"Information and perspectives you won't get from the mainstream media." At an International Level:
Films For Action is a non-profit website featuring over 500 of the best socially-conscious documentaries and videos you can watch free online. We add videos and articles regularly on a wide variety of issues, putting an emphasis on ideas, information, and perspectives not covered by the mainstream news. Our goal is to empower citizens with the information they need to take an active role in creating a more just, sustainable, and democratic society.
At the Local Level:
On the ground, Films for Action is working to create information channels in Lawrence, KS that will inform, connect, and inspire action at a community level.
We screen documentaries at Liberty Hall and other venues regularly throughout the year. With most films we launch an accompanying educational and action-oriented campaign to address the issues presented by the films. We occasionally air films on our local public Access TV channel, Sunflower Cable channel 99. And over the last three years we've bought over 100 educational films, which we make available to everyone in Lawrence to watch and screen in their own neighborhoods for free. People can browse what films we have in our Lending Library section.
All in all, through the screenings, public access TV, this website, and our Lending Library, we hope to provide an information and resource network that will reduce the Lawrence community's dependence on corporate media, providing more meaningful and reliable ways to stay informed on the issues that matter.
Follow Us on Social-Media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/filmsforaction
Twitter: www.twitter.com/filmsforaction
MySpace: www.myspace.com/filmsforaction
For Media Inquiries, Contact: Tim Hjersted - Project Director
phone: 785.218.4154
email: FilmsForAction@Gmail dot com
Copyright Notice About the Films on this Site: Films For Action does not host any videos on our site. All of the videos are embedded through sites like Google, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. We realize some videos are put on those websites without permission. If you are the copyright holder and wish the video to be removed from our site, please let us know. However, to fix the issue at its source you will want to file a copyright claim with the video hosting site the video is embedded from.
On a related note, we realize your videos provide a revenue stream for your organization and having them online may be viewed as a loss if people can watch them online for free. But from our experience witnessing emerging technology and social trends in the independent film industry, integrating free online video into your business/marketing plan can provide a great benefit to your organization and drive increased sales of the video through wider public exposure, previewing abilities, and integrated action/social-media driven campaigns. Brave New Films and other organizations have pioneered successful business models that sustain and grow their organization by doing just this. We would encourage your organization to embrace these emerging social and web 2.0 distribution trends and see how you can integrate them into your overall business/marketing/social-change strategy. For more, check out this article in Time magazine, "Why Indie Directors Are Releasing Movies Online - For Free."
Why Does Films For Action exist?
For the short answer, check out these videos tagged under our "Big Media" subject.
What We're About:
We believe a healthy, independent media is essential to a healthy democracy. It is essential to solving nearly every social and environmental problem groups like us and thousands of others are working to solve. Whether you care the most about addressing corporate harm, government corruption, peak oil, environmental collapse, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bank bailouts, or anything else - addressing the problem of the media has got to be our second most important priority. The corporate consolidation of the mass media in our country stands as one of the greatest bottlenecks impeding the efforts we take to create solutions and build a more sustainable world.
Every day, more people realize this. Over the years, the Mainstream News has become increasingly sensationalized, watered down, slanted for profit, censored, filtered, and now finally, and most fatally - irrelevant - as the crisis within the news industry is now showing.
Yet despite the news industry's crisis of identity and waning support from the public, the dominant news institutions of our day still have a tremendous influence over public policy and debate. They select the stories that get told and the ones that don't. They help shape the way we see the world and how we live in it. This would be fine if our media represented the full spectrum of voices, ideas, and perspectives that exist in society, but it doesn't.
Currently, six multi-national corporations dominate 90% of the media that we read, see, and hear. ABC, FOX, CBS, NBC, CNN and most if not all of the channels on cable television are owned by parent companies: Disney, News Corporation, General Electric, Westinghouse, Time Warner and Viacom. These six multinationals also hold ownership shares in dozens of other media properties (creating financial relationships that often pose significant conflicts of interest. For example, NBC is owned by General Electric, which is a major defense contractor that profits millions from the United State's wars abroad).
With media this concentrated and this entrenched in their own interests, the idea that the media should serve the public's interest and act as a watchdog for corporate and government abuse seems like a bad joke. People don't even act surprised anymore. If it wasn't for the Daily Show, examples of the mainstream media failing to do it's job would have stopped being funny a long time ago.
But as the IndyMedia saying goes, "Don't just complain about the media. Be the media." And that's exactly what we're all about.
By creating our own communication channels and building upon the increasingly diverse network of independent news sources that are growing on the internet, we can break the bottleneck they have on the flow of information and cut right to the root of the problem.
With a robust, diverse, and independent media, we'll be able to launch more ambitious campaigns and win them more effectively. We'll be able to organize our community's latent collective energies into a powerful movement for social and environmental justice. And we'll finally see the tipping point where our energies spark a creative and widespread renaissance of sustainable innovation, new thinking, and new ways of life. At its essence, we'll be able to make real change happen for ourselves and for the earth. It all starts with an independent media.
Notice: Films For Action does not endorse or support any political party.
Why Is ____ This Film Not Included on the Site?
With thousands of videos scattered across the internet on various websites, both obscure and mainstream, we wanted to create a site that catalogs the best of these films all in one place. We've spent hours watching all sorts of videos, researching the issues they cover, and have done our best to include the best we've watched, while importantly, not including any films that are misleading, contain disinformation, misinformation, or are simply not that great.
You won't however, find that we are squeamish when it comes to covering controversial issues. You will see we have lots of documentaries on 9/11 and aren't concerned about covering these difficult subjects the way a lot of left media avoids 9/11 and similar 'don't go there' topics. As our motto goes, "Neither left nor right, but straight ahead." When the ideas or assertions are grounded on thorough research and evidence, we will add the videos or articles to the site.
That said, our team is pretty small so if there's a film or video that you think should be on the site, it's likely we just haven't come across it yet, so don't hesitate to send us the link to the film through our contact page.
Lastly, it should be noted that we do not necessarily agree with the information and ideas in every film. There are a few instances where we have added a video that does contain spurious or questionable information, but we felt that as a whole, the video contributes something worthwhile to the debate on that film's particular subject.
We fully believe in the spirit of the "marketplace of ideas," where a diverse array of perspectives are made available to the public so that the best ideas can rise to the top, and people can research and decide for themselves.
Again, when digesting media of all forms, whether mainstream or alternative, the golden rule still applies: Think for yourself. Do your own research. Be skeptical but stay open-minded. Don't just agree with it because you identify with the messenger, and don't turn off automatically to the idea if you don't. Developing excellent media literacy skills is important for all of us, no matter how reliable our sources of information are. This is why we have dedicated a section of our site exclusively towards media literacy videos.
An Incomplete Look at Our Public Film Screening History | Attendees | Date | | Dirt! The Movie | 270 | May 24, 2010 | | Within Reach Speaker Presentation | 077 | May 20, 2010 | | Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action | 105 | April 26, 2010 | | What Would Jesus Buy? | 056 | December 09, 2009 | | Rethink Afghanistan | 059 | October 28, 2009 | | Fabled Enemies | 071 | September 09, 2009 | | Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections | 152 | June 02, 2008 | | Black Gold | 083 | May 19, 2008 | | Crude Impact | 105 | April 21, 2008 | | War Made Easy | 121 | March 19, 2008 | | What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire | 177 | November 05, 2007 | | Oil, Smoke & Mirrors | 258 | September 11, 2007 | | Go Organic! | 261 | August 23, 2007 | | Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price | 165 | August 6, 2007 | | Sir! No Sir! | 160 | June 25, 2007 | | The Future of Food | 405 | June 05, 2007 | | The End of Suburbia | 180 | April 23, 2007 | | Weapons of Mass Deception | 087 | March 14, 2007 | | Loose Change: 2nd Edition | 360 | September 11, 2006 | | Wal-Mart: the high cost of low price | 340 | June 05, 2006 | |
