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48:05Unwritten Future documents the events during the Republican National Convention in 2008 where excessive use of force and questionable tactics by police are on full show. Even peaceful radio host Amy Goodman is arrested. The film is dispersed with interviews with activists, asking them what they are fighting for, contrasted with police response and the aftermath.
1:47:39Let’s Make Money investigates the development of the world-wide financial system, showing that elitists economically exploit the rest of society, especially in the developing world, but also in western nations. Using the savings of a typical depositor as a case study, the film moves around the global system, showing exploitation at many levels. There are several interviews with investment managers, politicians, economists as well as homeless people and workers who give their take on the system and its impacts…
1:29:39By risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they document the uprisings against the military regime in 2007. Armed with small handycams, the Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reports from the streets of Rangoon. Their video footage is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back in via satellite and offered up for use in the international media. The whole world witnesses single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, the individual images have been put together here to tell a much bigger story…
1:22:27Going from classroom to real world, Establishing A Food Forest The Permaculture Way explains the patterns of a Food Forest and the essential principles of building a self-sufficient, sustainable way to eat. The film ends up at Tagari Farm which was abandoned years ago, but planted according to permaculture design principles. Did the Food Forest survive on its own?
1:06:04By examining 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, Consuming Kids presents 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 children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer ‘demographics’ in the world…
1:20:13Uncounted documents how the election fraud that altered the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 and future elections. The film shows how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the United States using electronic voting machines and even other simple methods of manipulation…
1:42:17Fabled Enemies examines the US government’s intelligence apparatus and its involvement in the events of September 11, 2001. Many questions surround the proceedings of that day. What were the precise actions of a shadow government operating in an underground bunker with Dick Cheney? Why did the FBI have their investigations into Bin Laden obstructed and shut down by George Bush before the attacks? Were the alledged hijackers trained at US military bases? Why was the military running exactly the same situation as ‘war games’ at exactly the same time of the attack?
49:05The Chicago Sessions explores the ethical implications of the financial crisis during three sessions with a group of law and philosophy students. The grounds of the University of Chicago provide a compelling arena, since it is here that both economist Milton Friedman—staunch promoter of free market capitalism—and Barack Obama, lectured. Examples of crisis related issues discussed during the sessions are: mortgage lending practices, foreclosures, bail outs and CEO pay. The students will test their ideas both on eminent professors and on field experts. The discussion is fueled and illustrated by case stories that the students themselves provide. The cases show how the financial crisis really affects the people of Chicago and in one example shows the consequences of the foreclosures in a neighborhood not far from the university and Barack Obama’s home.
In the 1970s, acid rain and other ecological concerns were at the fore and it was at this time that climate change first became a pressing political issue. But the concern wasn’t global warming — it was the threat of a new ice age. So how did the scientific community manage to get it so very wrong? Uncovered 30 years later, the secret government organisation known as “Jason”, produces the first official report on global warming in 1979. Fast forward to the mid 1980s and global warming had already become a serious political issue. However, it is not until the 1990s that the issue turns out to become one of the biggest scientific controversies of the age…
1:25:48Blind Spot investigates the convergence of causes behind the current crisis of global industrial civilisation. By establishing the links between fossil fuels and the falsehood of perpetual exponential economic growth, Blind Spot explains the draw down of the natural environment, and how this globalised culture is systematically killing the world in its path. The energy depletion scenario known as Peak Oil—which came to pass around 2006—requires this culture to change drastically, with dire consequences either way. By whatever measure of greed, wishful thinking, neglect or ignorance, this current way of life cannot continue and the clock is ticking fast for change.
1:09:45More than three million Vietnamese people still suffer the gruelling effects of chemical weapons used by the United States during the Vietnam War. American militaries doused forests, lands and waterways of Vietnam with the deadly chemicals Agent Orange, White, Blue, Pink, Green and Purple. Agent Orange in particular, which contains dioxin—the most toxic chemical ever known—has disabled countless people and generations of their offspring. This film weaves personal stories together with the stories of American GIs to lead to a great unravelling of the first-hand devastating and lethal effects of Agent Orange and war, generations later.
1:45:01The End of Poverty? traces the growth of global poverty back to colonisation in the 15th century to reveal why it’s not an accident or simple bad luck that there is a growing underclass around the world. Featuring interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians, the film details how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policy which has allowed powerful nations to exploit poorer ones for their assets, turning the money back to the hands of the concentrated few. This also follows on to how wealthy nations—especially the United States—thereby exert massive debts, seize a much disproportionate exploit of the natural world, and how this deep imbalance has dire consequences on the environment and on people…
59:40Generation M looks at misogyny and sexism in mainstream media, exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward women get constructed and perpetuated throughout popular culture. The film tracks this across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena: from the hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, to the explosion of violence against women in video games aimed at boys; from the hysterical sexist rants of popular hip-hop artists and talk-radio shock-jocks, to the continually harsh, patronizing caricature of women found in virtually every area of media. Generation M posits the consequences of misogyny in all of its forms, showing that when we devalue more than half the population based on gender, we harm everyone—boys and men, women and girls alike.
55:08The Medicated Child confronts psychiatrists, researchers and government regulators about the risks, benefits and many questions surrounding psychotropic drugs for children. The biggest current controversy surrounds the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Formerly called manic depression, bipolar disorder was long believed to only ‘apply to adults’, but in the mid-1990s ‘bipolar disorder in children’ began to be diagnosed at much higher rates, sometimes in children as young as 4 years old…
56:53Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography is now the most pervasive and visible aspect of popular culture, assuming an unprecedented role in media as its content becomes more harsh and extreme, racist and abusive. This eye-opening and disturbing film moves beyond frivolous “liberal versus conservative” debate and tackles the real issues surrounding pornography by placing the voices of performers themselves, producers and critics directly alongside the observations of women and men as they candidly discuss the role porn has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships. The Price Of Pleasure reveals a nuanced portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, freedom and responsibility have become extremely twisted by popular culture, usurping the most intimate area of our lives.
1:18:28Energy War considers the continuing geopolitical consequences of the dependency on fossil fuels into the future. In the struggle for the last of the resources, countries all over the world are forced to further strategise and make strange alliances. Using the gas conflict between Georgia and Russia and the position of Saudi Arabia, Energy War travels through international markets for energy and asks: If oil and gas are scarce and expensive, where will countries turn to keep their economy going and their population warm and happy?
51:15On 8th August 1945, the United States dropped its second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. The city was a veritable apocalyptic vision, devastated by this new type of weapon. Nagasaki — The Horror Of Fat Man documents the memories of survivors, both Japanese civilians and Western Prisoners Of War, as they relate the morbid aftermath of the bombings, the United States occupation, and the segregation that still effects fallout victims to this day.
41:45For 20 years the NSW Crime Commission went about its business with drugs quietly. When it scored a bust, it stood back and let politicians and the police bask in credit. But all that changed with the sensational arrest of the commission’s assistant director, Mark Standen, on charges of trafficking drugs. His spectacular downfall threw a spotlight onto the Crime Commission’s remarkable array of powers and how it abuses them. Secret hearings, witnesses compelled to answer questions, broad powers of search and surveillance, no independent review process…
1:57:53Fool Me Twice documents the Australian government’s lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali bombings (including the 1993 World Trade Centre attack) and subsequent anti-terror legislation forced through parliament by the Howard government. Laws that are still in effect today…
31:15Ground Noise And Static is a video report on the protests that occurred in connection with the Democrat and Republican National Conventions in 2008. Corporate media would cover the platitudes and posturing of the politicians, but this film is interested in something else — a story hidden in plain sight, told from the perspective of activists…
1:09:50Stealing America: Vote by Vote examines a bundle of documented cases of election manipulation and irregularities throughout the United States, some that stretch back as far as 1996. The film focuses on voter disfranchisement, the use of electronic voting machines, and voting anomalies such as uncounted ballots, inaccurate final vote tallies, and vote-switching. Through a combination of first-person accounts (including Democratic Sen. Bob Hagan of Ohio, who also witnessed vote-switching firsthand), extensive research and revealing clips from multiple TV news sources, this film investigates the many ‘glitches’ in voting procedures that result in literally millions of votes being potentially lost, miscounted or even deleted.
1:26:15From styrofoam cups to artificial organs, plastic is perhaps the most ubiquitous and versatile material ever invented — no product in the past 100 years has had more a profound influence and presence than synthetics. But such ‘progress’ has a cost — no ecosystem or segment of human activity has escaped the strangling grasp of plastic. Addicted To Plastic investigates what we really know—and don’t know—about this material. Talking to manufacturers, recyclers, cleaners, scientists and others, Addicted To Plastic shows plastic’s toxic legacy and devastating ecological impact, provoking serious questions about health, food and the environment…
1:23:32Flow—For The Love Of Water builds a case against the growing privatisation of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with a specific focus on human rights, pollution, the politic of corporate influence in the emergence of a domineering global water cartel. The film names and clearly documents many of the culprits, while asking the question—can anyone really ‘own’ water?
1:49:01Monsanto corporation seems to be stopping at nothing: Controlling corn, wheat, soy beans, canola, mustard, okra, bringe oil, rice, cauliflower… Once they have established the norm, they aim to claim all these seeds as their intellectual property, royalties will be collected and enforced by patent law. If Monsanto controls seed, they control food and they know it. It’s strategic. It can be more devastating than bombs, it can be more powerful than guns. This is their way to control the populations of the world, and as The World According to Monsanto reveals, it’s governments in the cross-hairs also.
21:30From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. This is by design. The Story of Stuff serves as an introduction to the underside of the current world of mass production and consumption, exposing the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues — shedding the light on the hidden processes behind our modern world. How can we create a more sustainable and just economy?
2:04:16Militainment Inc. examines how news coverage of war in the United States has come to resemble Hollywood film, video games, and reality television in its portrayal of war as entertainment. Using a range of media examples—from news anchors’ idolatry of military machinery to the impact of government propaganda on war reporting—Militainment Inc. asks: How has war taken its place as a spectacle of entertainment? And how does presenting war as entertainment affect the ability of the population to evaluate the real human costs of this culture’s military-industrial-complex?
1:33:27Up the Yangtze focuses on the people affected by the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river in Hubei, China. Countless ancient villages and historic locales will be submerged, and 2 million people will lose their homes and livelihoods. The theme of the film is the rapacious transition towards consumer capitalism from a traditional farming and peasant-based society…
1:38:35Loose Change is a series of films that present evidence that the September 11, 2001 attacks were planned and conducted by elements of the United States government. The series also examines anomalies in the historical record of the attacks while drawing comparisons from some of the many mysterious and renowned events that have reshaped world history, such as the Reichstag Fire in 1933 that catapulted Hitler to dictatorship and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964 that led to the Vietnam War.
1:30:569/11 Mysteries presents and analyses over 90 minutes of demolition evidence, laced with witness testimonials from key figures in the events of September 11th such as William Rodriguez — a janitor from the North Tower of the World Trade Centre who was inside during the attacks. Moving from the myth through to analysis and into a discussion of the players, careful deconstruction of the official story is set alongside clear physics. How do you turn a 110-story building to dust in under ten seconds?
1:10:15Reaching into the Orwellian memory hole, War Made Easy exposes the some 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Using archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George Bush, this film reveals how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive governments — paying special attention to the parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq…
2:03:17What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire covers the current situation facing humanity globally. It discusses issues such as peak oil, climate change, population overshoot and species extinction, as well as how this situation has developed…
1:34:00Set in Latin America and the US, War on Democracy explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. John Pilger examines the role of Washington in America’s manipulation of Latin America during the last 50 years leading up to the struggle by ordinary people to free themselves from poverty and racism…
23:13For Your Eyes Only? reports on the existence of a secret government program that intercepts millions of e-mails each day in the name of ‘terrorist surveillance’. News about the program came to light when a former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, blew the whistle on a large-scale installation of secret Internet monitoring equipment deep inside AT&T’s San Francisco office. The equipment was installed at the request of the United States government to spy on all e-mail traffic across the entire Internet. Though the government and AT&T refuse to address the issue directly, Klein backs up his charges with internal company documents and personal photos…
1:29:35Burning The Future documents the devastating environmental and social impacts of coal mining specifically in West Virginia in the United States, where mountaintop removal mining has obliterated 1.4 million acres of mountains, polluted the groundwater, destroyed farm land and communities. The film follows a group of people directly affected by mining who venture to challenge the coal industry with the intent to protect mountains, save their families, and preserve life. However, their efforts are hampered by the systems that protect coal interests, the interests of business and industrial civilisation. This film shows the imperative need to fight back against powerful mining magnates, and how common legal channels of persuasion and reform simply do not exist. How do we stop these massive mining magnates from killing the world we live in?
48:39Law Professor James Duane from the Regent Law School in Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Police Officer George Bruch from the Virginia Beach Police Department, both explain why even innocent people should never talk to the police or agree to answer questions from the police. Citing a trove of examples and even though pertaining to US law, this talk is particularly applicable for political activists the world over as Security Culture 101.
58:32Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! speaks about the mainstream media’s coverage of US interventions around the world and demonstrates the link between corporate media and government, and how this plays a major part in selling war at home and abroad…
For millions of people, the global economic collapse has generated curiosity about how money systems actually work, as opposed to how they’re portrayed, especially when so many financial pundits seem to be baffled. In The Ascent of Money, economist Niall Ferguson works through some history that created today’s money system, visiting the locations where key events took place and poring over actual ledgers and documents, such as the first publicly traded share of a company. Viewed with a critical eye, this series aims to show how the history of money is indeed at the core of civilisation, with economic strength determining political dominance, wars fought to create wealth and individual financial barons determining the fates of millions.
1:55:52In 2004, during the invasion of Iraq, the public learned of systemic sexual abuse, torture, rape and even murder going on inside Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Photographs taken by the soldiers themselves were at the centre of the scandal, and seared public consciousness. Standard Operating Procedure sets out to examine the context of these photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup. An expose, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a coverup because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything, that there was no need to look further…
Life In Cold Blood is a five part series studying the evolution and habits of amphibians and reptiles, presented by David Attenborough.
23:53Paraguay’s Painful GMO Harvest reports on a nationwide peasant uprising against farmers of genetically-modified soya who are seen as colonists partly responsible for the almost total deforestation of the eastern provinces…