1:24:33Jesus Camp follows several young children as they prepare to attend an event called 'Kids on Fire,' a Christian summer camp run by Becky Fischer. Through interviews with Fisher, the children, and others, Jesus Camp illustrates the unswerving belief of the faithful—a housewife and home-schooling mother tells her son that creationism has all the answers; footage from inside the camp shows young children weeping and wailing as they promise to stop their sinning; child after child is driven to tears. These scenes are contrasted with clips from another Christian radio host who is appalled by such happenings. Are these children being brainwashed?
1:13:36Rebel Without A Pause follows renowned linguist and activist, Noam Chomsky through discussions and talks on various world events such as the invasion of Iraq, the September 11th attacks and the War on Terror. Chomsky also weaves in accounts of media manipulation, social control, and discusses the workings of the politics of fear. The film combines footage from large forums to small interactive discussions on these topics, as well as reflections from others...
1:32:49Merchants of Doubt looks at the well established Public Relations tactic of saturating the media with shills who present themselves as independent scientific authorities on issues in order to cast doubt in the public mind. The film looks at how this tactic, that was originally developed by the tobacco industry to obfuscate the health risks of smoking, has since come to cloud other issues such as the pervasiveness of toxic chemicals, flame retardants, asbestos, certain pharmaceutical drugs and now, climate change. Using the icon of a magician, Merchants of Doubt explores the analogy between these tactics and the methods used by magicians to distract their audiences from observing how illusions are performed. For example, with the tobacco industry, the shills successfully delayed government regulation until long after the health risks from smoking was unequivocally proven. Likewise with manufacturers of flame retardants, who worked to protect their sales after the toxic effects and pervasiveness of the chemicals were discovered. This is all made analogous to the ongoing use of these very same tactics to stall governmental action in regards to global climate change today.
1:35:29Behind the Curve documents the resurgence of believers of a flat Earth, as made popular through YouTube videos. The film is a personal exploration of how people became exposed to flat Earth theories (the YouTube algorithm), and how those ideas were reinforced in an echo chamber of social media, rejecting empirical evidence, at a time of increasing countercultural distrust in authority figures and the epistemology of science. The narrative at the core of the film reveals how the screen bubble can envelop a person's informational exposure, and change their relationships and perceptions in the real world, where confirmation bias is reinforced, making alternative views threatening, and individualism sacrosanct. Information that is contrary to a deeply held belief then becomes increasingly impossible to accept, especially if it has changed your life and circle of friends. So with empathy and a playful warmth, Behind the Curve becomes a warning light to the importance of honest discourse and critical analysis, falsifiability and dogma, but above all, to empathy and understanding of a person's desire to create meaning and acceptance in a lonely, fragmented culture.
1:26:41Two film students set out to explore the psychological and manipulative powers of consumerism by creating an extensive and pervasive advertising campaign for a fake hypermarket. The ads appear on radio, television, billboards; there is a promotional song, an internet site, ads in newspapers, magazines, and flyers with photos of fake Czech Dream products are distributed. Will people believe it and show up for the grand opening?
43:51From tiny tots strutting bikini-clad bodies in beauty pageants to companies marketing itty-bitty thongs and padded bras directly to 9-year olds; images of ever-younger sexualised girls pervasively saturate the media landscape. Add to that: ever-younger boys with 24-7 access to hard-core internet porn and the situation permeates every aspect of their lives--from skate parks to the school bus. By the time they’re eighteen, 80 percent of boys are watching porn online. Then add to that smart phones and social networking websites, and kids can not only consume X-rated images, but can now also produce them. Sexting has become a Grade 7 right of passage. Sext Up Kids exposes how growing up in a hyper-sexualized culture hurts everyone. Teens and pre-teens show and tell what they are doing and why they are doing it. Psychologists and social researchers reveal startling new evidence, tracking how the pressure to be sexy is changing teen and sexual behaviour in alarming ways. Parents and educators struggle to help kids navigate puberty in a world where the line between pop culture and porn culture is increasingly blurred. For every parent who thinks, “that’s not my son or daughter,” Sext Up Kids is your wake up call.
14:47The combination of detailed descriptions by abused women and great dramatisations helps both male and female viewers to understand the realities of spousal abuse, what motivates this kind of activity, and reveals the myths that surround it. Low self-esteem, rather than straight anger, is the central causal issue and the ability to quit habitual spousal abuse is as problematic as recovery from any other addiction.
53:29The Secret History of the Credit Card uncovers the deceptive techniques and tactics used by banks and financial corporations to get citizens to take on ever more debt, while earning record profits. Penalty fees, defaulting, changing contracts, increasing rates retrospectively---these are some of the ways credit card companies gouge their users, and increase influence. The film shows how such profitability of credit cards began in the 1980s, when the banking industry successfully eliminated the limit on the interest rate a lender can charge a borrower. This deregulation, coupled with real-time tracking of personal financial information, facilitated the widening availability of credit cards. Despite a growing number of consumer complaints, the ability of state and local governments to investigate the credit card companies has virtually been eliminated, due to companies incessant lobbying and litigation that has created a jurisdictional "turf battle."
45:44Author and activist Jean Kilbourne analyses the depiction of women in advertising and media by decoding a large array of print and television ads. What is revealed is a torrent of stereotypes; sexist and misogynistic images and messages; laying bare a world of frighteningly thin women in positions of subservience; collectively, the restrictive code of femininity that works to undermine girls and women in the real world. By examining these messages, Killing Us Softly asks us to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, violence against women, popular culture, and contemporary politics.
44:50While advertising is clearly a visible component of the corporate system, perhaps even more important and pervasive is the often-invisible partner—the public relations industry. Toxic Sludge Is Good For You illuminates this hidden sphere of the corporatocracy, examining the way in which the management of public discourse has become central to how society has been usurped and is controlled by political and economic elites. The film tracks the development of the PR industry from its early efforts to win popular support for World War I, to the role of crisis management in controlling damage to the corporate image, while analysing the tools PR people use to manipulate public perceptions.
5:08Oh Dearism II
A look back on the news events from 2014 reveals a confusing, muddled mess. Things are increasingly chaotic, along with the reporting of the events in the culture of 24-7 rolling news, sound-byte feeds and the Internet. The result, as we see, is not a coherent public understanding of these complex events, but more a profound mass-confusion, with discourse destroyed, which in-turn broods disengagement from the world and further atomises an already divided-and-conquered public. It is this response that is a powerful form of social control, and is by design...
44:17We live in an absolutely saturated media environment of images that span 'real' and fake—whether it's newspaper and tabloid photos, journalism itself, art and culture, or the human body. Images claim to be hardly distinguishable from the originals, while the virtual world is increasingly becoming 'seamless' in the real world. Kids today see a Clown Fish but instead impose their imagery of Finding Nemo. People interact with machines more than they do living beings. The narratives imposed by this technological and media culture are fast seeking to entirely replace the real world with a simulation of it. So what does that mean for the truth? The Industry of Fake explores the shifting boundaries and inequality in journalism and in art, as well as providing a basis to question this culture's fascination with simulacra—a process of mimicry mediated by images that represents the real thing, but is not the real thing. What does it mean if we value our projections or stories about the thing as opposed to the thing in-and-of itself? What does this mean in the real world if we come to value our simulations or representations as more authentic things as opposed to copies or toxic mimics?
59:44Most 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.
15:41John Pilger talks about the various mainstream media commonalities of today--censorship by omission, information management, Public Relations and the 'massaging of information', as well as the clever distractions such as the election of Obama as a war monger in the land of slavery, alongside figures such as Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard as a false win for so-called 'feminist ideals.' Amongst the ongoing wars played by the United States, Britain and Australia, Media And War -- Challenging The Consensus is a renewed call to unravel complex propaganda and cut through distractions.
1:19:51By examining the people and practices of the media and entertainment industries, The Fourth Estate illuminates not only specific incidences of corruption by press groups, but how the wider model of mainstream journalism itself as a for-profit entity has a huge amount to answer for in terms of democracy and the state of politics throughout the world. Filmed over two years throughout the UK on no budget, the filmmakers profile journalists, organisers and critics of industrial media practices, stemming from the Leveson Inquiry in 2011 which was set up to examine the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandals of the Murdoch media empire. While the phone hacking scandal illuminated the depth and breadth of the culture of British journalism, the media's focus at the time quickly diverted from a brief period of self-examination, back to business as usual. This film instead continues the analysis by looking at the larger implications of a for-profit media model and its connections to ideology, entertainment, and hence the resulting political framework that's in crisis.
As one half of the satirical duo, The Rubber Bandits, Blindboy is renown for wearing a plastic bag on his head while dishing out sharp social commentary. In this series, using his unique mix of irreverent commentary, a band of undercover reporters, and playful humour, Blindboy sets out to investigate some of the most important issues of our time.
The Brain -- A Secret History is a series about how various theories and experiments on the human mind over decades have led to profound insights into how the human brain works, but also have involved great cruelty and pose terrible ethical dilemmas. Historical experiments such as severe maternal deprivation, brainwashing and other experiments in mind control such as MKULTRA are covered, along with physical interventions such as the history of electric shock 'treatment', behaviour modification, experimental psychology, and the Milgram experiment.
Counter-Intelligence is a 5 part series that explores in-depth, the vast, sprawling and secret National Security State that operates throughout the United States--and indeed the world. The series examines the foundations of the Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex, charting through to the myriad consequences in today's world where secret intelligence organisations continue to hijack governments, manipulate elections and commit heinous crimes against humanity--all under the cloak of "National Security". In the wake of the continued revelations of the NSA PRISM program, this series is now more important than ever to provide a solid historical context to the workings of the rapacious and ever-expanding National Security State...
1:53:21Zero Days
Stuxnet is a malicious computer virus, first identified in 2010, that targets industrial computer systems and was responsible for causing substantial damage to Iran's nuclear program, as well as spreading across the world. The virus is believed by many experts to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyberweapon, although no organisation or state has officially admitted responsibility. Zero Days covers the phenomenon surrounding the Stuxnet computer virus and the development of the malware software known as "Olympic Games." It also examines the follow-up cyber-plan entitled 'Nitro Zeus,' showing how the United States has opened the Pandora's Box of cyberwarfare.
44:12Split Screen tells the story of January 6, 2021, where an estimated 2,000 people stormed the United States Capitol building, attempting to stop the certification of votes from the 2020 election. What started as a protest became violent chaos, killing several people and injuring over 140. The event was the culmination of years of angst, anger, violence, and confusion, that began stirring years or even decades earlier in the thick of growing polarisation in the United States. Certain media outlets and social media influencers spread content fuelling division and angst in the months leading up to and following the election. Allegations of voter fraud--rejected by state and federal officials in both parties, as well then-Attorney General William Barr--were amplified and emboldened by conservative media, ultimately igniting the rage and frustration of an undeniable portion of people in the United States who get their news and information through big tech, and the slurry of social media echo-chambers.
47:16In March 2003 thousands of Australian troops and others were sent to fight a 'war' as part of a pre-emptive strike on the sovereign nation of Iraq, a country from whom there was no threat. Two years on, in the wake of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, the Australian military reports its first casualty in the conflict while the American death toll stands at nearly two thousand. This being the a result of an invasion which has all but destroyed a foreign nation and seen millions made homeless, families destroyed, hundreds of thousands of deaths, leaving a legacy of destruction and religious division instilled in its wake. How did the Australian government come to play a part in this terror?
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...
Esc & Ctrl
Esc & Ctrl is an online series of short documentary films where journalist and filmmaker Jon Ronson explores some aspects of screen culture and the Internet. By exemplifying the concepts of control of information and the screen culture's reactions to publishing, censorship, viral videos, media attention and manipulation; a small set of stories weave together to pose bigger questions around democracy and open communication in the age of the computers and a corporately mediated virtual world.
1:12:47The Great White Hoax contextualises the current day politicking in the United States, with a primary focus on Donald Trump's race-baiting 2016 campaign for president. The film also widens scope however to show how Trump’s charged rhetoric fits into a long-standing historical pattern in politics in the United States, offering a stunning survey of how racism and racial scapegoating have shaped American politics for centuries. The film becomes a solid resource for a basis on race relations, white privilege, the intersectionality of race, class, and gender identities, presidential politics, and political propaganda in the age of "social media."
41:30Benny Hinn may be the most popular personality in the Christian world today. Thousands pack arenas to see him 'heal' the sick and the afflicted. Tens of thousands more watch his daily television program. Millions of dollars are donated every year to his ministry, none of which he says goes to him personally. But, what about those miracles? And where does all that money go?
17:46John Pilger talks at a public forum in Sydney about the recent revelations of WikiLeaks and the importance of leaked information in exposing the lies and machinations of Public Relations in mainstream media and political rhetoric. Pilger demonstrates the parallels with the plight of Julian Assange and the treatment of David Hicks through the United States legal system, and also explains using recent leaked documents why state power sees investigative journalists and others as a major threat to the established order...
12:29This short video explores how the online world has overwhelmingly become the popular outlet for public rage by briefly illustrating some of the many stories of everyday people which have suddenly become public enemy number one under the most misunderstood of circumstances and trivial narratives. With the web acting like a giant echo-chamber, amplifying false stories and feeding on the pent-up aggression of the audience watching the spectacle, The Outrage Machine shows how these systems froth the mob mentality into a hideous mess, as a good example of where the spectacle goes and how its intensity has to keep ratcheting up in order maintain the audience attention, in a culture of dwindling attention spans, distraction and triviality.
58:29In a quarter of a century, the Amazon corporation has propelled Jeff Bezos from 'online bookseller' to technology behemoth. He is the richest man on the planet, and the company he founded is one of the most powerful in the world. This documentary investigates Amazon's rise to corporate rein, revealing the problematic inside-operations that have the public tethered to its services. Former high-level insiders describe Amazon's obsessive data-gathering operations, that enable the company to use what it knows about us to shape not only the future of retail, but the workplace and technology in synergy. On both sides of the world, politicians and regulators are tardily beginning to question Amazon's power. But can the public rein in this corporate empire and break its addiction before even more damage is done to the structure of society and the environment?