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Documentary

A New Documentary Unspools The Life Of Malcolm X

March 24, 2018 By Alex Demyanenko, Capitalandmain.com , ,
Most people know that Malcolm X began his public career by calling for black separatism. Lost Tapes: Malcolm X reveals surprising details that have not been seared into our collective view of the martyred activist. At the end of the Smithsonian Channel’s Lost Tapes: Malcolm X, Ossie Davis delivers a stirring eulogy for Malcolm X, the fallen Muslim minister and human rights activist. “And we will know him then for what he was and is,” Davis intones, “a Prince – our own black shining Prince!” The haze of history has obscured some of the finer details of this remarkable leader’s life, one cut short by assassination at the age of 39 in 1965. Schools go into far greater detail about the life and times of another spiritual leader, Martin Luther King Jr., but in the shadows behind King’s narrative lurk remarkable stories of a prince that have been largely ignored.

‘Whose Streets?’ Tracks Inspirational Call For Social Justice

August 14, 2017 Jordan Riefe, www.truthdig.com , , , ,
By Jordan Riefe for Truth Dig - On Aug. 9 three years ago, unarmed teen Michael Brown was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. The killing took place under disputed circumstances, and Wilson was never charged for the shooting. In the days that followed, peaceful demonstrators were met by a military show of force that escalated into violence, mayhem and looting. “A riot is the language of the unheard” is Martin Luther King Jr.’s answer to those who ask why the disaffected don’t pursue justice through established channels. “Ain’t no Constitution in Ferguson,” says a protester in the gritty new documentary “Whose Streets?” as he ponders Barack Obama’s days as a constitutional law professor. “Tell that n—– he needs to teach a new class and bring his ass to Ferguson, Missouri, and tell us why there ain’t no Constitution.” While a wide majority of protests in the wake of Brown’s killing were peaceful, the media focused on looting and destruction of property. In the eyes of the public, the images shown on TV rationalized the militarization of police forces, newly fortified after the Department of Defense 2013 decision to provide surplus MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protected military vehicles), bayonets, grenade launchers, assault rifles and other tactical weapons to local law enforcement.

Black Snake Killaz: A #NoDAPL Story

May 11, 2017 Staff, www.unicornriot.ninja ,
By Staff of Unicorn Riot - In Black Snake Killaz, Unicorn Riot brings you the raw experience from many frontline actions throughout the struggle to protect the water. Although the Dakota Access Pipeline is completed, the impact of the movement will be long-lasting. As fossil fuel extraction projects continue to impact some of the most vulnerable communities throughout the United States of America, the importance of the water protectors story grows. This film is a collaborative creative commons project being produced by Unicorn Riot, a non-profit 501(c)3 educational media organization. Our journalists, who were on the ground covering the demonstrations throughout the entire campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, have gathered extensive footage and are working hard to produce this film for historic and educational purposes. We need your help in the creation of this documentary. PRODUCTION FUNDING: Research, editing, and other aspects of production must still be completed. We hope to gather enough financial support for this project to wrap up remaining interviews and finish the post-production phase of the film. Our production team also needs funding for hardware, such as external hard drives, a better editing station, and to support cloud-based file sharing.

Divided But Fighting Back: Interview With Inequality Documentary Filmmakers

October 18, 2016 Alex Demyanenko, www.capitalandmain.com ,
By Alex Demyanenko for Capital and Main - Depending on whom you ask, Solly Granatstein and Rick Rowley have spent their careers either causing trouble or exposing truths. As investigative journalist-filmmakers they have been on the front lines of digging up facts and battling the status quo, all to expose injustice. They’ve been pretty damn good at it too. Granatstein worked for 60 Minutes for 12 years and has won seven Emmys, a Peabody and a host of other awards. Rowley’s Dirty Wars

“Do Not Resist”: Police Militarization Documentary Everyone Should See

October 15, 2016 Ryan Devereaux, www.theintercept.com , , ,
By Ryan Devereaux for The Intercept - The officers, members of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department tactical team, were descending on a modest one-story house looking for drugs and guns. The team smashed through the windows of the home with iron pikes, then stormed the front door with rifles raised. Inside, they found a terrified family of four, including an infant. As the family members were pulled outside, Atkinson’s camera captured a scene that plays out with startling regularity in cities and towns across the country

Israel’s Occupation Of The American Mind, Documented

April 4, 2016 Abba Solomon, www.mondoweiss.net , ,
By Abba Solomon for Mondoweiss - Harriet Beecher Stowe is reputed — in Stowe family legend at least — to have been greeted by President Lincoln with, “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe’s novel that dramatized government-sanctioned human bondage, is credited, somewhat fancifully, with moving American public opinion about slavery and helping start the US Civil War. This documentary film aims to explain why United States media, in contrast to most of the world’s, omit the Palestinian story, and thus why US public opinion favors Israel so markedly.

New Documentary: Necessary Reminder Of Gigantic Scandal

November 2, 2015 Peter Bradshaw, www.theguardian.com , , ,
By Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian. We Are Many is a new documentary which is on the list for an Academy Award. Several showings are coming up. This film does a necessary job. It’s a piece of history that must grapple with both the success of the Stop the War march and its manifest failure: a staggeringly huge demonstration of public opinion that nevertheless did not stop the war. But Amir Amirani makes a bold case for understanding the march in a larger context: that over the next decade it re-energised people power, sowed the seed for Egypt’s Arab spring and laid the foundations for Labour’s sober, courageous refusal to countenance the attack on Syria. Meanwhile, we wait for the Chilcot report. A very valuable film.

The Black Panthers Are Back

October 1, 2015 Reese Erlich ,www.commondreams.org ,
By Reese Erlich for Common Dreams - Seeing a documentary on the Black Panthers while sitting next to Bobby Seale is quite an experience. As we watch a press preview of the film in an East Oakland home, the co-founder of the Panthers sometimes calls out the names of old comrades as they appear on screen, or he corrects an occasional error in the film. The documentary to be aired on PBS, "The Black Panther Party: Vanguard of the Revolution," has a dramatic moment describing the 1969 Chicago 8 trial when Seale demanded the right to defend himself. The Chicago federal judge refused, and he ordered Seale shackled and gagged. As the film played audio tape of the scene, Bobby Seale, sitting next to me, recreates the sound of his speaking through the gag: "I want my freedom! I want my right to defend myself!" "The Black Panther Party" is the latest in series of feature films and documentaries about the Oakland group that shook the establishment then -- and causes controversy even today.

The Drug War Is Everybody’s Enemy

July 7, 2014 Stephanie Polito, www.drugpolicy.org , ,
Monday afternoon, Eugene Jarecki, filmmaker of the award-winning documentary The House I Live In joined the Drug Policy Alliance’s asha bandele for a discussion of the film’s impact. The film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2012, has had a profound impact on the growth of the reform movement to end the war on drugs. The film has been screened all over the nation, making a complicated policy issue accessible and appealing to people of all different ideologies. As Jarecki said during the call, the drug war is an enemy, “whether you're a humanist or just a bottom-line guy.” The film has also inspired my own work in this movement. The first time I saw Jarecki’s film was at an event honoring Nannie Jeter, the film’s focus, in Baltimore, a city where the real-life damage inflicted by the war on drugs was famously fictionalized in David Simon’s acclaimed television series The Wire. I love Baltimore. The four years I spent in the city during college are incredibly important to me, but as a student at a college whose students were overwhelmingly white and from upper-middle class families, my experience of the city was limited. Students used alcohol and other drugs with little to no consequences, while communities nearby were, and continue to be, devastated by failed drug war policies.

See The Story Of Aaron Swartz Now

July 2, 2014 Takepart, www.takepart.com , , ,
The Internet’s Own Boy follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

Documentary: The Color Of Lawlessness

June 27, 2014 Taylor C. Hall, www.hatchfund.org , , ,
Thru the eyes of victimized communities this documentary will provide an in-depth view to the misconduct of law enforcement agencies. The Color of Lawlessness is based off of the United States law "Color of Law" (42 U.S.C.A. Section 1983) which is "the appearance of an act being performed based upon legal right or enforcement of statute, when in reality no such right exists." Since the advent of the first state-sponsored police forces in the U.S. – slave patrols; radicalized policing has been a feature of the American landscape. It is no surprise that the U.S. government has failed to uphold any type of constitutional laws that pertain to the American public due to so many violations by law enforcement officials. This documentary (hopefully with your support) will bring to the light the excessive force, sexual assaults, torture and other cruel inhuman and degrading tactics used by law enforcements reckless and unapologetic ways. As an independent journalist and an African-American male I've been in multiple situations where the police tried to intimidate, hurt and/or degrade me. My reason behind making this documentary is to first educate the unknowledgeable, unify globally by common interest; the abuse of power and to hopefully help change the thought process of these individuals who are apart of these agencies.
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