium. Together they make up everything in the world. 94 Elements is a global filmmaking project, exploring our lives through the lens of the elements.
1913 Massacre - Follows singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie to the town of Calumet, a once-thriving mining town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula still haunted by the tragic events that inspired Woody Guthrie's ballad, 1913 Massacre.
1971 - The FBI, established in 1908, was for 60 years held unaccountable and untouchable until March 8, 1971, when The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, as they called themselves, broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, took every file, and shared them with the American public. After the break-in, the group sent the files to journalists at the Washington Post, which published them and shed light on the FBI's widespread abuse of power. These actions exposed COINTELPRO, the FBI's illegal surveillance program that involved the intimidation of law-abiding Americans, and helped lead to the country's first congressional investigation of U.S. intelligence agencies. The activist-burglars then disappeared into anonymity for forty years. Until now. Never caught, these previously anonymous Americans - parents, teachers and citizens - publicly reveal themselves for the first time and share their story in the documentary 1971.
4Docs - The wiki is all about short documentaries. Nothing else. Tips on where you might find some money, how you cover your backs legally, what kit to use, which festivals to be seen at, how to work the online revolution.
A Sea Change - This film follows retired educator and concerned grandfather Sven Huseby back to stunning ancestral sites (Norway, Alaska the Pacific Northwest) where he finds cutting-edge ocean research underway. His journey of self-discovery brings adventure, surprise and revelation to the hard science of acidification.
Act of Killing - In Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing, a pair of gangsters -- responsible for murdering an untold number of suspected communists in the years following the 1965 overthrow of the Indonesian government - get the chance to recount their experiences. At first showing no visible remorse, the men boast of their achievements, and Oppenheimer capitalizes on their enthusiasm with a twisted gimmick: The men are given numerous opportunities to reenact the murders for Oppenheimer's camera, sometimes emphasizing their brutality and occasionally delivering surreal, flamboyant takes that offer a grotesque spin on classic Hollywood musicals. Playing make believe with murderers, Oppenheimer risks the possibility of empowering them. However, by humanizing psychopathic behavior, The Act of Killing is unparalleled in its unsettling perspective on the dementias associated with dictatorial extremes. A 2012 Danish-British-Norwegian co-production, presented by Final Cut for Real in Denmark, produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen, co-directed by Anonymous and Christine Cynn, and executive produced by Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Joram ten Brink and Andre Singer.
Aerosol Crimes (aka Chemtrails) - Clifford Carnicom's riveting documentary about the governments assault on our skies. A 90 minute presentation about chemtrails, their effects on human and other natural life, and their possible devastating military applications. It is an excellent way to give your friends all the information they need to answer the question why would they do this? Over the years aerosol/chemtrail research has provided some leads but even more questions as to who and why the spraying occurs. It is clear jets are deliberately spraying the sky's and it will not stop until enough people are aware and willing to stand up for the operations exposure and termination. After watching this video, you will never look at the sky the same way again.
Africans in America - A companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series. The Web site chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States -- from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century to the end of the American Civil War in 1865 -- and explores the central paradox that is at the heart of the American story: a democracy that declared all men equal but enslaved and oppressed one people to provide independence and prosperity to another.
Agents of Change - From the well-publicized events at San Francisco State in 1968 to the image of black students with guns emerging from the takeover of the student union at Cornell University in April, 1969, the struggle for a more relevant and meaningful education, including demands for black and ethnic studies programs, became a clarion call across the country in the late 1960's. Through the stories of these young men and women who were at the forefront of these efforts, Agents of Change examines the untold story of the racial conditions on college campuses and in the country that led to these protests.
American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein - A cautiously respectful documentary portrait of a political firebrand who presents himself as a beacon of moral truth in the murk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Norman Finkelstein's conclusions can be debated, his methods can be deplored, but as American Radical directors Ridgen and Rossier take pains to point out, a man so rigorously committed to putting an end to oppression ought not be so easily dismissed, even if coming to grips with such a challenging figure may be finally as difficult as getting to the bottom of the Arab-Israeli conflict itself.
Amercian Rhetoric - Online speech bank, rhetoric in sound, top 100 US. speeches.
American Ruling Class (John Kirby) - This is the tale of two graduates, "one rich and one poor" as they seek direction in their lives. Does America have a ruling class? If so, of what is it made, and how does it co-exist within our democracy? How does one join it; should one even want to? Director John Kirby experiments with the documentary genre, successfully melding fact, drama, and music. The film is guided by Editor Emeritus for Harper's Magazine, Lewis Lapham. Other real-life luminaries appearing in the film are a range of leaders across the media and political landscape: Kurt Vonnegut, Walter Cronkite, Mike Medavoy, Robert Altman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Vartan Gregorian, Martin Garbus, Bill Bradley, Larry Summers, James Baker, Pete Peterson, Hodding Carter, and the insistent opposition voice of Pete Seeger.
An Inconvenient Truth - With wit, smarts and hope, An Inconvenient Truth ultimately brings home Al Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.
An Unreasonable Man - With the help of exciting graphics, rare archival footage and over forty on-camera interviews conducted over the past two years, An Unreasonable Man traces the life and career of Ralph Nader.
Anthrax War - A provocative investigative documentary by filmmakers Bob Coen and Eric Nadler that examines the 2001 Anthrax Attacks and offers a frightening glimpse into today's secret and dangerous world of germ weapons. Dead Silence is the accompanying book that fills out the story of the global investigation that the documentary could only outline. The story begins in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks when anthrax-laced letters, mailed to media offices in New York and to the U.S. Senate in Washington, spread fear and panic across the United States and beyond. The filmmakers probe troubling questions surrounding the FBI's investigation of the 21st Century's first act of biological terrorism. The search for answers takes them from the United States to the United Kingdom, then to the edge of Siberia and to Southern Africa and leads them into an underworld in which leading scientists working with germs die under mysterious circumstances. The growing list includes Bruce Ivins, who the FBI claims was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders; Dr. David Kelly, the former head of UK bio-defense; and Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, the mastermind behind the Soviet Union's vast and illegal bio-weapons complex who defected to the West. The filmmakers penetrate what they come to call the "international biological warfare mafia" and uncover the development of terrifying new weapons - genetically mutated germs, some with the ability to target specific ethnic groups. In a rare interview, the man known as "Doctor Death", who headed South Africa's apartheid-era biological warfare program that developed germs aimed at the country's black population, reveals that he received help from the U.S. and U.K. The filmmakers also learn that some of these germs may be for sale on the black market today.
Ballad of Greenwich Village, The - Portrays important political and social movements that started in Greenwich Village - such as the first interracial jazz club, the earliest Socialist newspapers from before World War I, and the Stonewall rebellion that sparked gay liberation. Directed by Karen Kramer.
Beckett on Film - Awarded the 'Best TV Drama' award at the sixth South Bank Show Awards ceremony on 6th February 2002 at the Savoy in London. For the first time, all 19 of Samuel Beckett's plays have been filmed, bringing together some of the world's most talented directors and actors.
Big Boys Gone Bananas - What is a big corporation capable of in order to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten's experienced this recently. His previous film BANANAS!* (2009) recounts the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company. The film was selected for competition by the Los Angeles Film Festival. Nothing wrong so far, right? But then Gertten gets a strange message: the festival removes BANANAS!* from competition. Then a scathing article appears in the Los Angeles Business Journal about the film, and Gertten subsequently receives a letter from Dole's attorney threatening him with legal action. What follows is an unparalleled thriller that has Gertten capturing the entire process - from Dole attacking the producers with a defamation lawsuit, bullying scaretactics, to media-control and PR-spin. This personal film reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way - freedom of speech is at stake.
Big Uneasy, The - In this feature-length documentary, New Orleans resident Harry Shearer gets the inside story of a disaster that could have been prevented from the people who were there. Shearer speaks to the investigators who poked through the muck as the water receded and a whistle-blower from the Army Corps of Engineers, revealing that some of the same flawed methods responsible for the levee failure during Katrina are being used to rebuild the system expected to protect the new New Orleans from future peril. The Big Uneasy marks the beginning of the end of five years of ignorance about what happened to one of our nation's most treasured cities - and serves as a stark reminder that the same agency that failed to protect New Orleans still exists in other cities across America.
Black Gold - A moving and eye-opening look into the 80-billion-dollar global coffee industry, where the spoils of overpriced lattes and cappuccinos are sparsely shared with the farmers who make it all possible.
Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution - More than 40 years after the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California, the group, and its leadership, remain powerful and enduring figures in our popular imagination. This film weaves voices from varied perspectives who lived this story - police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters, and detractors, those who remained loyal to the party and those who left it. Because the participants from all sides were so young in the '60s and '70s, they are still around to share firsthand accounts. Directed by Stanley Nelson.
Body of War - An intimate and transformational feature documentary about the true face of war today. Meet Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine - wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week. Body of War is Tomas's coming home story as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war. The film is produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, and features two original songs by Eddie Vedder.
Breaking Ranks - Documentary that examines the current phenomena of U.S. soldiers seeking refuge in Canada as part of their resistance to the war effort in Iraq, revealing the everyday lives, hopes, and idealism of another generation of young soldiers as they become controversial peace activists. Directed by Michelle Mason.
Bringing It Home - More industrial hemp is exported to the U.S. than to any other country and American consumers are purchasing over $450 million in hemp products annually. Bringing It Home explores the question of why a crop with so many widespread benefits cannot be farmed in the United States by illustrating its history, current industries and talking to both opponents and proponents of the industrial hemp farming legalization effort.
Brooklyn Boheme - A love letter to a vibrant African American artistic community who resided in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill Brooklyn during the 80′s and 90′s that included the great Spike Lee, Chris Rock, Branford Marsalis, Rosie Perez, Saul Williams, Lorna Simpson, Talib Kweli just to name a few. Narrated and written by Fort Greene resident Nelson George, this feature length documentary celebrates Brooklyn's equivalent of the Harlem Renaissance and follows the rise of a new kind of African American artist, the Brooklyn Boheme.
Bush Family Fortunes - This 70 minute long documentary follows the award-winning reporter-sleuth Greg Palast on the trail of the Bush family, from Florida election finagling, to the Saudi connection, to the Bush team's spiking the FBI investigation of the bin Laden family and the secret State Department plans for post-war Iraq.
Capitalism: A Love Story - Capitalism: A Love Story does not quite measure up to Moore's Sicko in its cumulative power, and it is unlikely to equal Fahrenheit 9/11 in political impact. In many ways, though, this is Moore's magnum opus: the grandest statement of his career-long belief that big business is screwing the hard-working little guy while government connives in the atrocity. As he loudly tried to confront General Motors CEO Roger Smith in Roger & Me in 1989, and pleaded through a bull horn to get officials at Guantanamo to give medical treatment to surviving victims of 9/11, so in Capitalism he attempts to make a citizen's arrest of AIG executives, and puts tape around the New York Stock Exchange building, declaring it a crime scene.
Canyon Cinema - Canyon's collection of more than 3500 films traces the history of the experimental
Capitalism Hits the Fan - With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government "bailouts," stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis - in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes. Richly illustrated with motion graphics and charts, this is a superb introduction designed to help ordinary citizens understand, and react to, the unraveling economic crisis.
Carbon Rush, The - From indigenous rain forest dwellers having their way of life completely threatened, to dozens of Campesinos assassinated, to the livelihood of waste pickers at landfills taken away, The Carbon Rush travels across four continents to brings viewers up close to projects working through the United Nations Kyoto Protocol-designed Clean Development Mechanism and asks: "What happens when we manipulate markets to solve the climate crisis? Who stands to gain and who stands to suffer?"
Century of the Self - Adam Curtis's acclaimed series examines the rise of the all-consuming self against the backdrop of the Freud dynasty. Sigmund Freud's work into the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious changed the world. By introducing a technique to probe the unconscious mind, Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal. View entire documentary here: Part 1, 2, 3, and 4. Also see Wikipedia article.
Chasing Ice - In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth's changing climate. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.
Collateral - Filmed as part of an international art initiative founded by the NY based theater artist Richard Foreman and his long time collaborator Sophie Haviland that brings together visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, composers, writers, performers and directors, generating the collaborations and collisions necessary to make art that transforms.
Comandante - Oliver Stone interviews Cuban President Fidel Castro on a diverse range of topics during a three-day visit to Cuba in 2002.
Coming War on China, The - John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the world's greatest military power, the United States, and the world's second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.
Commie Camp - In the summer of 2012, Rush Limbaugh, the right wing radio show host and unofficial head of the Republican Party, publicized a report by the libertarian organization Americans for Limited Government, 'exposing' the fact that President Obama's nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics had sent her kids to a Jewish summer camp 'with Communist roots,' which 'indoctrinates' its campers with 'extremist' ideology. Comedian and filmmaker Katie Halper went to that very camp, Camp Kinderland, as did her mother and grandmother before her. Was Katie, and her family, brainwashed? Are the campers who attend the camp today in danger? If so, can they be saved? There's only one-way to find out - and that's going back to camp. Following four nine-years-old campers from the first day to the last day of camp, Commie Camp reveals what really goes on at Camp Kinderland. We watch the children as they learn how to debate the problems facing the world, commemorate the Holocaust and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, play the World Peace Olympics, Kinderland's alternative to other camps' color wars, and have the times of their lives.
Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood - Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.
Control Room - A documentary about the Arab television network Al-Jazeera's coverage of the U.S.-led Iraqi war, and conflicts that arose in managed perceptions of truth between that news media outlet and the American military.
Corporation, The - Considering the odd legal fiction that deems a corporation a 'person' in the eyes of the law, this documentary employs a checklist, based on actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and DSM IV, the standard tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. What emerges is a disturbing diagnosis: psychopath. A documentary film by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan.
Countdown to Zero - Traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, with the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. Written and directed by acclaimed documentarian Lucy Walker (The Devil's Playground, Blindsight), the film features an array of important international statesmen, including Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair. It makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret - Feature-length environmental documentary uncovers the most destructive industry facing the planet today - and investigates why the world's leading environmental organizations are too afraid to talk about it. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean 'dead zones,' and virtually every other environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged. Directed by Kip Andersen.
Deadly Arrogance - A frightening look at the nuclear threat that looms over the world today, perpetual war for U.S. economic and strategic conquest, and the consequences of nuclear contamination.
Dear Mandela - When the South African government promises to 'eradicate the slums' and begins to evict shack dwellers far outside the city, three friends who live in Durban's vast shantytowns refuse to be moved. Dear Mandela follows their journey from their shacks to the highest court in the land as they invoke Nelson Mandela's example and become leaders in a growing social movement. By turns inspiring, devastating and funny, the film offers a new perspective on the role that young people can play in political change and is a fascinating portrait of South Africa coming of age. Directed by Dara Kell and Chriistopher Nizza.
Diamonds and Rust - Directors Adi Barash and Ruthie Shatz received permission to film everyday life on the Spirit of Namibia from diamond exporter De Beers, but the result - which shows fraying tempers, racist attitudes, a deteriorating vessel and front office indifference - hardly flatters the company.
Dirty Wars - Follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater, into the heart of America's covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond.
DNA Dreams - What if we could identify the genes that contain information about human intelligence? Would a brave new world of improved human beings be waiting for us? This new world is now in the making in China's Pearl River Delta. The documentary DNA Dreams delves into the heart of bio-science in China, exploring the lifestyles and beliefs of a new generation of young scientists in Shenzhen.
Documentary Australia Foundation - Manages and receives grants and donations which are directed either towards its own documentary projects or to other specific film projects.
Dogwoof - Founded in 2004, Dogwoof has released award-winning independent films from around the world such as Food, Inc., Burma VJ, The Age of Stupid, Restrepo, Gasland, Tabloid, The Interrupters, and Dreams of a Life. It's main focus is "documentaries that, in some way, inspire creativity, thought and change"
Dr. Bonner's Magic Soapbox - A human story about a socially responsible company, "Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox" documents the complicated family legacy behind the counterculture's favorite cleaning product.
Drone - English-language documentary film directed by Norwegian Tonje Hessen Schei. Explores the use of drones in warfare. "Drone takes a quick look at realities of the warfare industry and asks the obvious question: How will Americans feel when another government (or non-governmental entity) has remote-controlled death hovering constantly over our heads?" -John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter
End of the Line, The - The first major feature documentary film revealing the impact of overfishing on our oceans. The film examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation. Filmed over two years, The End of the Line follows the investigative reporter Charles Clover as he confronts politicians and celebrity restaurateurs, who exhibit little regard for the damage they are doing to the oceans. One of his allies is the former tuna farmer turned whistleblower Roberto Mielgo - on the trail of those destroying the world's magnificent bluefin tuna population. Filmed across the world - from the Straits of Gibraltar to the coasts of Senegal and Alaska to the Tokyo fish market - featuring top scientists, indigenous fishermen and fisheries enforcement officials, The End of the Line is a wake-up call to the world.
Estate, a Reverie - A film by Andrea Luka Zimmerman. A deeply moving portrait of a community struggling to survive in a boarded-up London public housing project, long slated for demolition.
Every Cook Can Govern: The Life Works and Impact of C.L.R. James - Interweaves never-before-seen footage of C.L.R. James with personal contributions from those who knew him and historical and political analysis from leading scholars of his work. The result is a feature-length documentary that grapples with issues from colonialism to cricket, from slavery to Shakespeare, from Marxism to the movies and from reading to revolution.
Everybody Street - Illuminates the lives and work of New York's iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists. Featured photographers: Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, and Boogie, with historians Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.
Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement - A critically acclaimed 14-part series broadcast nationally by the Public Broadcasting Service. The first six programs, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965), were aired in January and February of 1987. The eight-part sequel, Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads (1965-1985) was broadcast in 1990. Eyes on the Prize is the most important documentary ever made about the Civil Rights Movement - but copyright restrictions kept it from the public for many years. It is now available once more. See PBS's Eyes on the Prize page along with its Video Index, which provides almost two hours of the historic footage. The entire series is available on DVD through Blackside.
Fahrenheit 9/11 - One of the most controversial and provocative films of 2004, Fahrenheit 9/11 is Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore's searing examination of the Bush administration's actions in the wake of the tragic events of 9/11.
Far From Afghanistan - Inspired by the 1967 collaborative undertaking, Far From Vietnam (Loin Du Vietnam), that united a variety of filmmakers, cameramen, editors and technicians "to knit together imagery of the war, interviews, intellectual styles, fictional incursions and documentary footage in a bid to counter and interpret the intensive media coverage and propaganda manipulated by the American government", Far From Afghanistan strives to contribute to the international effort to redirect U.S. policy away from military and political intervention toward true humanitarian and developmental care-giving (if and when requested). Bringing together some of the boldest and most politically-progressive U.S. filmmakers to speak from within the war machine, alongside contributions from native filmmakers throughout Afghanistan, Far From Afghanistan will examine through a mosaic of approaches - issues of shared responsibility, history and memory - all in a concerted effort to help accelerate political resistance to the war.
Field of Vision (at The Intercept) - A filmmaker-driven visual journalism film unit co-created by Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook that pairs filmmakers with developing and ongoing stories around the globe.
Fight For Yemen, The - An 7 April 2015 PBS Frontline report from the heart of the escalating conflict.
FLOW: For the Love of Water - A film by Irena Salina highlighting the local intimacies of an emerging global catastrophe: African plumbers reconnect shantytown water pipes under cover of darkness to ensure a community's survival; a Californian scientist forces awareness of shockingly toxic public water sources; a 'Big Water' CEO argues privatization is the wave of the future; a "Water Guru" in India sparks new community water initiatives in hundreds of villages; a Canadian author uncovers the corporate profiteering that drives global water business.
Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara - A documentary film directed by Errol Morris. The film was released in December 2003 and won many awards, including the 2004 Oscar for Best Documentary, as well as the documentary of the year award from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Chicago Film Critics, and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics. The eleven lessons that give the film its structure and name were derived from the interviews conducted by Errol Morris and were not explicitly stated or created by Robert McNamara.
Food, Inc. - In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli-the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults. Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms's Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising-and often shocking truths-about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
Four Days Inside Guantánamo - This film recording the interrogation of a young Canadian in Guantánamo is a brutal document of modern cruelty. The movie shows us declassified video recordings of a 2003 interrogation, in Guantánamo prison, of 16-year-old Omar Khadr. He was a Canadian citizen picked up in Afghanistan on various charges including terrorism, reportedly tortured, never tried other than by a military tribunal, and finally in 2010 allowed to begin a supposedly lenient eight-year sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. His unseen interrogator here is a Canadian intelligence officer, evidently the lead officer in a team, permitted by the Americans to question the prisoner on the understanding that a friendly seeming fellow countryman might cause Khadr to open up and give the US valuable intelligence. So far from being a respite from torture, this insincere friendly chat is a hideous refinement of cruelty: a horrifying turn of the screw.
From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Dock - Directed by Academy Award winning director and cinematographer Haskell Wexler, is the film of a truly unique event - Ian Ruskin performing his one-man to a packed house of 1000 longshore workers in San Pedro, California. The result, with appearances by Elliott Gould, Edward Asner and members of ILWU Local 13, and with music by Jackson Browne, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Tim Reynolds, Ciro Hurtado and others (including the world premiere of Woody Guthrie's song about Harry, sung by his granddaughter Sarah Lee Guthrie) is an inspiring story. It is an intimate exploration of the life and times of this extraordinary man - "a hero or the devil incarnate, it all depends on your point of view" - full of the high drama and biting humor that ran through his life. And it is a springboard into understanding the parallel issues - globalization, global responsibilities, wars on terrorism, surveillance and privacy, and the widening gap between rich and poor, that we face today.
Fuel - Eleven years in the making, Fuel is the in-depth personal journey of filmmaker and eco-evangelist Josh Tickell, who takes us on a hip, fast-paced road trip into America's dependence on foreign oil. Combining a history lesson of the US auto and petroleum industries and interviews with a wide range of policy makers, educators, and activists such as Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow, Neil Young and Willie Nelson. Animated by powerful graphics, Fuel looks into our future offering hope via a wide-range of renewable energy and bio-fuels. Winner of the Sundance Audience Award.
Gatekeepers, The - For the first time ever six former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel's secret service, agreed to share their insights and reflect publicly on their actions and decisions. The Gatekeepers offers an exclusive account of the sum of their success and failures. It validates the reasons that each man individually and the six as a group came to reconsider their hard-line positions and advocate a conciliatory approach toward their enemies based on a two-state solution.
Genius of Charles Darwin, The - Richard Dawkins presents the ultimate three-part guide to Charles Darwin and his materpiece, On the Origin of Species.
Ghost Exchange - Probes the current state of US capital markets, the impact of high frequency and algorithmic trading, the lack of, or ineffective regulatory oversight and the risks that are now inherent in our markets by going right to the source -Wall Street's leading insiders - who shine a light on startling signs that the US stock market has built so much speed and complexity into the current system that it is impossible to regulate. The system has become - a Ghost Exchange.
Ghosts of Attica - Attica's lessons about prison reform, hostage negotiations and state hubris are as relevant now as in 1971, when the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York exploded in rage and frustration.
Google and the World Brain - In 2002, Google embarked on one of the most daunting tasks every imagined. Their goal was to scan every book in the world, creating a digital library that everybody would have access to. A fantastic idea in theory, but it would soon become a nightmare for Google. Over half the books they scanned were still under copyright, and no permission was given by the authors. A lawsuit was quickly launched, and a settlement was reached, but this was still viewed as inappropriate by many authors around the world. They challenged the ruling, and it would take until 2011 to reach a final decision. Google and the World Brain explores the dreams behind this project, the eventual aftermath of the many legal battles, and the fears that this project brought to the surface.
Granito: How to Nail a Dictator - In a stunning milestone for justice in Central America, in January 2012, a Guatemalan court charged former dictator Efraín Rios Montt with genocide for his brutal war against the country's Mayan people in the 1980s - and Pamela Yates' 1983 documentary, When the Mountains Tremble, provided key evidence for bringing the indictment. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator tells the extraordinary story of how a film, aiding a new generation of human rights activists, became a granito - a tiny grain of sand - that helped tip the scales of justice.
Great Book Robbery - 70,000 Palestinian books were systematically "collected" by the newly born state of Israel during the 1948 war. The story of the "collected" books is at the heart of this film.
Great Invisible, The - Producer/director Margaret Brown travels to small towns and major cities across Alabama, Louisiana and Texas to explore the fallout of the BP/Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Groundswell Rising, Protecting Our Children's Air and Water - Brings you into the lives of people from all walks of life and all sides of the political spectrum who are dedicating themselves to resisting, slowing down or stopping fracking. Directed/produced by Matt and Renard Cohen.
Gunnar Palace - Filmmaker Michael Tucker, who lived with 2/3 Field Artillery, a.k.a. "The Gunners" for two months, captures the lives and humanity of these soldiers whose barracks are the bombed-out pleasure palace of Uday Hussein (nicknamed Gunner Palace), situated in the heart of the most volatile section of Baghdad. With total access to all operations and activities, Tucker's insider footage provides a rare look at the day-to-day lives of these soldiers on the ground -- whether swimming in Uday's pool and playing golf on his putting green or executing raids on suspected terrorists, enduring roadside bombs, mortar attacks, RPGs and snipers.
Hacker Wars, The - A ilm about the targeting of (h)ac(k)tivists and journalists by the US government. Directed by Vivien Lesnik Weisman, it opened theatrically in New York, on 17 Oct 2014 at the Village East Cinema.
Hacking Democracy - Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. The timely, cautionary documentary Hacking Democracy exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system.
Hand That Feeds, The - Focuses on the lives of underpaid workers at Manhattan's Hot & Crusty bakery where the Latino staff members are underpaid and their complaints are not heard. Co-directed by Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick, The Hand That Feeds is an inspirational documentary chronicling an intrepid band of working-class heroes' demand that their rights be respected by greedy fat cats who'd rather close down the business than raise salaries to just the minimum wage.
Have You Heard From Johannesburg - Seven documentary stories, produced and directed by Connie Field, chronicling the history of the global anti-apartheid movement that took on South Africa's entrenched apartheid regime and its international supporters who considered South Africa an ally in the Cold War.
Also see Wikipedia backgrounder.
Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979). The shocking state of Cambodia after Pol Pot's murderous regime.
Nicaragua: A Nation's Right to Survive (1983). How can a country survive when its jungle borders hold 4000 hostile troops?
Burp! Pepsi vs - Coke In the Ice Cold War (1984). A look at the worldwide struggle for soft drink supremacy.
Flying the Flag: Arming the World (1994). An investigation of the world of international arms dealing.
Disc Two:
Vietnam: The Quiet Mutiny (1970). The incredible account of the break-up of the US military in Vietnam.
Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy (1994). An exploration of the situation in East Timor - a country ruled by bloodshed and fear.
Inside Burma: Land of Fear (1996). An undercover investigation of slave labour in Burma.
Welcome to Australia (1999). An examination of the exclusion of Australia's Aborigines.
Disc Three:
Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq (2000). An analysis of the effect of economic sanctions on Iraq.
Palestine Is Still the Issue (1974). An assessment of the problems endemic to the West Bank and Gaza.
Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies In the War On Terror (2003). An inquiry into the "war on terror" and its affects on 'liberated' countries.
Disc Four:
Stealing a Nation (2004). The scandalous story of the expulsion of the Chagos Islanders.
John Pilger at The Guardian Hay Festival (2006)
Disc Five:
The Mexicans (1980). John Pilger reports on political repression in Mexico.
Street of Joy (1976). How can product marketing methods be applied to politics?
Pyramid Lake Is Dying (1976). An investigation into the lamentable state of a Paiute reservation in the Nevada desert.
Disc Six:
A Faraway Country (1977). An examination of the Czech Underground known as the Charter 77 Movement.
Do You Remember Vietnam? (1978). Three years after the fall of Saigon, Pilger returns to examine the new regime.
Vietnam: The Last Battle (1995). Nearly twenty years after the Vietnam War, Pilger returns to review those two decades.
Disc Seven:
The Truth Game (1983). The worldwide propaganda surrounding the nuclear arms race is scrutinised.
Japan Behind the Mask (1987). A look at Japanese society and its emergent nationalism.
South Africa: Apartheid Did Not Die (1998). An analysis of South Africa's new, democratic regime.
Disc Eight:
The Last Dream: Heroes (1988). Unsung An examination of the land stolen from aborigines by British settlers.
The Last Dream: Secrets (1988). An investigation of the massive racial inequalities in Australian society.
The Last Dream: Other People's Wars (1988). A look at the complicated relationship that Australians have with war.
Disc Nine:
World in Action (1970). Conversations with a Working Man.
Dismantling a Dream (1977). Spending cuts highlight the shameful neglect of the NHS.
An Unfashionable Tragedy (1975). The plight of the Bangladeshi during the horrors of the famine.
A Nod and a Wink (1975). The use of Conspiracy laws in British justice.
Smashing Kids (1975). Hunger and malnutrition - directly caused by the welfare state.
Thalidomide: The Ninety-Eight We Forgot (1974). Why are 98 of the affected families not allowed compensation?
Disc Ten:
Vietnam: Still America's War (1974). Investigating the aftermath in Vietnam following the ceasefire.
Mr. Nixon's Secret Legacy (1975). Counterforce: the prosecution of a flexible, acceptable nuclear war.
The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back (1985). The shameful history of persecution of the Aborigines in Australia.
Zap! The Weapon is Food (1976). An investigation of the U.S. policy that makes food more powerful than oil.
Disc Eleven:
Nobody's Children (1975). The plight of mentally handicapped children held in appalling circumstances.
The Most Powerful Politician in America (1974). A revealing portrayal of bigoted Alabama governor George Wallace.
One British Family (1974). Viewing the racial minefield of British society through the eyes of a black family.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent (1974). Highlighting the issue of innocent people confined to prisons on remand.
Heroes (1981). The shabby treatment of returning combat soldiers from Vietnam is investigated.
Disc Twelve:
The Outsiders (1983). Interviews with Sean MacBride, Helen Suzman, Martha Gellhorn, Jessica Mitford, Wilfred Burchett, David Williamson, Salman Rushdie, Costa-Gavras and Patsy Spyby.
Disc Thirteen:
To Know Us Is to Love Us (1975). Reaction to a Vietnamese refugee camp constructed outside an American town.
Pilger in Australia (1976). A candid look at the highs and lows of Australian society.
The Search for Truth in Wartime (1983). A look at the changing face of war reporting.
The Timor Conspiracy (1999). The betrayal of the east Timorese by the international community.
Disc Fourteen:
An Unjustifiable Risk (1977). An investigation of the risks and rewards of plutonium usage.
Cambodia: Year One (1980). The effect of aid to Cambodia and the extent of the country's new-found stability.
Cambodia: Year Ten (1989). An examination of how the unprotected and revitalised the Khmer Rouge.
Cambodia: Year Ten Update (1989). The British government and U.N. react to the outcry over the situation in Cambodia.
Disc Fifteen:
War by Other Means (1992). An investigation of the crippling levels of debt paid by third world countries.
Cambodia: The Betrayal (1990). The plight of a people who have struggled to rebuild their stricken country.
Cambodia: Return to Year Zero (1993). John Pilger shows how the Khmer rouge has grown stronger due to the U.N.
The New Rulers of the World (2001). Is global power actually in the hands of large multi-national corporations?
Disc Sixteen:
The War on Democracy (2007). Investigating Washington's 'war on democracy' around the world.
Disc Seventeen:
Breaking the Mirror (1997). An examination of the downward trends in journalism and reporting.
Disc Eighteen and Nineteen:
Utopia (2013). Uncovering the apartheid deep within Australia's past and present.
Disc Twenty:
The War You Don't See (2011). Tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting during wartime
Hidden in Plain Sight - A feature-length documentary that looks at the nature of U.S. policy in Latin America through the prism of the School of the Americas (renamed, in January of 2001, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), the controversial military school that trains Latin American soldiers in the USA.
Homme Less - In his directorial debut former model and fashion photographer, Thomas Wirthensohn, tells the story of Mark Reay, a charming and charismatic model/photographer.
Hot Coffee - Doumentary film by Susan Saladoff who applies her extensive legal background on what has become, at least in the public consciousness, a joke (perhaps most famously spoofed on Seinfeld) to rigorously debunk the dismissive myths concerning the case, and to examine why they've been allowed to propagate around it in the first place, pointing to abuses of the legal system and the disenfranchisement of ordinary people, and propaganda behind so-called "tort reform" efforts.
House I Live In, The - Over forty years, the "war on drugs" has accounted for more than 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet for all that, drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever before. Filmed in more than twenty states, The House I Live In captures heart-wrenching stories from individuals at all levels of America's "war on drugs". From the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America's longest war, offering a definitive portrait and revealing its human rights implications.
How to Change the World - he story of the pioneers who founded Greenpeace and defined the modern green movement. Draws on interviews with key players and hitherto unseen archive footage which brings these characters and their intense and often dangerous world alive. Somehow the group transcended the contradictions of its members to undertake some of the bravest and most significant environmental protests in history.
Hunting of the President - Using previously unreleased materials, interviews, and revelations from both sides of the beltway, this work focuses on the smear campaign against Clinton from his gubernatorial days in Arkansas up to his impeachment trial. Less of an advocacy film and more of an alarming treatise on the political power of the media and personal interests, the film offers a gallery of defeated politicians, disappointed office seekers, right-wing pamphleteers, wealthy eccentrics, zany private detectives, religious fanatics, and die-hard segregationists, all chiming in discord from the tops of their soapboxes.
Ice (Robert Kramer, 1969) - A pioneering work that blurred the boundaries between fictional and documentary styles, Ice was hailed by filmmaker and Village Voice critic Jonas Mekas as "the most original and most significant American narrative film" of the late sixties. An underground revolutionary group struggles against internal strife which threatens its security and stages urban guerrilla attacks against a fictionalized fascist regime in the United States. Interspersed throughout the narrative are rhetorical sequences that explain the philosophy of radical action and serve to restrain the melodrama inherent in the "thriller" genre. Shot in the gray landscape of New York City in a gritty cinema-verite style, the film has been compared to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville.
In Debt We Trust - The money we owe and the bill that's coming due. A Danny Schechter film. In Debt We Trust shows how the mall replaced the factory as America's dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies buy our Congress and drive us into what a former major bank economist calls modern serfdom. Americans and our government owe trillions in consumer debt and the national debt, a large amount of it to big banks and billions to Communist China.
Inside the Revolution: A Journey into Heart of Venezuela - Filmed in Caracas in November 2008, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Chavez's controversial presidency, this feature-length documentary takes a journey into the heart of Venezuela's revolution to listen to the voices of the people driving the process forward.
Into Eternity - Every day, the world over, large amounts of high-level radioactive waste created by nuclear power plants is placed in interim storage, which is vulnerable to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and to societal changes. In Finland the world's first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock - a huge system of underground tunnels - that must last 100,000 years as this is how long the waste remains hazardous. Captivating, wondrous and extremely frightening, this feature documentary takes viewers on a journey never seen before into the underworld and into the future.
Invisible War, The - Investigative documentary about one of America's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military.
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers - Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed and Uncovered) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who allow them to do so.
John Pilger Videos - The majority of John Pilger's 58 documentaries and films are available to watch in their entirety on this page, along with a selection of interviews, speeches and other video featuring John Pilger.
Jodorowsky's Dune - A 2013 American-French documentary film directed by Frank Pavich. The film explores Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky's unsuccessful attempt to adapt and film Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune in the mid-1970s
Kartemquin Films - A collaborative center for documentary media makers. Located in Chicago. I internationally recognized for crafting quality documentaries backed by audience and community engagement strategies, and for its innovative media arts community programs.
Kill the Messenger - Exploring abuses behind the State Secrets Privilege as invoked in FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds' case as well as highlighting the travails and persecution of U.S. national security whistleblowers.
Koch Brothers Exposed - A hard-hitting investigation of the 1% at its very worst. This full-length documentary film on Charles and David Koch-two of the world's richest and most powerful men-is the latest from acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, Rethink Afghanistan). The billionaire brothers bankroll a vast network of organizations that work to undermine the interests of the 99% on issues ranging from Social Security to the environment to civil rights. This film uncovers the Kochs' corruption-and points the way to how Americans can reclaim their democracy.
Landscapes of the Soul: The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko - This program was curated by Alla Verlotsky and Richard Pena and is organized in collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Ministry of Art and Culture of Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Center of Alexander Dovzhenko and with the support of The Consulate General of Ukraine in New York.
Last Mountain, The - In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal. The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America's struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns. Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.
Law in These Parts, The - A film by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz. Since Israel conquered the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 war, the military has imposed thousands of orders and laws, established military courts, sentenced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, enabled half a million Israeli "settlers" to move to the Occupied Territories and developed a system of long-term jurisdiction by an occupying army that is unique in the entire world. This film attempts to answer the questions: Can a modern democracy impose a prolonged military occupation on another people while retaining it's core democratic values? Can such an occupation be achieved within a legal framework that includes genuine adherence to the principals of rule-of-law? Should it? What are the costs that a society engaged in such a long term exercise must bear? And what are the implications of the very effort to make a documentary film about such a system?
Left of the Dial (The Story of Air America) - Produced for HBO, Left of the Dial tracks the growing pains behind the nation's first liberal radio network. Told through verite footage shot at the New York-based station over a nine-month period, the 90-minute film begins with a frenetic pace and never lets up from the network's evolution twelve days before and up to its March, 2004 launch, through a much-publicized scandal involving bounced checks that nearly ended the dream. [21 Jan 2010, post-filiming, Air America went off the air for the last time, citing difficulties with the current economic environment, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidated itself.] Also see Wikipedia.
Let the Fire Burn - A 2013 documentary film about the events leading up to and surrounding a 1985 stand-off between the black liberation group MOVE and the Philadelphia Police Department. The film is directed and produced by Jason Osder and is being distributed by Zeitgeist Films.
Look of Silence, The - Joshua Oppenheimer's powerful companion piece to the Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer's footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions.
Los Angeles Plays Itself - A video essay by Thom Andersen, finished in 2003, exploring the way Los Angeles has been presented in movies. Consisting entirely of clips from other films, it was never released due to rights issues, though can been seen at film festivals and in special presentations by the director. Also see this page for movies mentioned in Los Angeles Plays Itself.
Loteria Films - Producing intimate, emotionally powerful work that brings attention to pressing political and social issues.
Maestra - Explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across Cuba - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process. Directed by Catherine Murphy.
Mafia Principle of Global Hegemony, The: The Middle East, Empire, and Activism - The world's most influential living intellectual, Noam Chomsky, holds forth on the root causes of the conflicts in the Middle East, and talks about hopes for future social change. The renowned foreign policy critic and linguist brings the full force of his rapier-like mind and deadpan wit to bear in slicing through mainstream misconceptions-many of them intentional-about the internal and external politics of Iran and Israel/ Palestine. Chomsky eloquently contextualizes the power of the Israel lobby and the centrality of the U.S. in resolving the underlying antagonisms in the Middle East, as well as weighing in on how U.S. public opinion has shifted over the past several decades and addressing various positive directions for activism. DVD includes an hour long extra of Noam Chomsky conversing with Larry Bensky about the media, class, and right wing populism.
Malcolm X: Make It Plain - Chronicles Malcolm X's journey from his birth on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, to his assassination at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on February 21, 1965. His story is told through the memories of people who had close personal and working relationships with him: prominent figures such as Maya Angelou, Ossie Davis and Alex Haley; Nation of Islam associates, including Wallace D. Muhammad, the son of Elijah Muhammad; and family members, including his wife, Betty Shabazz, and his oldest daughter, Attallah Shabazz. Included is extensive archival footage of Malcolm X, speaking in his own words at meetings and rallies, and in media interviews.
Man of Two Havanas, The - Feature film debut of Cuban born, Miami bred Vivien Lesnik Weisman: "What most Americans don't know is that terrorism in America did not begin on September 11th. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a reign of terror in Miami. There were as many as seven bombings in one day and hundreds per year. The culprits were not Communists. They were Americans. And my family was at the epicenter. Bombs away."
Marx Reloaded - A 2011 German documentary film written and directed by the British writer and theorist Jason Barker. Featuring interviews with several well-known philosophers, the film aims to examine the relevance of Karl Marx's ideas in relation to the effects of the Great Recession. Also see Wikipedia.
Mediastan - A small group of Wikileaks journalists make their way through Central Asia interviewing newspaper editors. Their real goal: to find local media outlets to publish secret US diplomatic cables. This intelligent, guerrilla-style doc follows their fascinating journey from Afghanistan to Manhattan, through the boundaries of free speech and the minds of those who shape our understanding of the world.
MLK: A Call to Conscience - Examines the forgotten agenda of Martin Luther King Jr., whose famed Beyond Vietnam speech, given at Riverside Church in 1967, led to an abrupt loss of his popularity in the last year of his life. The program explores the relevance of King's anti-war position to the current U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the significance of the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor bestowed upon both King and President Barack Obama.
Mondovino (World of Wine) - A 2004 documentary film from Italy on the impact of globalization on the world's different wine regions written and directed by American film maker Jonathan Nossiter. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and a Cesar Award. The film explores the impact of globalization on the various wine-producing regions, and the influence of critics like Robert Parker and consultants like Michel Rolland in defining an international style. It pits the ambitions of large, multinational wine producers, in particular Robert Mondavi, against the small, single estate wineries who have traditionally boasted wines with individual character driven by their terroir.
Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America - If you've ever wondered what a single person can do against the relentless onslaught of development, wait until you see the charismatic and enigmatic David Brower push the 1964 Wilderness Act through Congress, and then go on to save the Grand Canyon from damming and help create Redwoods National Park and Point Reyes National Seashore. Monumental documents the golden age of American environmentalism, when Brower took the Sierra Club from a regional hiking group into a national political force. Seen through Brower's own eyes--he was an accomplished filmmaker - a 1956 raft trip down Glen Canyon, before its damming, evokes the awful sadness of losing public land we've failed to protect.
Museum Hours - When a Vienna museum guard befriends an enigmatic visitor, the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum becomes a mysterious crossroads which sparks explorations of their lives, the city, and the ways artworks reflect and shape the world. Directed by Jem Cohen.
Myths for Profit - A dramatic, expose documentary which explores Canada's role in industries of war and peace. Through diverse interviews and case studies this documentary unveils the specific interests and profits that are made by certain corporation, individuals and agency within Canada. The Canadian government and the military would like us to believe that we are altruistic peacekeepers helping people around the world. But is this accurate? Myths for Profit examines how these misconception are maintained and who stands to gain by perpetuating them. MYTH (1) 'Canada is a peacekeeping nation' examines the changes within the Canadian military policies and what has been the agenda of these actions. From the historical beginnings of peacekeeping, to the recent missions, the documentary takes a critical look to the motives behind these actions. Particular focus is given to the role Canada has taken in NATO, the current perpetual war in Afghanistan, and how Canada played a pivotal role in pushing the policy of 'humanitarian bombing' in Yugoslavia in 1999. MYTH (2) 'Canada's military purpose is defence' By investigating the magnitude of the Canadian military industrial complex, this section probes the intersecting relationships between various government agencies and corporations as well as public complicity in this vast industry. MYTH (3) 'Canada's aid is helping people around the world' investigates how various government agencies and ministries have specific agendas they are implementing around the world. The active role taken on in regional development banks, to the policies pushed by Export Development Canada are designed and carried out to ensure a free market neo-liberal agenda in different countries, regardless of the negative effect they may have on the communities and environment they impact. This includes how Canada's development agency's (CIDA) ties and phantom aid function in post and present conflict zones.
Narcotic Farm, The - An hour-long historical PBS documentary narrated and scored by former inmate Wayne Kramer, the film tells the story of this long forgotten American institution through the voices of the former addicts who spent years of their lives locked within its walls. The film also features candid interviews with former government doctors at "Narco" who reflect on both the challenges of treating addicts there and the research achievements made possible in a total institution populated by hardcore drug addicts. Astonishing, government-produced 16mm films and photographs take viewers back to the grounds and inside the walls of The Narcotic Farm, highlighting its thriving jazz scene and revealing publicly for the first time the experience of prisoners involved in this world famous drug research program.
Natural Life - A threefold experimental documentary comprised of a 77-minute, single-channel video, a gallery installation and an interactive online archive. The piece challenges inequities in the U.S. juvenile justice system by depicting, through documentation and reenactment, the stories of five individuals of different age, gender, economic background and race, who were sentenced to Life Without Parole (Natural Life) for crimes they committed as youth. The youthful status and/or lesser culpability of these youths, their background and their potential for rehabilitation, were not taken into account at any point in the charging and sentencing process. The five will never be evaluated for change, difference or growth. They will remain in prison till they die.
Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power - Tells the dramatic story of the often-forgotten civil rights leader who urged African Americans to arm themselves against violent racists. In doing so, Williams not only challenged the Klan-dominated establishment of his hometown of Monroe, North Carolina, he alienated the mainstream Civil Rights Movement, which advocated peaceful resistance.
News War - This PBS Frontline documentary examines the political, cultural, legal, and economic forces challenging the news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Through interviews with key figures in print, broadcast and electronic media over the past four decades - and with behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, Frontline traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to the challenges presented by the war on terror and other global forces now challenging the role of the press in society.
Night Will Fall - A British Film Institute release, directed by Andre Singer, written by Lynette Singer and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter. The work is a film about a lost film, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, the official British record of the camps, which was shelved unfinished, for political reasons, at the end of the Second World War. The survey has now been completed, 70 years later, by Imperial War Museum (IWM) experts sifting through some 100 reels of unedited footage shot by specially trained ex-combat soldiers to recreate the sixth and final reel following the instructions laid down by the original production team in 1945. Also see Paul Mitchell's review at WSWS and Wikipedia's entry.
Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words - Draws on the work of Ken Hughes and his team at the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, as well as the work of Dr. Luke Nichter. Produced and directed by Peter Kunhardt; edited by Phillip Schopper.
Occupation: Dreamland - An unflinchingly candid portrait of a squad of American soldiers deployed in the doomed Iraq city of Falluja during the winter of 2004. Filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds were given access to all operations of the Armys 82nd Airborne. They lived with the unit 24/7, giving voice to soldiers held under a strict code of authority as they cope with an ambiguous, often lethal environment.
Occupation 101 - A powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict -- 'Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions. and Free Documentaries.
Occupation of the American Mind, The - Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and its repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States. The Occupation of the American Mind takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S. Narrated by Roger Waters and featuring leading observers of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the film explores how the Israeli government, the U.S. government, and the pro-Israel lobby have joined forces, often with very different motives, to shape American media coverage of the conflict in Israel's favor. Directed by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp.
Oil Factor, The: Behind the War on Terror - Examines the link between oil interests and current U.S. military interventions. It includes original footage shot over a four-month period in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as many interviews with a large array of personalities including Bush administration officials.
One Bright Shining Moment - Film by Stephen Vittoris; narrated by Amy Goodman. Retraces George McGovern's grassroots presidential campaign of 1972 - a campaign that fought to the bitter end for peace and justice, a campaign that positioned ideas and people first, and, a campaign crushed in workmanlike fashion by Richard Nixon. The film features interviews with a patchwork of historians, activists, the candidate himself, foot soldiers from his campaign, and others, including Gore Vidal, Gloria Steinem, Warren Beatty, Dick Gregory, Gary Hart, Frank Mankiewicz, Howard Zinn, Jim Bouton, Sen. Jim Abourezk, Rev. Malcolm Boyd, and Ron Kovic.
Open City Documentary Festival - The festival takes place over six days in June in venues across London and the programme offers a chance to see the best in contemporary, international documentary as well as filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, workshops, live music, networking and parties.
Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League's New York - A feature-length documentary film which tells the story of the rise and politically motivated fall of the Photo League, (1936-1951) which for fifteen years served as the center of the documentary movement in American photography at a time when the camera was held to be, in James Agee's words, the central instrument of our time.
Original Child Bomb - Inspired by Thomas Merton's poem, Original Child Bomb shows the human cost of nuclear weapons. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are depicted through declassified footage, photographs, drawings and testimonies of mothers, brothers and soldiers. Ordinary people gaze upon the nuclear past and its terrifying present. They expose the political rhetoric surrounding "security" and "weapons of mass destruction ". The film is a wake-up call and an invitation to action.
Orwell Rolls in His Grave - Filmmaker Robert Kane Pappas's long-winded yet terrifyingly bleak Orwell Rolls In His Grave argues that the mainstream American media are no longer the voice of American freedom. Instead, they're part of a repressive political power structure that has uncanny parallels with the dystopian world of George Orwell's novel 1984. Exploding the myth of the American media's liberal bias, the film asks tough questions: why, in March 2003, did 51% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for 9/11? Why did CBS hurriedly drop a BBC-led story about electoral irregularities in Florida after the subject of the allegations - Governor Jeb Bush - denied it was true?
OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism - Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know.
Panama Deception, The - Academy Award winning documentary in 1992, blue ribbon winner at the American Film & Video Festival, 1993, and recipient of a number of international film awards. Documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama; the events which led to it, the excessive force used, the enormity of the death and destruction, and the devastating aftermath. Refused broadcast by PBS.
Payback - Margaret Atwood's visionary work Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is the basis for this riveting and poetic documentary on 'debt' in its various forms-societal, personal, environmental, spiritual, criminal, and of course, economic. Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes) strikingly interweaves these (sometimes surprising) debtor/creditor relationships: two families in a years-long Albanian blood feud; the BP oil spill vs. the Earth; mistreated Florida tomato farm workers and their bosses; imprisoned media mogul Conrad Black and the U.S. justice system. With stunning cinematography and insightful commentary from renowned thinkers Raj Patel, Louise Arbour and Atwood herself, Payback is a brilliant rumination on the subject.
Persons of Interest - After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Muslim immigrants were subject to arbitrary arrest, secret detention, and solitary confinement by the U.S. Department of Justice. Through interviews, family photographs, and letters from prison, Director Alison Maclean fashions a compelling and poignant film, allowing the victims to tell their own stories.
Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune - Reveals the biography of a conflicted truth seeking troubadour who, with a guitar in hand, stood up for what he believed in and challenged us all to do the same. Unyielding in his political principals and unbending in his artistic vision, Phil Ochs, though branded a traitor by his critics, was above all a fiercely patriotic American. This is his story.
Pink Ribbons, Inc. - Billions of dollars have been raised through the tireless efforts of women and men devoted to putting an end to breast cancer. Yet, breast cancer rates in North America have risen to 1 in 8. What's going on? A 2011 National Film Board of Canada documentary about the pink ribbon campaign directed by Lea Pool and produced by Ravida Din.
Powerbroker, The - Follows Whitney Young's journey from segregated Kentucky to the national campaign for equal rights. During the turbulent 60s, he was a dilpomat between those in power and those striving for change. Young had the difficult tasks of calming the fears of white allies, relieving the doubts of fellow civil rights leaders, and responding to attacks from the militant black power movement. This complex tale explores the public and private trials of the man at the center of the storm.
Psywar: The Real Battlefield Is Your Mind - Explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the "elitist theory of democracy" and the relationship between war, propaganda and class.
Pull My Daisy (Robert Frank, 1959) - A short film that typifies the Beat Generation. Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Daisy was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of a stage play he never finished entitled Beat Generation. Kerouac also provided improvised narration. It starred Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Larry Rivers, Peter Orlovsky, David Amram, Richard Bellamy, Alice Neel, Sally Gross and Pablo Frank, Robert Frank's then-infant son. Based on an incident in the life of Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn, Daisy tells the story of a railway brakeman whose painter wife invites a respectable bishop over for dinner. However, the brakeman's bohemian friends crash the party, with comic results.
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer - An HBO documentary: Russian justice in the modern Putin era is seen through the eyes of a young feminist punk band who were arrested after a protest on the altar of Moscow's largest cathedral. Winner of the 2013 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Punk Spirit, this film reveals the story of three members of Pussy Riot who were charged with religious hatred, culminating in a trial that drew international attention. May also be see thru HBO GO.
Queen of Versailles, The - A documentary film by Lauren Greenfield, showing David Siegel, owner of Westgate Resorts, and his wife and family, as they're building the second largest (The Biltmore Estate is 175,000 square feet) and most expensive single-family house of 90,000 square foot in the America, and the crisis they're going through as the US economy goes down.
Radio Unnameable - Tells the story of the groundbreaking New York disc jockey Bob Fass and his innovative use of the airwaves to inform, entertain and encourage dialogue amongst listeners. His program is entirely free form, there's no telling what might happen next. It is a place to hear great music, conversations with artists and activists, audio experiments, and where the average listener can discuss local and international issues, from problems with landlords in the Bronx to the war in Afghanistan. Bob Fass is still on the air today (on WBAI in NYC), approaching 50 years behind the microphone, and he remains as vital and current as ever.
Real Death Valley, The - Reveals the little-known story of hundreds of migrants who have died in the sweltering Texas brush over the past five years while attempting to evade a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint that's not even on the border - in fact it's 70 miles inside the United States.
Reckoning With Torture - In Doug Liman's film Reckoning With Torture, ordinary Americans stand side-by-side with actors, writers, and former military interrogators and intelligence officers in a reading of official documents that reveal the scope and cost of America's post-9/11 torture program.
Recount - Kevin Spacey leads an outstanding cast in this illuminating, entertaining film that pulls back the veil on the headlines to explore the human drama surrounding the most controversial presidential election in U.S. history. Recount chronicles the 2000 United States Presidential Election Bush v. Gore case between Governor of Texas George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. It begins with the election on November 7 and ends with the Supreme Court ruling which stopped the Florida election recount on December 12. Key points depicted include Gore's retraction of his personal telephone concession to Bush in the early hours of November 8; the decision by the Gore campaign to sue for hand recounts in Democratic strongholds where voting irregularities were alleged, especially in light of the statistical dead heat revealed by the reported machine recount; Republican pressure on Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris in light of her legally mandated responsibilities; the attention focused on the hand recounts by media, parties, and the public; the two major announcements by Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters extending the deadline for returns in the initial recount (November 21, 2000) and ordering a statewide recount of votes (December 8, 2000), and later overturned by the United States Supreme Court; and finally the adversarial postures of the Supreme Courts of Florida and the United States, as well as the dissenting opinions amongst the justices of the higher court.
Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913 - A documentary that focuses on the 100th anniversary of an epic labor strike that devastated Michigan's Upper Peninsula Copper Country - and haunts the American labor movement to this day. Among the notable elements of that strike was the death of 73 children at a union Christmas party in what is now Calumet, Michigan. Known as the Italian Hall Disaster, it remains the deadliest unsolved manslaughter in U.S. history. The tragedy was immortalized by Woody Guthrie in his ballad "1913 Massacre," performed in the film by Steve Earle.
Requiem for the American Dream - Through interviews filmed over four years, Noam Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality - tracing a half-century of policies designed to favor the most wealthy at the expense of the majority - while also looking back on his own life of activism and political participation. Produced and directed by Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks and Jared P. Scott.
Revolution - From the coral reefs in Papua New Guinea to the rainforests in Madagascar, filmmaker Rob Stewart meets activists and individuals that are winning the battle to save the ecosystems we all depend on for survival.
Roadmap to Apartheid - Takes a detailed look at the apartheid analogy commonly used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Narrated by Alice Walker, Roadmap to Apartheid is as much a historical document of the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa, as it is a film about why many Palestinians feel they are living in an apartheid system today, and why an increasing number of people around the world agree with them.
Saint Misbehavin - Beginning with Woodstock '99, director Michelle Esrick has spent ten years documenting the life of Wavy Gravy. Saint Misbehavin' journeys from the hills of California to the Himalayan Mountains to reveal the life of this one of a kind servant to humanity. The film blends Wavy's own words with magical stories from an extraordinary array of fellow travelers both cultural and counter-cultural, revealing the man behind the clown's grin and the fool's clothing. In Saint Misbehavin' Wavy is revealed more than the tie-dyed entertainer and ice-cream flavor namesake that often defines him in the popular imagination. Audiences will come to know the activist, the optimist, and the healer who reaches beyond political, economic, and cultural divisions in his commitment to social change and the alleviation of human suffering.
Salute - Salute is a documentary about Australian sprinter Peter Norman and his public gesture of political solidarity with African American athletes John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968 Olympic Games. Directed by Matt Norman, it was first shown at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival where it won the Best Australian documentary prize.
Saudi Arabia Uncovered - PBS's Frontline reveals a side of Saudi Arabia that's rarely seen, and traces the efforts of men and women who are working to bring about change. Written and produced by James Jones.
Saving the Bay - Narrated by Robert Redford, Saving the Bay explores the history of one of America's greatest natural resources - San Francisco Bay - with four one-hour episodes tracing the Bay from its geologic origins following the last Ice Age through years of catastrophic exploitation to restoration efforts of today. This spectacular high-definition series takes viewers on an unforgettable journey around the waters of San Francisco Bay and the larger northern California watershed from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Farallon Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Seeds of Freedom - Charts the story of seed from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity-rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity, used to monopolise the global food system. The film highlights the extent to which the industrial agricultural system, and genetically modified (GM) seeds in particular, has impacted on the enormous agro-biodiversity evolved by farmers and communities around the world, since the beginning of agriculture. Seeds of Freedom seeks to challenge the mantra, promoted by the pro-GM lobby, that large-scale, industrial agriculture is the only means by which we can feed the world. In tracking the story of seed it becomes clear how the corporate agenda has driven the take over of seed in order to make vast profit and control of the global food system.
Sell Off - Tells the alarming story of how the UK's national health service as we know it has been quietly abolished. Directed by Peter Bach.
Shadow World, The - An exploration of the international arms trade directed by Johan Grimonprez.
Shadows of Liberty - Filmmaker Jean-Philippe Tremblay takes a journey through the darker corridors of the US media, where global conglomerates call the shots. In highly revealing stories, renowned journalists, activists and academics give insider accounts of a broken media system where controversial news reports are suppressed, people are censored for speaking out, and lives are shattered as the arena for public expression is turned into a private profit zone.
Shocking and Awful: A Grass Roots Response to War in Iraq - Deep Dish TV has collected and produced thirteen programs about the war and the occupation, which are being distributed to communities all over the United States on Free Speech TV and on community access channels. These programs address the implications and consequences of this country's recent military actions. The series also shows how people are mobilizing through art, actions, and international law.
Shutdown: The California-Fukushima Connection - The story behind the historic shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear generating station, located in tsunami and earthquake zones between densely populated Los Angeles and San Diego.
Sicko - Michael Moore's Sicko purposefully does not focus on the 50 million or so Americans who don't have health insurance, as scandalous as that is, but on the horror stories of middle-class working folks who believed they were adequately covered.
Silenced - How far would you go to tell the truth? That is the question posed by James Spione's documentary Silenced, which follows three national security whistleblowers who fight to reveal the darkest corners of America's war on terror while enduring the wrath of a government increasingly determined to maintain secrecy. The three are former Justice Department lawyer Jesselyn Radack, former senior National Security Agency official Thomas Drake, and former CIA officer John Kiriakou.
Silver City - A John Sayles film on greed, corruption, power and deception. Equal parts scathing political lampoon and sun-stunned neo-noir detective story.
Sir No Sir - In the 1960's an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn't take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam. Sir! No Sir! will change all that. The film does four things: 1) Brings to life the history of the GI movement through the stories of those who were part of it; 2) Reveals the explosion of defiance that the movement gave birth to with never-before-seen archival material; 3) Explores the profound impact that movement had on the military and the war itself; and 4) The feature, 90 minute version, also tells the story of how and why the GI movement has been erased from the public memory.
Slacker Uprising - Michael Moore's tour of colleges in battleground states during the 2004 election, with a goal to encourage 18-29 year olds to vote, and the response it received. It is one of the first major motion pictures to be released as a free and legal download online.
Slavery by Another Name - PBS documentary based on Douglas A. Blackmon's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, the film illuminates how in the years following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, persisting until the onset of World War II. The film, shot on location in both Birmingham and Atlanta, is built on Blackmon's extensive research, as well as interviews with scholars and experts about this historic period. It also incorporates interviews with people living today, including several African American descendants of victims of forced labor who discovered their connection to this history after reading Blackmon's book.
South of the Border - There's a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn't know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nėstor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon transformations in the region.
Soundtrack for a Revolution - Tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music -the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. The film features new performances of the freedom songs by top artists, including John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, and The Roots; riveting archival footage; and interviews with civil rights foot soldiers and leaders, including Congressman John Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, and Ambassador Andrew Young.
Spill, The - PBS Frontline and ProPublica investigation into the trail of problems -- deadly accidents, disastrous spills, countless safety violations -- which long troubled the oil giant, BP. Could the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have been prevented?
Spirit of '45, The - Ken Loach's documentary, compiled from archive footage and newly recorded interviews with elderly socialists who remember the 1930s and 40s and with youngish leftwing academics of today. Rather than the provocative polemic one might have expected, it's more of an over-extended party political broadcast for a phantom old Labour party that is forever waiting in the wings. It celebrates the Labour landslide at the 1945 general election and its resolve never to return again to the miserable conditions that the working class endured in the 1930s.
Standard Operating Procedure - Filmmaker Errol Morris (Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line) takes an unflinching look at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal while meditating on the frightening side effects of the "War on Terror" in a thought-provoking documentary from Participant Productions.
Star Wars Dreams - For more than 50 years, the United States has desired a ballistic missile defense system to create a metaphorical "roof over America." Award-winning British documentary filmmaker Leslie Woodhead relates the story of how this hunger for national security arose from a deep faith in high technology, political isolationism and religious fundamentalism. Ironic archive film clips and interviews with writer Frances Fitzgerald, former defense secretary Robert McNamara and the late Dr. Edward Teller aid in telling this history.
Stealing the Fire - Reveals how the most closely guarded secrets of our time are now for sale in a dangerous atomic underground. The filmmakers obtained exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to Karl-Heinz Schaab, a German technician, and his defense team during his recent trial for treason in Munich. Schaab is the first person in the world convicted of atomic espionage in an open trial in the last fifty years. He sold top secret documents stolen from Germany to Saddam Hussein and traveled to Baghdad numerous times to help Iraq in its nuclear bomb quest.
Substream Films - Representing radically independent, no-budget filmmakers from around the globe.
Sweet Crude - Sweet Crude is the story of Nigeria's Niger Delta. Here, citizens of an oil-rich nation struggle to eat in a land that can no longer support them. The Delta's water and soil have been fouled by the same oil production that accounts for more than 80 percent of the country's revenue. Traditional fishing and farming livelihoods are all but gone. Potable drinking water is rare. So is electricity. With pitifully few clinics and schools, curable conditions go untreated and illiteracy is high. Families are broken up, as men die young or take off for the cities to find jobs.
Take, The - In the wake of Argentina's spectacular economic collapse in 2001, Latin America's most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act - the take - has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. A film by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein.
Taxi to the Dark Side - Focuses on the controversial death in custody of an Afghan Jitney taxi driver named Dilawar who was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base. The film goes on to examine America's policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation.
Tierras Libres - A documentary about how Venezuelan farmers, while being provided with land, homes and education by the government, are falling victim to reprisal killings perpetrated by wealthy elites as an ineffective and unresponsive legal system allows impunity to reign in the countryside. Through the use of ethnographic and expository techniques, the film documents the testimony of the small famers, their hope for a better future and their struggle against a powerful and well-connected adversary.
There's Something About W - A clear and funny look at the policies of the Bush administration. Featuring Ivins, Krugman, Franken, Maher, Moore, Phillips.
Thirst - Is water a human right or a commoditity to be bought and sold in a global marketplace? A documentary film by Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman.
Trapped - A film by Dawn Porter. U.S. reproductive health clinics are fighting to remain open. Since 2010, 288 TRAP (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers) laws have been passed by conservative state legislatures. Unable to comply with these far-reaching and medically unnecessary measures, clinics have taken their fight to the courts. As the U.S. Supreme Court decides in 2016 whether individual states may essentially outlaw abortion (Whole Woman's Health v. Cole), Trapped follows the struggles of the clinic workers and lawyers who are on the front lines of a battle to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women.
Trials of Muhammad Ali, The - Delves into a time when an emerging sports superhero chooses faith and conscience over fame and fortune. The fury Ali faced from an American public enraged by his opposition to the Vietnam War and unwilling to accept his conversion to Islam, has implications for generations now coming of age amidst contemporary fissures involving freedom, faith and military conflict. Archival scenes highlight the forces who supported and opposed him, including his spiritual mentors, Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, and critics of his stance, such as Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis. Interviews shot exclusively for the film feature those who were there: his brother, Rahaman; his bride, Khalilah Camacho-Ali; New York Times writer, Robert Lipsyte; and Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan. What emerges is the hidden history of Muhammad Ali. Directed by Bill Siegel (The Weather Underground).
Unrepentant: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide - Kevin Annett reveals Canada's darkest secret, the deliberate extermination of indigenous peoples and the theft of their land under the guise of religion. This never before told history as seen through the eyes of this former minister who blew the whistle on his own church, after he learned of thousands of murders in its Indian Residential Schools.
Vessel - A 2014 multi-national documentary film written and directed by Diana Whitten as her debut film, focusing on the work of Women on Waves, a Dutch pro-choice organization founded by the Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts in 1999.
Voices in Wartime - View the experience of war through powerful images and the words of poets, soldiers, journalists, historians and experts on combat from around the world.
Waiting for Fidel - This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro's Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and television owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island.
Waiting Room, The - A character-driven documentary film that uses extraordinary access to go behind the doors of an American public hospital struggling to care for a community of largely uninsured patients. The film - using a blend of cinema verite and characters' voiceover - offers a raw, intimate, and even uplifting look at how patients, staff and caregivers each cope with disease, bureaucracy and hard choices.
War Made Easy - Reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations. War Made Easy gives special attention to parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq. Guided by media critic Norman Solomon's meticulous research and tough-minded analysis, the film presents disturbing examples of propaganda and media complicity from the present alongside rare footage of political leaders and leading journalists from the past, including Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, dissident Senator Wayne Morse, and news correspondents Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer.
War You Don't See, The - Focusing on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel, John Pilger explains how the practice of "embedding" journalists within the military not only controls what they're allowed to see but also how they're allowed to report it which would explain among other things why Basra was reported to have fallen 17 times before it actually did and how the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue was a made-for-TV moment.
Ways of Seeing - A BBC television series consisting of visual essays that raise questions about hidden ideologies in visual images. The series gave rise to a later book of the same name written by John Berger. It would be easy to say that Ways of Seeing is hopelessly dated -- made in 1972, the films come across as a puritan-groovy mix of Monty Python, the Open University and the Look Around You spoofs. And yet what's so remarkable about this series is that it seems more apposite, subversive and thought-provoking than ever.
We Are Many - On February 15th, 2003, up to 30 million people, many of whom had never demonstrated before in their lives, came out in nearly 800 cities around the world to protest against the impending Iraq War. The New York Times called this movement the "Second Superpower". How did this day come about? Who organized it? And was it, as many people claimed, a total failure? This fearless, thought-provoking documentary is the remarkable inside story behind the first ever global demonstration, and its surprising and unreported legacy. The film features testimony from a unique cast of direct participants, including organizers, activists, high-profile figures, and of course the public, filmed in seven countries - Italy, Spain, Egypt, Sweden, Australia, UK, and the USA.
We Come As Friends - Austrian-French documentary film written, directed and produced by Hubert Sauper. The film focuses on war-ravaged South Sudan fighting for independence from North Sudan and its President Omar al-Bashir.
We Women Warriors - A film by Nicole Karsin. Follows three native women caught in the crossfire of Colombia's warfare who use nonviolent resistance to defend their peoples' survival. Colombia has 102 aboriginal groups, one-third of which face extinction because of the conflict. Despite being trapped in a protracted predicament financed by the drug trade, indigenous women are resourcefully leading and creating transformation imbued with hope.
What Happened, Miss Simone? - Director Liz Garbus sensitively explores the constant state of opposition that trapped and tortured Nina Simone-as a classical pianist pigeonholed in jazz, as a professional boxed in by family life, as a black woman in racist America-and in so doing, reveals a towering figure transcending categorization and her times. The film stays true to Simone's subjectivity by mining never-before-heard tapes, rare archival footage, and interviews with close friends and family. Charting Simone's musical inventiveness alongside the arc of her Jim Crow childhood, defining role in the Civil Rights Movement, arrival at Carnegie Hall, self-imposed exile in Liberia, and solitary life in France, this astonishingly intimate yet epic portrait becomes a non-fiction musical-lush tracks and riveting story resonating inextricably.
Where to Invade Next - Michael Moore takes an in-depth look at the US's state of perpetual war.
White Water Black Gold - An investigative point-of view documentary that follows David Lavallee on his three-year journey across western Canada in search of answers about the activities of the world's thirstiest oil industry: the Tarsands.
Who Bombed Judi Bari? - A film about the 1990 Oakland car bombing of Earth First! organizers Judi Bariand Darryl Cherney and the FBI's and Oakland Police Department's attempt to frame them.
Wide Angle (PBS) - A weekly PBS TV series of one-hour international documentaries, hosted by Mishal Husain.
Wide Open Exposure - A production team based in Montreal made up of social justice organizers and media activists. Works with educators to bring into the classrooms critical independent film and video on issues of social and economic justice.
Who Killed the Electric Car? - Detroit automakers have spent millions attempting to unplug California's effort to put electric cars on the road. And so far, Detroit's succeeding.
Wide Open Exposure Productions - A documentary production team based in Montreal made up of social justice organizers and media activists.
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe - A documentary film about the late civil rights attorney William Kunstler directed by daughters Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler premiering at the 25th Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. William Kunstler was one of the most famous lawyers of the 20th century who's clients included Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Phillip and Daniel Berrigan, Abbie Hoffman, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Filiberto Ojeda Ríos and Leonard Peltier.
Winter Soldier - In February 1971, one month after the revelations of the My Lai massacre, an astonishing public inquiry into war crimes committed by American forces in Vietnam was held at a Howard Johnson motel in Detroit. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized this event called the Winter Soldier Investigation. More than 125 veterans spoke of atrocities they had witnessed and committed. Though the event was attended by press and television news crews, almost nothing was reported to the American public. Yet, this unprecedented forum marked a turning point in the anti-war movement.
Yes Men Fix the World, The - A screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks.
You Got to Move - Acclaimed social activists and filmmakers Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver present You Got to Move, a 1985 documentary that follows people from communities in the Southern United States in their various processes of becoming involved in social change. The film's centerpiece is the Highlander Folk School, an 80-year-old center for education and social action that was somehow involved in each of the lives chronicled.
Zeitgeist - The Movie - Zeitgeist, The Movie focuses on suppressed historical and modern information about currently dominant social institutions, while also exploring what could be in store for humanity if the power structures at large continue their patterns of self-interest, corruption, and consolidation. Zeitgeist: Addendum attempts to locate the root causes of this pervasive social corruption, while offering a solution.
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