Activism / Politics & Social Justice - Documentary Films Archive

• Steal This Film I (2006) + Steal This Film II (2007) + Trial Edition (2009) - Documentary Films and Resources - Steal This Film is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property produced by The League of Noble Peers and released via the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol. Two parts, and one special The Pirate Bay trial edition of the first part, have been released so far, and The League of Noble Peers is working on "Steal this Film - The Movie" and a new project entitled "The Oil of the 21st Century"

• Gasland (2010) - "The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire.

• Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism (2009) - Naomi Klein - Documentary Film - Offering illuminating insight into the investigative journalism behind Naomi Klein's bestselling book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, this riveting hour-long lecture and interview explains the ideas and research behind the book that exposed the popular myth of the free market economy’s peaceful global victory. From Chile in 1973 to today, this is the chilling tale of shock doctors, those powerful few making a killing around the world by cashing in on chaos and exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally implement their policies.

• D.I.Y. Or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist - D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist is a low-budget documentary film released by Music Video Distributors in 2002. The film is a "celebration of the underdog" and deals with why artists do what they do, regardless of the lack of a continuous paycheck. 

• End:Civ Resist Or Die (2010) - examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

• Flow: For Love of Water - Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?” Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

• Eampe Punie Pajeami - The Chaco Forest and Its People - documents the work of the Amotocodie Initiative and Ayoreo leaders to support – from a distance – groups of uncontacted Ayoreo in the Chaco Forest and to protect their rights to life and self-determination.

• Swedish documentary on WikiLeaks: "WikiRebels" - In less than a year Wikileaks has grown from a rather obscure website to a global political player, shaping world history and events, by revealing secret documents about warcrimes, corporate corruption and shady political backdoor dealings. Over several months a crew from Swedish Television has been following the secretive media network and its work behind the scenes. The result is a one hour feature documentary that tells the story behind the story.

• American Experience: Earth Days (2009) - It is now all the rage in the Age of Al Gore and Obama, but can you remember when everyone in America was not Going Green ? Visually stunning, vastly entertaining and awe-inspiring, Earth Days looks back to the dawn and development of the modern environmental movement from its post-war rustlings in the 1950s and the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson s incendiary bestseller Silent Spring, to the first wildly successful 1970 Earth Day celebration and the subsequent firestorm of political action. Earth Days secret weapon is a one-two punch of personal testimony and rare archival media.

• The World According to Monsanto - The World According to Monsanto tells the little-known yet shocking story of this agribusiness giant--the world's leading producer of GMOs (genetically modified organisms)--and how its new "green" face is no less malign than its PCB- and Agent Orange-soaked past.

• Late Night Sunrise - The story of the resistance in Cabanas, El Salvador, to the El Dorado mine, owned by Canadian mining company Pacific Rim. A film by Michael Watts & David McNulty.

• Truth, Trials and Tar Sands: The Beaver Lake Cree Nation Battle Big Oil to Save the Boreal - Chief Al Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation and Jack Woodward, pre-eminent authority on Aboriginal law in Canada, speak to a full house on Salt Spring Island about the need to tackle the tar sands if we are going to really be effective in the fight against climate change.

• Blue Gold: The Tsilhqot'in Fight for Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) - Blue Gold expresses the Tsilhqot'in peoples' unanimous rejection of Taseko Mines Ltd.'s proposal to drain Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) in order to stockpile mining waste.

• The Merchants of Cool (2001) - They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?

• American Holocaust: When It’s All Over I’ll Still Be Indian - The powerful and hard-hitting documentary, American Holocaust, is quite possibly the only film that reveals the link between the Nazi holocaust, which claimed at least 6 million Jews, and the American Holocaust which claimed, according to conservative estimates, 19 million Indigenous People.

• Battle for the Trees (1993) - It is a complex battle being fought on many fronts--in corporate board rooms, in legislatures, on the streets, and in the woods. The weapons range from million-dollar public relations campaigns to quiet acts of civil disobedience. At stake are the last stands of old-growth coastal forest of British Columbia, which are being clearcut at an increased rate every year. Soon they will be gone forever.

• Dirty Oil (2009) - Dirty Oil dramatically explores the battle between industry, government, local communities and environmentalists. From the heart of the oils sands in Northern Alberta, Dirty Oil follows the pipelines to the U.S. Midwest refineries, to witness how refineries, much like its Canadian counterparts, try to increase toxic dumping into the Great Lakes. These disturbing stories profoundly illustrate the price dirty oil is taking on both sides of the border.

• Amazonia for Sale - Awajun People and their struggle - Approximately 35 minutes in length, Amazonia for Sale tells the story of the Awajun Peoples, who, like so many other Indigenous People around the world, are struggling to preserve their land, protect their way of life, and defend their dignity and rights in the Peruvian Amazon.

• Moneyless in Moab (2006) - Interweaving philosophical conversations with suelo in his cave and treehouse with colorful footage of his daily activities in town and in nature, MONEYLESS IN MOAB offers an intimate look at a person who embodies a radical alternative to our excessively consumeristic american way of life. The film opens our eyes to the fact that it is indeed possible to live happily without money, and to do so with joy, grace, and dignity, even in a world gone mad with attachment.

• Ready, steady, skip (2008) - Ready Steady Skip is a short film made by a community of friends in response to our continual amazement at the things we find in skips; to share what we experience of the staggering amounts of food waste seen by retailers as nothing more than a factor in the cost of doing business.

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