38:19Culture Jam documents a movement against advertising and the repurposing of commercial messages by following pranksters and subversive artists as they hijack, subvert and reclaim corporate media space in the battle of public 'mind-share' dominated by the consumer culture. Stopping in San Francisco, New York's Times Square and other parts of the United States, Culture Jam documents some jamming in action—armed with everything from DIY anti-ad stickers, custom neon, to the art of performance and guerilla film screenings—to illustrate just some of what people can do to push back against the saturation of commercial media messages in public space.
1:17:29The Crisis of Civilization draws on archive footage and essentially monologue by author Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed to detail how global problems like environmental collapse, financial crisis, peak energy, terrorism and food shortages are all symptoms of a single, failed global system...
1:09:06During a town hall meeting in central Los Angeles 1996, then CIA Director John Deutch made an appearance on a panel of government representatives to refute documented allegations that the CIA had sold drugs in Los Angeles in order to finance covert operations in Central America. Questions are put forward by many people, including author and investigative journalist Michael Ruppert who explains of documented evidence of direct CIA involvement in drug trafficking, making mention of covert operations...
1:16:29On December 7, 1975 with the complicity of many Western governments including the US, the UK, and Australia, Indonesia secretly invaded the small nation of East Timor. In the intervening 18 years, an estimated 200,000 East Timorese or one third of the population, had been slaughtered by the Indonesian military -- using US and British planes to bombard the island, while Western defence ministers proclaimed ignorance. As John Pilger tapes an Australian diplomat admitting that East Timor was considered "expendable", no one watching the massacre can excuse the geopolitical machinations that led to this genocide...
58:46Good 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...
1:37:17To 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...
59:03Exploring the collusion between the richest people in the United States and the figureheads of political power in government, this film focuses on Park Avenue in New York which is currently the home to the highest concentration of billionaires in the United States. Across the river in Manhattan, less than five miles away, Park Avenue runs through the South Bronx which is home to the countries' poorest. The disparity of wealth has never been so stark and has accelerated extraordinarily over the last 40 years. As of 2010, 400 people controlled more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the population—150 million people—as well as seizing political power. Park Avenue travels through this to illustrate why the concept of so-called "upward mobility" is a myth perpetuated by the rich, and also to unpack the workings of plutocracy and capitalism—the current-day rule by the rich, and the implications of this collusion of power and control.
1:27:01The Take documents the story of workers in Buenos Aires, Argentina who reclaim control of a closed auto-plant where they once worked and turn it into a worker cooperative. The factory closed as a result of the economic policies of the government under the watchful eye of the IMF. While in bankruptcy protection, the company appeared to be selling off property and inventory to pay creditors -- a move which further reduced the chances of the facility returning to production. Though as the movement gains strength, having started with a garment factory several years earlier, the factory workers wade through courts and the legislative system, finally establishing their own control and winning the right to operate it themselves, as a cooperative...
56:39Sex Slaves documents an extraordinary journey deep into the world of sex trafficking from the perspective of Viorel--a young man trying to find his wife Katia who was four months' pregnant when she left home looking for a job. Along the way, the production team takes a rare, hidden-camera look at various traffickers, pimps and middlemen who buy and sell hundreds of thousands of women each year. Lured by traffickers who prey on their dreams of employment abroad, many of the women are then kidnapped and "exported" to Europe, the Middle East, the United States and elsewhere. During this process, they are sold to pimps, locked in brothels, drugged, terrorised and raped repeatedly. In Eastern Europe, sex trafficking has become the fastest growing form of organised crime, with Moldova and Ukraine widely seen as major suppliers of women into the global sex trade...
45:06The human genome is being privatised. Another corporate takeover. The genetic sequences that make up you and me are being patented and one Australian company, a hot item on the stock market, is aggressively enforcing a suite of patents that affect an extraordinary 95 percent of every living creature's DNA. The company claims most laboratories around the world are infringing its patents -- nature itself included -- and the company is now trying to charge licence fees for this...
1:53:35Lifting The Veil explores the historical role of political parties in the United States as the graveyard of social movements, the massive influence of corporate financing in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth, the continuity and escalation of neoconservative policies with the Obama administration, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself. Lifting The Veil exposes the vast hypocrisy of the United States government, with a sense of urgency to bring about real systemic social and political change...
1:26:34Rocking The Foundations recounts the history of the Green Bans introduced by the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s which were a series of trade union strikes imposed on developers who wanted to demolish heritage buildings and sites of environmental significance in NSW. The workers saved bushland, trees, and numerous historical buildings which, to this day, remain a powerful symbol of how successful environmental campaigns and effective and honest trade unions can be run...
26:01Is 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...
57:26Using the 1992 presidential election as his springboard, film-maker Brian Springer captures the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings of politicians and newscasters in the early 1990s. Pat Robertson banters about "homos," Al Gore learns how to avoid abortion questions, George Bush talks to Larry King about halcyon and other drugs—all presuming they're off-air. Composed of 100% unauthorised satellite footage, Spin is a surreal expose of media-constructed reality, posing larger questions about the functioning of not only corporate media, but the political systems in which they support and how this in-turn plays to the media-constructed reality and so on.
1:39:569/11 -- Beyond A Reasonable Doubt provides a summary of evidence from various sources against the official account of what happened on September 11, 2001. The film is assembled using clips from several other documentaries, news reels and archive footage to provide an example of the overwhelming evidence that contradicts statements made by official sources.
1:37:56Crude 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...
45:11Demand investigates the commercial sex trade, across four countries: The United States, Netherlands, Japan, and Jamaica. The film reveals a harrowing first-hand account of the impact of soaring consumer demand for vulnerable women and children, to be victimised in sex trafficking markets. By exploring the entrenched connections of pornography, to widespread sexual assault, to a pervasive globalised human trafficking market, Demand questions the conditions that keep the inertia of the commercial sex trade roaring across the globe...
1:35:09The Last Mountain follows the fight for the last great mountain in North America's Appalachian heartland where mining giants that want to deforest and explode it to extract the coal inside are faced with a community fighting to preserve the mountain. The film considers the health consequences and environmental impacts of mining, burning coal for electricity, also looking at the wider context and history of environmental laws in the United States.
54:27In September 2008 when the American economy was on the verge of melting down, the then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, his former protégé John Thain (CEO of Merrill Lynch), and Ken Lewis (CEO, President, and Chairman of the Bank of America) secretly cut a deal to merge Bank of America and Merrill Lynch -- in the midst of stock collapse; a rocky merger; the worst fourth-quarter losses in at least 17 years; a stockholder revolt and an urgent need to raise more capital despite a $45 billion "bail-out" from the federal government...
58:37The Quantum Revolution spouts claims of turning many ideas of science fiction into science fact—from materials with mind-boggling properties like invisibility through to so-called "limitless quantum energy" and room temperature superconductors, to a space elevator for tourism. Are such developments worthwhile, sustainable, equitable or even necessary? Scientists forecast that in the latter half of the century everybody will have a personal matter fabricator that "re-arranges molecules to produce everything from almost anything." Yet how will those in power ultimately use the domination of matter and life on Earth? How is science already doing this and to what ends? What are the unasked questions about science itself and the desire to control the very fabric of the universe? What insanity are we up against?
44:43Presenting accounts from prominent players such as The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrn, and the Pirate Party in the Swedish piracy culture, Steal This Film documents the movement against intellectual property. In particular, the film provides critical analysis of the alleged regulatory capture attempt performed by the Hollywood film lobby to leverage economic sanctions by the United States government on Sweden through the WTO...
1:02:44Using camera footage recorded by protesters at the scene of the World Trade Organisation riots in the United States during November 1999, Breaking The Spell documents the events of the time from the perspective of the activists, following the massive 'controversial' street protests and ensuing confrontations with police. Rather than attempting to cover every situation at the WTO, Breaking the Spell covers a few scenes in depth, filmed in the thick of the action, including footage that aired nationally on 60 Minutes...
Over three programmes David Attenborough travels from Kenya to California to investigate the contesting claims about the current state of our planet. In the first programme he examines the extinction crisis, measuring the disappearance of some species against the mass of life that still remains undiscovered. Then the crisis is explored further by looking at the root causes, where finally, the last programme asks: What are the possible courses of action open to us to sustain the future of life?
51:22The Future Of Biometrics takes a look at current day technologies that interface with the human body for surveillance, identification, tracking and analysis. Using fingerprints, retina scans, gate analysis and other more intrinsic physical or behavioural traits, biometric technologies provoke a range of pertinent questions around social control, privacy and mass surveillance, especially that these technologies are in use, today...
1:29:41Around 8.4 million children around the world are enslaved today. Child Slavery travels across three continents, focusing on five children and their stories...
50:53How does one sell a war? This was a question that weighed heavy on the minds of those in the United States government long before the invasion even started. Operation Saddam: America’s Propaganda Battle takes a look at the marketing of war -– a cocktail of distortion, lies and forgeries -– as shown by former secret service agent Ray McGovern, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and best-selling author John MacArthur, presenting the individual stages of the propaganda battle, by which American, British and other governments sought to justify the second invasion of Iraq...
46:57War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a god-send, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public. The Pentagon recognises the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars...
1:35:25Humanity is absolutely dependent on animals as part of life. In industrial society however, this has extended to animals as pets, 'entertainment' and for expendable use in scientific research -- animals are tortured for 'scientific tests', locked in cages as pets and at the zoo and are bred on mass for cheap meat. What does this say about industrial civilisation? Earthlings conducts an in-depth study into pet stores, puppy mills and animals shelters, as well as factory farms, the leather and fur trades, sports and entertainment industries, and the medical and scientific profession, using hidden cameras to directly show the day-to-day practices of some of the largest industries in the world...