In 1929, in the face of collapsing demand for coal and a deepening economic crisis, mine owners in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia; announced, with the support of government, that they would cut miners’ wages and strip them of their workers rights. When the workers refused to agree to these terms the mine owners locked the gates. 10,000 miners, pit boys and their families now found themselves without a job. What began as an dispute about industrial labour ended up overpowering a government, crippling an industry and besieging a community. This event challenged the rights of every Australian worker, and redefined the political and industrial landscape of a country that witnessed an event forever remembered as ‘The Great Australian Lockout.’
The Nuclear Comeback embarks on a tour of the nuclear industry, documenting some of the most ‘famous’ nuclear facilities worldwide — the control room of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the UK’s Calder Hall, a nuclear waste repository under the Baltic Sea, the Ranger uranium mine in Australia, and one of only two nuclear waste “recycling plants” in the world. In addition of the links to nuclear weapons, the nuclear industry has a reputation for accidents and cover-ups. What are the ‘risks’? What to do with the 100,000+ year legacy of dangerous radioactive waste? Is this insane?
The average child in the United States spends 40+ hours per week consuming media—the equivalent of a full-time job. This means that by the time children born today turn 30, they will have spent an entire decade of their lives in front of a screen. Remote Control examines the implications of this unprecedented level of exposure by showing the media habits of two families and supplementing their personal insights with interviews from media experts and educators. Revealed is the centrality of media in our lives and far-reaching effects that we are only beginning to understand, as well as ways we might begin to help our children live a life instead of watching one.
9/11 — Birth Of Treason provides an analysis of the attacks of September 11 2001. Amongst interviews and exchanges, Steven Jones and Kevin Ryan of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice speak about their research. Examined is the phenomenon of the freefall-speed collapse of the towers and building 7, and Steven Jones’ research into Thermite/Thermate explosives…
Following up from The End Of Suburbia, this film examines the rich interplay on the subtle relationships between the energy crisis, neighbourhood gardens and the collapse of the ‘American dream’. Escape From Suburbia outlines potential solutions with interviews from individuals across the world who are brave enough to challenge their communities toward change…
The Planet is a stylised observational video commentary that brings together an overview of the many global changes set about by industrial civilisation. Viewed through the myriad connections between consumerism and the false notion of a perpetually expanding economy on a finite planet, the film peers across the globe to reveal systemic exploitation; species extinction driven by industrial agriculture, logging, mining, manufacturing, pollution, the age of oil and plastic, etc; climate change; carrying capacity and population growth; while also positing that we—as in you and me—can do something, anything, to stop the destruction.
Around 8.4 million children around the world are enslaved today. Child Slavery travels across three continents, focusing on five children and their stories…
Robert Beckford visits Ghana to investigate the hidden costs of rice, chocolate and gold and why, 50 years after independence, a country so rich in ‘natural resources’ is one of the poorest in the world. He discovers child labourers farming cocoa instead of attending school and asks if the activities of multinationals, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have actually made the country’s problems worse…
Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances. Featuring interviews with many people with various perspectives on copyright, including copyright lawyers, producers and artists, Good Copy Bad Copy documents that “creativity itself is on the line” and that a balance needs to be struck, or that there is a conflict, between protecting the right of those who own intellectual property and the rights of future generations to create…
What stories do contemporary music videos tell about girls, women, boys, men, sexuality and gender? What are the cultural values portrayed? And from whose perspective? Dreamworlds encourages viewers to consider how these narratives shape individual and cultural attitudes about sexuality. Illustrated with hundreds of examples, the film accounts both the continuing influence of music videos and how popular culture generally filters the identities of young men and women through a narrow and dangerous set of myths about sexuality and gender; asking viewers to re-look at the images that have been normalised and meanings taken for granted throughout popular culture…
Filmed in Thailand and the Philippines in July 2007, Squeezed tells the story of how free trade agreements and globalisation are changing the lives of millions of people living in the Asia-Pacific region with APEC. Featuring interviews with farmers, workers and slum-dwellers, the film travels across the landscapes of Asia, from the lush rice paddies of Thailand to squatter settlements perched on a rubbish dump in urban Manila. Documenting these contrasts and contradictions, Squeezed accounts the impact of globalisation…
What if you live in the most destructive culture ever to exist? What if that culture refuses to change? What do you do about it? Derrick Jensen, the author of Endgame responds to these imperative questions and details how industrial civilisation and the persistent and widespread violence it requires is ultimately unsustainable—and what to do about it. Jensen weaves together history, philosophy, environmentalism, economics, literature and psychology to produce a powerful argument that demands attention…
The Intelligence Revolution is an extolling and largely non-critical account by advocate Michio Kaku who unflinchingly explains how artificial intelligence will “revolutionise homes, workplaces and lifestyles,” and how virtual worlds will apparently become “so realistic” that they will “rival” the real physical world. Robots with “human-level intelligence” may finally become a reality according to Kaku, and in the ultimate stage of scientific mastery, the era of control imperative and domination, this culture will seek to merge human minds with so-called machine intelligence. Also, for the first time, we see how a severely depressed person can be turned into a happy person at the push of a button—all thanks to the convergence of neuroscience and microtechnology. What’s wrong with such developments? And the larger culture such that technologies like this are being developed in the first place? How do such prospects impact the real physical world and the real physical lives of all of us?
Most people who know that the mainstream media manipulates stories, manufactures illusions, and exploits fears can realise that the reason is more than just bias or sloppy reporting. Behind The Big News shows the ideological agenda that originates outside the media that defines today’s headlines, using examines of some of the biggest news stories in recent decades to illustrate how this agenda is rigorously promoted and protected.
This short film chronicles a metamorphosis of mainstream media and political power throughout the last decades, by looking at the role of the television journalist. In the early 1950s, not long after the invention of television itself, TV journalists essentially served as prompters for government figureheads and official viewpoints. This function changed somewhat however, with the political scandals of the 1960s and 70s, exemplified by Watergate, where some journalists joined the mainstream shift in society of questioning political power, big business and bureaucracy. Out of this boomed a new era of investigative journalism. But this ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall as the old certainties of “good and bad” and “right and left” were blurred and no longer simple. But rather than working to make sense of the complexity, journalism turned from moral principles to a simple reporting of experience, devoid of context. TV journalists now plead with the audience to send in photos and videos as a kind of so-called “democratised” media, but what actually functions as a vast echo-chamber of uncertainty and unaccountability.
Payback Time recounts the experiences of Ramin Bakhtiarvandi as an asylum Seeker in Australia’s Detention Centres from June 2000. After his release from a 4 year long detention, Ramin receives a $227,000 bill from the government. Payback Time raises serious questions about the conduct of the Australian Government to this day when dealing with asylum seekers, as well as revealing the harsh realities of a racist culture and complicit mainstream media.
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib examines the sexual abuse, torture, rape, and murder of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison at the hands of US military police in the fall of 2003. The film shows how the abuse was systemic of the military-intelligence complex, flawing the “bad apples” theory that was sprouted through the media at the time. By making reference to Stanley Milgrim’s obedience experiments of the 1960s, the film asks: How can ordinary people take these actions? And what orders came from the chain of command?
If one steps back and looks at what freedom actually means in the West today, it’s a strange and limited kind of freedom. The United States and its empire self-describe fighting the Cold War for “individual freedom,” yet it is still something that the leaders of our so-called democracies continually promise to give us. Abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to force “freedom” on to other people has led to more than just bloody mayhem, and this, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain and elsewhere. In response, the government has dismantled long-standing laws that were designed to protect individual freedom and civil liberties.
Australian journalist, author and film maker John Pilger speaks about global media consolidation, war by journalism, the US military and its quest for domination/hegemony in the post 9-11 era and the false history that is presented in the guise of ‘objective’ journalism…
Occupation 101: Voice of the Silenced Majority details life in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israeli military occupation. Examining events from the rise of Zionism to the Second Intifada and Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan, as well as the role of the United States in the occuption, this film gives voice to many American and Israeli scholars, religious leaders, humanitarian workers, and NGO representatives—more than half of whom are Jewish—who are critical of the injustices and human rights abuses stemming from Israeli policy in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
The Battle Of Chernobyl recounts the most significant and catastrophic nuclear explosion in history — an incident that was kept secret for twenty years by the Soviet Union and United States alike. More than 200 people died or were seriously injured by radiation exposure immediately after the explosion and many generations later, the impacts are still felt in cancers, birth defects and toxic ecology, with millions of people still suffering from radiation related health problems such as leukaemia and thyroid cancer…
Is genetic engineering really dangerous? The manufacturers claim that genetically modified food “produces higher yields, fights world hunger, and reduces the need for pesticides.” But at what cost? Following the Trail questions whether any solid testing has been done to determine the safety and risks of genetically engineered foods and examines evidence to test the veracity of the claims made by genetic engineering corporations that the foods produce ‘higher yields, fight world hunger’ etc…
On September 11, 2001 and for approximately nineteen years prior, William Rodriguez was employed as a maintenance worker at the World Trade Center. On the day of the attacks, Rodriguez initially rescued fifteen persons from the World Trade Center, and as the only person at the site with the master key to the North Tower stairwells, he led fire-fighters up the towers unlocking doors, aiding in the successful evacuation of unknown hundreds of those who survived. This is the account of his version of events…
The American Blackout chronicles the 2002 defeat, and 2004 re-election, of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to the U.S. House of Representatives, focussing on issues surrounding voter disenfranchisement and the use of electronic voting machines in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections…
Big Bucks, Big Pharma looks at the varied insidious methods of the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to manipulate—and in some instances create—psychological conditions for profit. Focusing on the advertising for psychotropic drugs, the film demonstrates the ways in which pharmaceutical marketing glamorises and normalises the use of prescription medication, and how this works in tandem with promotion and delivery by doctors. These practices combine to shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to mental and physical health, as well as treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges the viewer to ask important questions about the consequences of a society relying on a for-profit industry for collective health and well-being.
My Country, My Country documents the United States’ invasion of Iraq from an insider’s perspective, as told by Iraqi citizens themselves, and by the efforts of a devoted father and Sunni Muslim political candidate. Filmmaker Laura Poitras also spends time on the ground following the United States military ‘Civil Affairs’ team during the 2005 elections in Iraq. As the US government attempts to “bring democracy” to the country, Baghdad native Dr. Riyadh is faced with making the difficult decision of supporting the popular boycott of the elections, or fighting for a democracy that seems ever more unlikely with each passing day. With intimate footage of Dr. Riyadh’s interactions with the public and candid interviews featuring the opinions of every-day citizens, My Country, My Country provides a rare look inside the struggle in Iraq in the context of an ongoing brutal occupation.
Crude Impact examines the interconnections of human economic activity, the use of fossil fuels and the effects that these have on the environment, the climate and humanity. What is peak oil? And what does this mean of the issue of global warming? The film also investigates the questionable practices of oil companies, to which there are plenty of examples…
In July 2005, the Australian government announced its plan to open a radioactive waste-dump facility in one of three Department of Defence sites in the Northern Territory of Australia. With widespread community resistance by the indigenous people of the territory, No Where Here in the Middle documents the ongoing story of resistance to the dump and the fight to be free of toxins, poison, and a brutal occupation.
Supported by a mix of archival footage, NASA shots of burning oil fields and historical film excerpts, Crude Awakening examines peak oil. From Houston to Caracas, the Lake of Maracaibo, the Orinoco delta, Central Asia’s secretive republic of Azerbaijan with its ancient capital Baku and the Caspian Sea, to London and Zürich. The film questions the future of oil with leading authorities such as oil investment banker Matthew Simmons, former OPEC chairman Fadhil Chalabhi, Caltec’s head of physics, Professor David Goodstein, Stanford University political scientist, Terry Lynn Karl and peak oil expert, Matthew Savinar…
Stupidity sets out to determine whether our culture is hooked on deliberate ignorance as a strategy for success. From Adam Sandler to George W. Bush, from the IQ test to TV programming, to the origins of the word “moron,” this film examines the celebration of dumbing-down in contemporary culture. Featuring opinions and comments from TV personalities to scholars, researchers, and the general public, Stupidity reveals that despite this culture’s extensive access to information and education, it continues to choose and celebrate stupidity and ignorance.
The untold history of The Project for the New American Century is no more. This film exposes how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud with video of insiders themselves admitting it. This documentary shows how the first film theatres in the US were used over a hundred years ago to broadcast propaganda to rile the American people into the Spanish-American War; the white papers of the oil company Unocal which called for the creation of a pipeline through Afghanistan and how their exact needs were fulfilled through the US invasion of Afghanistan; how Halliburton under their “cost plus” exclusive contract with the US Government went on a mad dash spending spree akin to something out of the movie Brewster’s Millions…
With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, Cuba’s economy collapsed. Imports of oil were cut by more than half and food by 80 percent. The Power Of Community tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the response during the collapse, explaining how the country transitioned from a highly mechanised, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens…
New surveillance technologies are penetrating every aspect of our lives and we don’t even know it. All across the world, millions of cameras are watching us. The police are able to record almost every journey and operate on ever expanding powers of search and arrest; governments collect our DNA, fingerprints and iris scans while colluding with corporations to profile us and analyse our behaviour. All of these measures, it is said by the state, is to protect our freedom…
To the movie-going public, Michael Moore is known as a corporate big-wig buster and perhaps the mainstream media’s most vocal opponent of the Republican Party. But what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? In this film, Canadian creators Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine find out first hand. While originally intending to create a biography of Moore stemming from their own great admiration for his work, the creators find that they have become disenchanted with many of Michael Moore’s ‘tactics’ and the story takes an interesting twist…
Sexy Inc. analyses the hyper-sexualisation of today’s media environment and its noxious effects on young people. Psychologists, teachers and school nurses criticise the unhealthy culture surrounding our children, where marketing and advertising are targeting younger and younger audiences and bombarding them with sexual images…
A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures a broad-based popular uprising in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in 2006 where tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands—using them to organise, mobilise, and defend the fight for social, cultural, and economic justice.
There are plenty of anarchists in the world. Many have committed robbery or smuggling for their cause. Fewer have discussed strategies with Che Guevara or saved the skin of Eldridge Cleaver, the leader of the Black Panthers. There is only one who has done all that, and also brought to its knees the most powerful bank in the world by forging travellers cheques, without missing a single day of work bricklaying. He is Lucio Urtubia from a tiny village in Navarra in North of Spain. Lucio, 75, now lives in Paris, still doing valued political work. Lucio has been protagonist and witness to many of the historic events of the second half of the 20th century. His family was persecuted by Franco’s regime; he was on the streets of Paris for the phenomenon of May of 1968; he actively supported Castro’s revolution; and helped thousands of exiled people by providing false documents to them. But without a doubt, his greatest triumph came in the second half of the 1970s where he swindled 25 million dollars from the First National Bank—or Citibank—to later invest the money in causes he believed in.
As an exposé of human trafficking, Very Young Girls follows a group of adolescent African-American girls who were seduced, abused and sold on New York’s streets by pimps, having survived the life to share their story. Each recount their experiences, captured alongside startling footage shot by the brazen pimps themselves, giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of street life begins for many women. Following the work of Rachel Lloyd and the journey each go through to exit their life on the streets, Very Young Girls portrays first-hand the occurrences of human trafficking throughout the United States.
In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod successfully trademarked the phrase “freedom of expression” as an experiment of startling comment on the way that intellectual property law restricts creativity and expression of ideas. This film explores the battles being waged in courts, classrooms, museums, film studios, and the Internet over control of cultural commons. Based on McLeod’s book of the same title, Freedom of Expression charts the many successful attempts to push back this assault by overzealous copyright holders.
King Corn follows two college friends curious about the food system, as they decide to have a shot at farming an acre of corn. In the process, the two examine the role that the increasing production of corn has had across not only on the concepts of industrial food, but the health of the land, the health of the environment, and the health of people. The film spotlights the role of government subsidies which make huge monocrops of corn possible, which itself has—as industrial agriculture—a catastrophic ecological impact, but in-turn drives factory-farming of animals and other atrocities such as the production of high-fructose corn syrup which is saturated throughout industrial food, not least, fast-food. We see how this industrialisation has eliminated the family farm and local food production—things which are increasingly impossible in this brutal arrangement of corporate power.