The Issues At Stake

Films addressing these topics:

Voting rights and voter suppression:

• John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020). A portrait of this Civil Rights icon and the vital issue of voting rights.

• Capturing the Flag (2018) Set in North Carolina in 2016, this fly-on-the wall documentary focuses on the work of voter protection activists and vividly portrays the obstacles that many voters confront in casting their ballots.

• Dolores (2017) This film covers the full range of Dolores Huerta’s campaigns and activism. As a community organizer, Dolores set up voter registration drives and was instrumental in changing voter registration procedures in California.

• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2016). Greg Palast investigates the way voter suppression has been operationalized as a Republican strategy to ‘steal elections’.

• Suppressing the Vote (2012) Bill Moyers talks with Keesha Gaskins and Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice on new voter ID and other election laws that have a powerful impact on voting rights – especially of the young, the elderly, minorities and the poor.

Campaign finance issues and disinformation

• Operation Infektion (2018) A New York Times video which analyzes the history, tactics and objectives of Russian “active measures” and the deployment of misinformation and fraudulent news in US elections and civic life. . 

• Citizen Koch (2013) This film focuses on the campaign to recall Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin and the role of the Koch brothers in supporting him. It offers this as an example of the impact of Citizens United on campaign finance.

• Dark Money (2012) Bill Moyers discusses the issue of the role of money in politics and elections in particular with Thomas Frank, author of  What’s the Matter With Kansas?, and Pity the Billionaire and with Mother Jones editors Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein on what they call “dark money”. This is a useful early analysis of the impact of the Citizens United decision and the growth of super PACs.

• Uncounted (2008) David Earnhardt offers an investigation of the various ways in which the integrity of the 2004 elections was undermined.

Election campaigns

• The Choice: (2016) PBS. the 2016 Election The 2016 episode of the PBS quadrennial series on the Presidential election.

• Going Upriver (2004): The story of the 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry’s military service in Vietnam and subsequent involvement in the anti-war peace movement in the 1970s.

• Streetfight (2005): Cory Booker’s campaign for Mayor of Newark in 2002

• Bush’s Brain (2004) Karl Rove and his role in making G.W. Bush ‘presidential’ and in Bush’s election campaigns.

• Red State Road Trip (2004): a 6000 mile journey into the heart of America and the 2008 followup documentary. Chris Hume. See David Brook’s 2001 Atlantic article “One Nation Slightly Divisible” for analyses of the early 2000s.

Films addressing these topics:

Economic inequality and poverty

• Inequality for All (2013). Film Night. Robert Reich dissects the widening income gap and whether the consolidation of wealth by a few is a threat not only to economic recovery and growth and the viability of the USA middle class, but also to our democracy itself.

• Two American Families (2013) Film Night. Bill Moyers examines the impact of economic change over the twenty year period 1993 –2013 on two American ‘middle class’  families in the declining industrial city of Milwaukee. 

• Dolores (2018) Film Night While this film covers the full range of Dolores Huerta’s campaigns and activism, a major focus is on her work organizing farm workers, the working conditions farm workers faced, and the struggles to build the United Farm Workers of America union.

The US economic system

• Capitalism: A Love Story Official Trailer (2009). Michael Moore. 

• We’re Not Broke (2012). An expose of how and why corporations have been able to avoid paying taxes and the impact on public finances. John Anderson in Variety called it “A well-researched, brightly presented provocative argument.” See Briefing Notes from the Film Night.

The 2008 Financial Crisis

Inside Job Official Trailer (2010) Charles Ferguson. About the 2008 financial meltdown. 

The Flaw Official Trailer.

Films on these topics:

Operation Infektion (2018). New York Times 3-part video series on the Russian strategy of ‘active measures’ and its impact on U.S. elections. See full details of our Film Night.

The Brainwashing of My Dad (2015) Jen Senko uses the experience of seeing her father’s trasnformation from a non-political Democrat to a right-wing fanatic to launch an investigation of the eco-system, power and impact of right wing media in the USA. See full details of our Film Night here

Outfoxed (2004). Brave New Films. A prescient analysis of the role and impact of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News on the media landscape.

Weapons of Mass Deception (2004) The role of the media in the Iraq War. Danny Schechter.

Resources on the issues (coming soon)

On Disinformation and False News

On right-wing media and their power

Films on these topics:

Before the Flood (2016). Fisher Stevens and Leonardo di Caprio. See full details of the Film Night here

Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) Chris Paine. An investigation of the creation and production of electric cars, in particular the General Motors EV1, in the 1990a in response to California’s requirement for auto manufacturers to offer electric cars as an option. Despite the successful technology and popularity of the cars (available only for lease), once the Californian rules were reversed, they were withdrawn and/or destroyed. Find out more about the film.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Davis Guggenheim, director. Al Gore presents his compelling analysis of climate change, its impacts and what we can do about it.

End of Suburbia (2004) About energy, peak oil and the relation to urban planning.

Films addressing these topics:

The Arc of History: Episode 4 Inside Obama’s White House. Brook Lapping for BBC. Mick Gold, episode director and producer. Inside Obama’s White House. See full details of the Film Night.

Dolores (2017) Peter Bratt See the Film Night for full details.

The House I Live In (2012). Eugene Jarecki. This film examines the human and financial cost of the “War on Drugs” in the United States and how a profitable, industrialized penal system that has a vested interest in punishment, retribution and recidivism has been built around that “war”.

In the Land of the Free (2009). Vadim Jean, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. An investigation of the cases of the ‘Angola Three’ – Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King who were imprisoned in the 1970s and held in solitary confinement for many years – and the prison conditions within Angola Prison in Louisiana. Their cases attracted international protest. Robert King and Vadim Jean spoke at the Film Night.

Films addressing these topics:

Inside Obama’s White House: Obamacare (2016). Brook-Lapping for the BBC. Sarah Wallis, episode director and producer. Film Night. Brook-Lapping examines the struggle to pass the Affordable Care Act in Episode 2 of Inside Obama’s White House.

Sick Around the World (2008) PBS Frontline’s T.R. Reid investigates healthcare systems of other advanced capitalist democracies — UK, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan to see what lessons we can draw. More information here.

Sicko (2007). Michael Moore. Investigates health care in the United States with a focus on health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry.

Films addressing these topics:

Dolores See the Film Night for more details

Trapped See the Film Night for more details

RBG (2018) Betsey West and Julie Cohen. About Ruth Bader Ginsberg. See the Film Night for full details.

Films addressing these topics:

The Case Against 8 (2014). Ben Cotner and Ryan Whitetakes. Follows the development of the (successful) case put forward at the US Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage. For more details see the Film Night.

Films addressing these topics:

The House I Live In (2012). Eugene Jarecki. This film examines the human and financial cost of the War on Drugs in the United States and how a profitable, industrialized penal system that has a vested interest in punishment, retribution and recidivism has been built around that ‘war’.

In the Land of the Free (2009). Vadim Jean, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. An investigation of the cases of the ‘Angola Three’ – Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King who were imprisoned in the 1970s and held in solitary confinement for many years – and the prison conditions within Angola Prison in Louisiana. Their cases attracted international protest. Robert King and Vadim Jean spoke at the Film Night.

Films addressing these topics:

CitizenFour (2014). Laura Poitras. The story of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of classified information on NSA surveillance activities. For full details see the Film Night

Operation Infektion (2018). New York Times 3-part video series on the Russian strategy of ‘active measures’ and its impact on U.S. elections. See full details of our Film Night.

Films addressing these topics:

RBG (2018) Betsey West and Julie Cohen. About Ruth Bader Ginsberg. See the Film Night for full details.

Restoring the Rule of Law (2006) Al Gore speaks at the Constitutional Society on the threats posed by the Bush administration to the rule of law and the US constitution.

Unconstitutional (2004). The Bush administration, 9/11, the Patriot Act and its impact on civil liberties

Unprecedented (2002). Brave New Films About the 2000 elections and voter suppression.

Films addressing these topics:

The Vietnam War (2017) PBS series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. See our Film Night.

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006). Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films. Profiteering during the Iraq War.

Iraq in Fragments (2006). James Longle. Examines the impact of the Iraq War from the perspectives of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish residents.

No End in Sight (2007). Charles Ferguson’s Academy-award winning examination of the US occupation of Iraq. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts

Weapons of Mass Deception (2004) Danny Schecter on the role of the media in the Iraq War.

The Ground Truth (2006) About U.S. soldiers in the Iraq War: the horrors they witnessed and experienced and their lives after returning to the USA.

Films addressing these topics:

JFK (2014). A PBS two- part series on President John F. Kennedy. See our Film Night

Inside Obama’s White House: The Arc of History (2016).

1964 (2014). PBS. An exploration of key events and figures in 1964.