26:51A Faraway Country is an examination of the Czech underground movement known as the Charter 77--an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, part of the Communist Soviet bloc. The film shows interviews with members of Charter 77, and others, describing first-hand the totalitarian communist regime, and their response to it.
54:23Agent Orange was the codename for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the United States military as part of its chemical warfare program--Operation Ranch Hand--which ran for ten years during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. During this time, the military sprayed nearly 80,000,000 litres of toxic chemical and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia. The supposed goal being to destroy forested and rural land, depriving guerrillas of cover and to induce forced-draft-urbanisation, destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves, forcing them to flee to the cities dominated by US forces, depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base and food supply...
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.
49:21Atomic Confessions investigates the devastating effects of atomic weapons testing carried out in Australia by the British military during the 1950s. Members of the Australian Army, Air Force and Navy detail former top-secret aspects of the tests, while prominent Aboriginal Elders describe the real impacts on the ground. Using archival film and photographs, as well as eye witness accounts, Atomic Confessions chronicles the consequences of nuclear testing imposed on the Australian people, and the land, showing that these tests are not just skeletons of the past...
24:50The latest in the string of controversies as part of the United States' ongoing "war on terror", is the military's growing reliance on "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" otherwise known as 'drones', evidenced by the international reaction to recent drone missile attacks along the border in Pakistan. The military is also deploying other technological advancements alongside, such as robots in the battlefield and drones that work in swarms. Is this just a big computer game? A new tech-driven arms race? It doesn't end there though -- drones are now creeping into use by police and the intelligence services as a surveillance tool, and even into commercial and civilian use...
1:11:19By charting the history of the anti-war movement against the political backdrop of the atomic age, Beating The Bomb examines the current state of 'nuclear deterrence' brought about by the nuclear age stemming from the end of World War II, when the United States nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specifically, the anti-nuclear movement and the founding of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 amongst others, fight for and end to the British Nuclear Weapons program, which from its inception, was closely tied to The Manhattan Project and still is to this day...
39:03The belief that good triumphs over evil resonates deeply through the religious and political discourses of dominant culture. It is also a common theme in the entertainment media where the struggle between good and evil is frequently resolved through violence. The negative impacts of media violence on children has long been a public concern, but it is even more troubling when military violence, both in the news and in entertainment, is often glorified as heroic and noble. Beyond Good & Evil: Children, Media & Violent Times is a look at how mass communication distorts and manipulates language and visual imagery. It shows viewers how the media's overriding objective of satisfying an audience converts real issues surrounding race, war, and violence into nothing more than spectacle.
1:28:53Department of Defense documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act expose horrific government funded experimentation upon citizens conducted without their knowledge or consent. Is the United States knowingly using a dangerous battlefield weapon banned by the United Nations because of its long-term effects on the local inhabitants and the environment? Beyond Treason explores the illegal worldwide sale and use of one of the deadliest weapons ever invented. Was "Gulf War Illness" actually known by the military before hand?
55:46Between 1964 and 1973 the United States conducted a secret war in Laos -- dropping over 2 million tons of bombs, making it the most heavily bombed country in history. Millions of 'cluster bombs' did not explode when dropped, leaving the country massively contaminated with "bombies" which are as dangerous now from when they fell over 30 years ago. Bombies documents unexploded cluster bombs through the personal experiences of a group of Laotians and foreigners who go about dismantling the bombs. These weapons are still a standard part of the United States military arsenal and were recently dropped in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq...
51:57The discrepancies between the "War on Terror" and the facts on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq are many. In 2001, as the bombs began to drop, George W. Bush promised Afghanistan, "the generosity of America and its allies." Now, the familiar old warlords are retaining their power, religious fundamentalism is expanding its grip and military 'skirmishes' continue routinely. In "liberated" Afghanistan, America has its military base and pipeline access, while the people have the warlords who are, as one woman says in the film, "in many ways worse than the Taliban."
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...
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.
52:01John Pilger once again travels to Cambodia to report on the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which brought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia; while neighbouring countries, including Australia and the United Nations shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied the country...
51:29Cambodia -- Year Ten Update examines the reactions of the British government and the United Nations to the international outcry over the situation in Cambodia.
52:29As the United States developed the world's first nuclear weapons in secret, it was surprised at the speed in which the USSR was able to also develop such weapons, and that such developments would lead to an unprecedented arms race. The USSR was able to obtain all the nuclear discoveries made by scientists who worked on the top-secret Manhattan Project through a very unusual spy, Elizabeth Zaroubin. She managed to gain the trust of great researchers, such as Einstein, in a story comparable to some of the best spy novels ever written.
1:26:31Control Room presents a rare window into the US invasion of Iraq from the perspective of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Widely criticized and condemned by military figureheads, government officials and the mainstream media in the west for reporting with a "pro-Iraqi bias", airing civilian causalities, as well as showing footage of American POWs, Control Room reveals the situation in Iraq that the US government does not want you to see...
24:32In January 2012, two controversial pieces of legislation were making their way through the United States Congress. SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act", and PIPA, the "Protect Intellectual Property Act", were meant to 'crack down' on the illegal sharing of digital media. The laws were drafted on request of the 'content industry' -- Hollywood studios and major record labels. But websites reacted against the government to speak out against SOPA, and the bill was effectively killed off after the largest online 'protest' in history. But it was only one win in a long battle between authorities and online users over Internet regulation. SOPA and PIPA were just the latest in a long line of 'anti-piracy' legislation that governments have been pressing since the 1990s. Can and should the internet be controlled? Who gets that power? How far will the United States government go to control the Internet?
1:11:43Cover Up -- Behind The Iran-Contra Affair is a thorough investigation into information suppressed during the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987 where it was found that senior officials in the United States government secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran. The film reveals a shadow government of former CIA operatives, drug smugglers, top US military personnel and others, revealing evidence of the history of CIA involvement in drug running from the Vietnam heroin era to the Central American cocaine epidemic -- raising serious questions about the so-called "war on drugs" and other government movements since the 1980s...
Crazy Rulers of the World is a series that investigates what happens when chiefs of the United States intelligence agencies and the army began believing in very strange things. With first-hand access to the leading characters in the story, filmmaker Jon Ronson examines the extraordinary and bizarre national secrets at the core of the war on terror.
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...
1:55:18What 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...
1:26:16Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill into the hidden world of the United States' covert wars and assassination programmes—from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. What begins as a relatively commonplace report on the cover-up of a murderous US night raid in a remote corner of Afghanistan, quickly turns into a global investigation of the secretive and powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)—a top secret arm of the Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex. As Scahill digs deeper into the activities of JSOC, he is compelled to report on the growing chilling underworld of covert operations carried out across the globe at the behest of the United States government: Targeted killings of American citizens; secret drone strikes; outsourcing American kill lists to warlords, private corporations and paramilitaries. The list goes on. Dirty Wars is a sobering investigation and personal journey into the most important human rights story of our time.
1:11:57Do Not Resist documents, from the perspective of the police, their view of the social unrest following the shooting and killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, 2014, against a backdrop of the routine and escalating use of military tactics and high-powered weaponry by local police forces throughout the United States in the past two decades. Military equipment deployed throughout the Middle East returns home to be used against the citizenry. Local police recruitment and training is awash in military commandments backed by views of escalating 'righteous' violence and sadism. Meanwhile curfews are imposed, along with frivolous drug raids and incessant racial profiling. The voices of concerned citizens ignored. What is the cultural and technological trajectory here?
1:18:40In the wake of the September 11th attacks, amongst the ravaging of war, the United States has been secretly deploying drones to carry out assassinations throughout the Middle East. The drones are increasingly piloted by the likes of young computer gamers groomed by screen culture and computer games of war, where in many cases, the Pentagon is directly involved in the creation of such games as recruitment tools, actively working to lure young people proficient with technology into the new era of the military-industrial-complex. Drone unravels this complex phenomenon while travelling to places such as Waziristan, where innocent civilians, including children and rescue workers are routinely secretly killed, where families and communities ravaged by the drone strikes search for understanding, accountability and adjustment to the daily horrors. The film also takes a look at the young people sitting behind the screens of the new war machines, half a world away, that actually pull the trigger, asking what kind of world is being built in the rise of seemingly endless and lucrative war driven by technological escalation.
53:17Less than three years after a popular uprising that led to President Hosni Mubarak's ousting, and just one year after Egypt's first elections, the elected government has been overthrown and the Egyptian military is running the state. And the Muslim Brotherhood—the secretive, long-outlawed Islamist group that came out of the shadows to win the presidency in June 2012—is once again being 'driven underground.' Were the Brothers ever really in charge? Or was the Egyptian deep state—the embedded remnants of Mubarak's police force, Supreme Court and, most of all, military—in control all along? In Egypt in Crisis, we go inside the Egyptian revolution, tracing how what began as a youth movement to topple a dictator evolved into an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to seemingly find the political foothold it had sought for decades—and then why it all fell apart. With Egypt's hopes for democracy in tatters, and the military-led government violently cracking down, what will happen next?
27:12This film comprehensively documents the use of chemical weapons--particularly the use of incendiary bombs--along with hordes of other horrific indiscriminate violence against civilians and children by the United States military in the city of Fallujah during the invasion of Iraq in November 2004. The cases portrayed involve the use of white phosphorus and other substances similar to napalm, such as Mark-77, which constitute clearly defined war crimes involving chemical weapons. Interviews with ex-military personnel involved in the Fallujah offensive back up the case for the use of such weapons by the United States, while reporters stationed in Iraq discuss the government's attempts to suppress the news by covert means.
50:02John Pilger and David Munro look behind political rhetoric to discover the hidden world of international arms dealing...
43:46Australian 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...