52:34In 1979, the people of Nicaragua successfully put an end to decades of the corrupt Somoza dictatorship whose family had been in power for more than 40 years, put there by the United States marines. Four years later, this film travels to Nicaragua to question: How can a country survive when its jungle borders hold 4000 hostile troops?
51:13Cambodia -- Year One investigates the effect of aid to Cambodia and the extent of the country's so-called new found stability as in 1980. The film portrays Cambodia on a brink of famine and cultural annihilation, but in the process of recovery, also showing the continued support for the Khmer Rouge regime by China and the United Nations.
2:16:43Bitter Lake explores how the realpolitik of the West has converged on a mirror image of itself throughout the Middle-East over the past decades, and how the story of this has become so obfuscating and simplified that we, the public, have been left in a bewildered and confused state. The narrative traverses the United States, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia—but the country at the centre of reflection is Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted political figureheads across the West with the truth of their delusions—that they cannot understand what is going on any longer inside the systems they have built which do not account for the real world. Bitter Lake sets out to reveal the forces that over the past thirty years, rose up and commandeered those political systems into subservience, to which, as we see now, the highly destructive stories told by those in power, are inexorably bound to. The stories are not only half-truths, but they have monumental consequences in the real world.
1:23:40Fascism Inc. examines a series of historical events to compile a view of the past, the present and the future of fascism and its relation to the economic interests of each era—including the current era. The film travels from Mussolini's Italy, to Greece under the Nazi occupation; the civil war and the dictatorship; and from Hitler's Germany to the modern European and Greek fascism. Following on from the foundations of earlier films such as Debtocracy and Catastroika which described the causes of the debt crisis, the impact of the austerity measures, the erosion of democracy and the sell-out of the country’s assets; Fascism Inc. aspires to continue to motivate anti-fascist resistance movements across Europe, and the world.
1:34:02In Mediastan, an undercover team of journalists drive across central Asia interviewing editors of local media outlets to publish secret US diplomatic cables that were provided to WikiLeaks in 2010. Success is varied. And so, after regrouping with Julian Assange in England, questioning the editor of the Guardian, and obtaining candid footage of the New York Times editor and its publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Mediastan closes by leaving the viewer with an informative first-hand overview of the machinations of mainstream media. By venturing into the minds—and actions—of the people and institutions who shape the news, Mediastan shows the system for what it's worth, and reveals its true motivations...
1:44:40The Internet's Own Boy is a biographical documentary of the programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, who died at age 26. From his help in the development of the basic Internet protocol RSS at age 14, to the co-founding of the social network website Reddit in 2006, Swartz becomes disillusioned with the grooming of academia to the corporate life presented to him, and turns instead to work on issues of sociology, civic awareness and activism. It then becomes Swartz's work in social justice issues and political organising, combined with an open and sharing approach to information access that ensnares him in a two year legal battle, in which authorities seek to make an example of him and the work. The battle sadly ends with Swartz taking his own life. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to the political system, civil liberties and human relationships.
3:40:02In Imperial Grand Strategy renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky focuses on the issue of the invasion of Iraq, and cuts through the ideological fog that surrounds the invasion and occupation, laying waste to the US government's justifications for them. In the process, Chomsky uncovers the real motivations behind US military aggression: a global imperial plan put in place long before Iraq and that will extend far into the future, unless we do something about it.
58:13In September 2005, Afghanistan held its first parliamentary elections in 35 years. Among the candidates was Malalai Joya, a courageous 27-year-old woman who had ignited outrage among hard-liners when she spoke out against corrupt warlords and criminals at the "Grand Council of tribal elders" in 2003. Enemies of Happiness is a revelatory portrait of this extraordinary freedom fighter and the way she connected with the people of Afghanistan. The film also serves as a snapshot of life and politics in war-torn Afghanistan from this time. As Joya rightly points out several Taliban warlords and wants them prosecuted for their crimes against the Afghan people, she is exposed to several death threats, and has been under constant protection. Can she overcome entrenched views and death threats to help bring democracy to Afghanistan?
1:59:02Ghosts of Rwanda marks the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda—a state-sponsored massacre in which some 800,000 Rwandans were methodically hunted down and murdered, as the United Nations and other states refused to intervene. The film examines the social, political, and diplomatic failures that converged to enable the genocide to occur. Through interviews with key government officials, diplomats, soldiers, and survivors of the slaughter, Ghosts of Rwanda presents first-hand accounts of the genocide from those who lived it—the diplomats on the scene who thought they were building peace only to see their colleagues murdered; the Tutsi survivors who recount the horror of seeing their friends and family slaughtered by Hutu friends and co-workers; and the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda who were ordered not to intervene in the massacre happening all around them.
54:52The hypocrisy of the United States government is scrutinized in Distorted Morality—a scathing thesis against war and the invasion of Iraq, presented by renowned scholar Noam Chomsky in 2002. Chomsky sets fair and logical parameters to test his ideas, before outlining the reasons why the United States post-9/11 "war on terror" is a logical absurdity. This, according to Chomsky's carefully supported analysis, is because the US government has been, and continues to be, a major supporter of state-supported terrorism; favoring retaliatory or preemptive aggression over mediation in the world court, and avoiding accountability by excluding itself from the globally accepted definition of terrorism. Explored also are numerous historical examples to support.
1:08:32Unconstitutional investigates the ways in which the civil liberties of citizens and immigrants have been rolled back in the United States since September 11, 2001; and the PATRIOT Act. The film details some stories behind those affected—from law-abiding store clerks to United States Olympians unable to travel.
1:27:42Underground is a film about the Weather Underground Organisation—a group founded as a militant faction of the civil rights and anti-war movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The film combines interviews with members of the group after they went underground who explain how they became radicalised amongst the political happenings in the United States at the time, as well as the revolutionary struggles in Cuba, Russia and China, and the history of struggles over Native American rights and labour issues. Also detailed is the group's analysis of American society, addressing those who have inspired them, and further explaining the reasons behind their militancy, while also introducing the issue of tactics. We see the use of property destruction as a way to bring about change and destabilise the current political order. Underground takes an intimate look at the inner workings of the Weather Underground and their strong internal collective identity, providing a record of how a bunch of middle-class Americans became self-styled militant revolutionaries, raising questions not only about the merits of their struggle, but also about past and future radical actions.
1:30:07King 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.
1:28:52American Radical is a film about the life of academic Norman Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors and ardent critic of Israel. Called a lunatic and self-hating Jew by some, and an inspirational figure by others, American Radical also serves to explore the issues at the centre of Palestine and Israel as Finkelstein travels around the world negotiating a voice of realism among impassioned critics and Israeli supporters. Uncompromising, even in the face of a denial of tenure at DePaul University, Finkelstein is revealed as a rare academic figure who puts the pursuit of justice above the security of his career, to expose the brutal reality of the occupation of Palestine.
1:32:02The Road to Guantánamo is a docu-drama about the incarceration of three British citizens--otherwise known as the Tipton Three--who were captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and detained for more than two years by the United States in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The three were held in mostly solitary confinement and without legal representation for that time, after being released in 2004 without charge. Based on interviews, The Road to Guantánamo reenacts their experience in the camp, depicting the use of torture techniques such as stress positions, and attempts by the United States Army and CIA interrogators to extract forced confessions of involvement with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
53:44In 1966, Australia made an agreement with the United States that allowed the establishment of a secret military base satellite tracking station, just south of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The facility is called Pine Gap and for more than forty years it has operated in a shroud of secrecy and been the target of much controversy. Home on The Range attempts to contextualise these issues by highlighting the history of the base and its origins, as well as the stories of controversy. Some of these include the Khemlani Affair and the sacking of the Whitlam government in 1975, the Christopher Boyce spy trial, the role of the Central Intelligence Agency and its former agent Victor Marchetti, as well as documenting the post-war culture of government secrecy, sprawling intelligence agencies and foreign affairs and policy. But Home on the Range does more than gesture toward such CIA interventions. It marshals a persuasive array of evidence linking the imminent expiry of leases on United States military and intelligence bases in Australia in 1975, to the CIA and Whitlam's sacking, posing direct questions about the nature of democracy in regions beholden to the United States.
57:10Unprecedented looks at voting irregularities in the controversial presidential election in the United States from the year 2000. With a focus on the swing state of Florida, the recount, the ensuing supreme court decision in December, and future elections; the film also shows how fundamentally, many people--the majority being African-American--have outright been refused the ability to vote by a clever mix of legalese, electronic voting machines, political maneuvering and simple racism. A 1868 law prevented felons from voting--originally crafted to keep blacks from the polls in the wake of the Civil War--was resurrected in 2000, used to create a computerised list of people supposedly illegible to vote. The list had weird parameters and included as many as 57,000 to 91,000 non-felons; overwhelmingly targeting people of colour. On election day, these people were turned away at the polls. The role of electronic voting machines is also examined, as they are totally unaccountable and do not allow audits. The argument is made because of copyright over the software and trademarks. The machines also do not give paper receipts, so there is no physical evidence in case of the need for a recount. How does the United States--the so-called and self-proclaimed world-famous democracy--fair as one in light of this?
1:08:32A few weeks after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States congress quickly passed the USA PATRIOT Act--a complicated and controversial law which was purportedly required to help with tracking future terrorist threats. Unconstitutional sets out to explain this law and examine its true impact. Citing a trove of examples from people whose lives have been directly effected, what we see is how law enforcement has rounded up Muslims and people with Arabic names to detain them for wild unspecified lengths of time without due process or even charges; the massive curtailment of civil liberties; erosion of enshrined privacy rights, increases in surveillance; and the abuses of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.