In this round-up, you'll find the links to watch 19 documentaries we wanted to highlight this summer.
Eight of them were previously available via pay-per-view and are now free. Some are buried gems that deserve more exposure. All of them are excellent, free to watch, and worth sharing with friends.
Cheers!
You can browse all of our recently added documentaries by clicking here or by using the Explore menu above.
Turning to issues of media policy, George Gerbner delivers a stinging indictment of the way the so-called "information superhighway" is being constructed. By examining the logic of globalization he shows the ineffectual nature of our present responses to deal with the urgent crisis of the media. Showing the real uses to which the "information superhighway" will be put by its corporate masters, he urges the citizens of the world to struggle for democratic principles in the cultural environment...
Ladakh, or 'Little Tibet', is a wildly beautiful desert land high in the Western Himalayas. It is a place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet for more than 1,000 years, it has been home to a thriving culture. Traditions of frugality and cooperation, with an intimate and location-specific knowledge of the environment, enabled the Ladakhis not only to survive, but to prosper. Then came "development".
A documentary following two women from Ladakh, a remote region in the Himalayas, on a reality tour of London to see what life in the West is really like. The tour, sponsored by Local Futures, exposes the women to aspects of modern urban life - homelessness, old-age homes, massive garbage dumps - that contrast sharply with the idealized media and advertising images that colonize people's minds in the less-developed parts of the world.
This critically acclaimed look at American war propaganda exhumes five decades of remarkable archival footage to show how presidents from both parties have relied on fear-driven political spin and craven media complicity to sell a succession of wars to the American people. The result is an invaluable introduction to how propaganda, public relations, and perception management function in democratic societies. Essential viewing for courses in media studies, political science, journalism, and U.
What distinguishing feature do the world's healthiest and happiest societies have in common? According to acclaimed author Richard Wilkinson, the answer is simple: they have far less income inequality than other societies. In this new film based on his international best-seller The Spirit Level, Wilkinson focuses on why the U.S.
Allergies, obesity, asthma, diabetes, auto-immune and intestinal disorders are all on the rise, with the incidence of some diseases doubling every ten years. New research points to changes in the ecosystem of microbes that live on and inside every one of us -- our microbiomes -- as a major cause. But how could one's gut microbes increase the odds of developing conditions as radically different as asthma and diabetes?
The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist on Pennsylvania's death row in connection with the death of a police officer, had become by the late 1990s a global symbol of inequities in the U.S. judicial system. The mainstream media could no longer ignore it, but how would they cover such a hotly disputed case and the questions of judicial bias that it raises?
Climate change is here. Will we have the wisdom to survive? The film features thought leaders and activists in the realms of science, economics, and spirituality. The focus: how we can live creatively and even joyfully in the face of this catastrophe, and how can we act to staunch the damage and ensure the survival of our planet for generations to come. "The beauty of this film is that it calls me out of the closet.
With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the...
Biophilic Design is an innovative way of designing the places where we live, work, and learn. We need nature in a deep and fundamental fashion, but we have often designed our cities and suburbs in ways that both degrade the environment and alienate us from nature. The recent trend in green architecture has decreased the environmental impact of the built environment, but it has accomplished little in the way of reconnecting us to the natural world, the missing piece in the puzzle of su...
The Stars at Night is a journey of young filmmakers, experts, artists and writers to the darkest skies around the world in a quest to re-discover the connection human storytelling has with the stars. The film explores a deeper connection to the disappearing night sky by looking at the roots of storytelling, and ancient people’s need to explain their cosmology through story.
Within Reach explores one couple's pedal-powered search for a place to call home. Mandy and Ryan gave up their jobs, cars, and traditional houses to 'bike-pack' 6500 miles around the USA seeking sustainable community. Rather than looking in a traditional neighborhood, they begin to recognize that community is the secret ingredient to living sustainably on this planet.
On February 15th, 2003, up to 30 million people, many of whom had never demonstrated before, came out in nearly 800 cities around the world to protest against the impending Iraq War. We Are Many is the never-before-told story of the largest demonstration in human history, and how the movement created by a small band of activists changed the world.
Today, there are more Americans in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. The prison population has exploded by 500% since the end of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. America locks up more of its racial and ethnic minorities than any other country (including South Africa at the height of apartheid). How could this happen?
For marketers who wish to reach the lucrative youth market, the relatively uncluttered medium of the school environment represents the final frontier -- access to a captive audience of millions of students. Meanwhile dwindling federal, state, and local funding for education has left many schools vulnerable to the advertiser's pitch. As a result, commercialism has steadily increased in America's public schools in recent years, often with little or no public awareness.
This stunning film takes you on a hypnotic journey, reaching to the past to understand the origins of the catastrophic environmental transitions we now face. Over two years, director Matt Anderson traveled 16,000 miles to document firsthand our modern industrial world and the environmental destruction in its wake. In the process, he discovered exciting strategies to help humanity transcend the coming ecological and psychological crisis.
Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world. A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil is an informative, inspirational documentary aimed at sharing ideas to provoke environment-friendly and cost-effective changes in cities worldwide.
“Once in a while a film comes along that has profound impact – this is a delicious taste of what can be.” - Polly Higgins “ A stunning and sensitive journey into ecology, humanity and spirituality.” - The Cube Cinema, Bristol. Wetheuncivilised is now offered for free, in the spirit of the gift! If you'd like to show your thanks, you can buy the film on this page.
Advertising & the End of the World features an illustrated presentation by Sut Jhally of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Making the connection between society's high-consumption lifestyle and the coming environmental crisis, Jhally forces us to evaluate the physical and material costs of our consumer society.
"To the Ends of the Earth" follows concerned citizens living at the frontiers of extreme oil and gas extraction, bearing witness to a global crossroads. They call for human ingenuity to rebuild society at the end of the fossil fuel era. The people we meet are uniquely positioned to watch this global crossroads unfold.
70 years ago Costa Rica abolished its army and committed itself to fostering a peaceful society. It has been reaping the benefits ever since. In his famous "Cross of Iron" speech in 1953, President Eisenhower critiqued the military-industrial complex while asking, "Is there no other way the world may live?" In Costa Rica today, we glimpse another way to live.
Inspired by Lewis Hyde’s beloved classic “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World”, GIFT is a tribute to something that can’t be measured or counted, bought or sold. An intimate exploration of real-life gift economies, it’s a reflection on the creative process, the reasons we labour in service of our gifts, and a celebration of the imagination.
The media regularly use public opinion polls in their reporting of important news stories. But how exactly do they report them and to what end? In this insightful and accessible interview, Professor Justin Lewis demonstrates the way in which polling data are themselves used by the media to not just reflect what Americans think but instead to construct public opinion itself. Addressing vital issues (e.g.
Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psyc...
The story of how a mining town recovered from its legacy of pollution and prospered by building community around the battle to save their beautiful river. Born in the California Gold Rush, Nevada City was once the scene of some of the most destructive environmental practices on earth. By the 1960s, the town was a backwater, its extractive industries dying. Then it was discovered by the "back to the land movement.
School Circles is an independent documentary that explores the practice of democratic schools in the Netherlands. The film shows students, teachers and staff members coming together to dialogue, discuss proposals, mediate conflicts and make decisions about their school life. These schools not only challenge the mainstream education, but also democracy as we know it.
We are living in a time that has been described as the age of loneliness. Despite Western advances in technology, living conditions, education and healthcare, we, as a society, are isolating ourselves from one another, and because of this, facing a health crisis that affects all ages, genders, races, and cultures. But how have we become so disconnected? And what can we do to change the status quo and fulfill our potential for health and well-being?
Carne Ross was a government highflyer. A career diplomat who believed Western Democracy could save us all. But working inside the system he came to see its failures, deceits and ulterior motives. He felt at first hand the corruption of power. After the Iraq war Carne became disillusioned, quit his job and started searching for answers.
Do politically expedient proposals for more testing prepare children for the challenges of the 21st century? What is the role of schools in a time when the mass media are children's most frequent teachers? In Tomorrow's Children, based on her groundbreaking book of the same name, Riane Eisler offers a practical blueprint for transforming how we educate our children -- and ourselves. Through Partnership Education we can break the cycle of global violence that imperils the world.
Economist and bestselling author Juliet Schor lays out a positive vision for rethinking our relationship to consumer goods in this accessible and timely analysis of the devastating ecological, social, and personal costs of mass consumerism. Ranging from cutting-edge developments in economic theory, social analysis, and ecological design to real-world examples of these ideas being put into practice around the world, Schor makes a compelling case that preserving dwindling natural resour...
If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children. The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it forced Native American children into government boarding schools. Today, volunteers build schools in traditional societies around the world, convinced that school is the only way to a 'better' life for indigenous children. But is this true?
Funny, provocative and surprisingly accessible, MANUFACTURING CONSENT explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, intellectual and political activist. In a dynamic collage of new and original footage, biography, archival gems, imaginative graphics and outrageous illustrations, the film highlights Chomsky’s probing analysis of mass media.
Through the stories of six extraordinary individuals, Self-Taught explores what self-directed education means to them and the impact it has had on their lives, ambitions, work and beliefs. Whether Artist, Scientist, or Entrepreneur, they all have one thing in common: their belief that true education is the capacity to author your own life instead of merely accepting the one you’ve been handed.
AFFLUENZA diagnoses a serious social disease - caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism - that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating. With the help of historians and humorous archival film, AFFLUENZA reveals the forces that have dramatically transformed us from a nation that prized thriftiness - with strong beliefs in "plain livi...
"In a time when many are questioning institutional integrity across society, seeking accurate and relevant information to help make sense of our supposedly post-truth era, Noble shines a spotlight into our dark past while providing a crucial class context often missing or obscured in mainstream accounts. It is precisely this sort of work that can provide a foundation for mapping a better, brighter, and more just future for all.
Opening with a powerful ‘deep time’ perspective, from the beginning of the Earth to our present moment, BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's new film recognises the fundamental unsustainability of today’s society and dares to ask the big question: What will follow? Around the world, fresh shoots are already emerging as people develop the skills, will and resources necessary to recapture the initiative and re-imagine civilisation, often in the ruins of collapsed mainstream economies.
For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons -- everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and cultural works. In This Land is Our Land, acclaimed author David Bollier, a leading figure in the global movement to reclaim the commons, bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are unde...
Living the Change explores solutions to the global crises we face today – solutions any one of us can be part of – through the inspiring stories of people pioneering change in their own lives and in their communities in order to live in a sustainable and regenerative way. Directors Jordan Osmond and Antoinette Wilson have brought together stories from their travels around New Zealand, along with interviews with experts able to explain how we came to be where we are today.
Abundant Land is a one-hour documentary about a Hawaiian community on Moloka’i opposing the biotech industry’s use of the island to test genetically engineered seeds. Agrochemical biotech corporations, including Monsanto and Mycogen Seeds, are depleting Moloka’i’s topsoil and fresh water while contributing to dust storms that spread pesticides into the ocean and surrounding communities.
At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, and growing inequity in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. SHIFT CHANGE visits thriving cooperative businesses in the U.S. and Spain, sharing on-the-ground experiences from the worker-owners on the front lines of the new economy.
From cave paintings to virtual reality, Beware of Images embarks on a fascinating journey through the history of mediated representation. This is the history of media you will never find on TV.Thanks to the filmmaker, Beware of Images has been released for free, in the spirit of the gift!
THE NATURE OF CITIES follows the journey of Professor Timothy Beatley as he explores urban projects around the world, representing the new green movement that hopes to move our urban environments beyond sustainability to a regenerative way of living.
While there's been no shortage of commentary about the structural crisis plaguing the American economic and political system, from wage stagnation and chronic unemployment to unchecked corporate and state power and growing inequality, analyses that offer practical, politically viable solutions to these problems have been few and far between. This illustrated presentation from distinguished historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz is a rare and stunning exception.
Purpose asks the central question of our time: What is the purpose of our economies — and how can we change them? Director Martin Oetting follows two visionaries, Katherine Trebeck (founder of the Wellbeing Economy Governments alliance) and Lorenzo Fioramonti (who rises from alliance supporter to Italian Minister), as they work to shift our economic systems away from endless GDP growth and toward wellbeing...
Never before in history have so many people relied on so few for the basic essentials of life. In our present-day democracies, freedom is slowly being commodified. We have been giving our democratic governments more and more freedom while they have been busy restricting ours. In the name of democracy and global progress laws are drafted that will outlaw simple activities that empower humanity, like growing our own food.
The Third Harmony tells the story of nonviolence, humanity’s greatest (and most overlooked) resource. "I am exhilarated and grateful to the filmmakers for bringing forth such a fine gift for the future of life on Earth. Hurray! and deep bows.
Blood and Oil offers a riveting look at how U.S. efforts to control the global flow of fossil fuels has led to endless war, alliances with authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, and the undermining of democratic movements around the world. The film details how the militarization of U.S. energy policy has been deceptively spun and sold to the American public by American political leaders and a largely complicit corporate news media.
Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States. The Occupation of the American Mind takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.
OYLER profiles how an innovative "community school" helped fuel a dramatic turnaround in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, part of a growing national movement to help poor children succeed by transforming schools to meet basic health, social, and nutritional needs. Before 2006, very few kids from the Lower Price Hill area in Cincinnati finished high school, much less went to college.
In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod (Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa) made headlines when he successfully trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression" to call attention to the extremes of intellectual property law. But in the years since, as fewer and fewer corporations have come to dominate the media landscape, copyright law has only become more restrictive.
A Quest for Meaning is an inspiring journey that connects personal growth and social change. It tells the story of two friends, Marc and Nathanael, who leave everything behind to go question the workings of the world and look for alternative ways of thinking and living. Produced and distributed with the help of thousands of citizens around the globe, this uplifting, life-changing journey renews our confidence in our capacity to bring about change, within ourselves and within society.
Fly By Light is an intimate exploration of young people seeking to overcome the violence in their lives and create a new path for their future by connecting to a world outside their neighborhoods. In Washington, DC, where high school dropout rates average 40%, a group of teenagers participates in an ambitious peace education youth program that takes them out of their tough neighborhoods and into the beautiful mountains of West Virginia.
Tawai is a word the nomadic hunter-gatherers of Borneo use to describe the connection they feel to their forest home. In this dreamy, philosophical and sociological look at life, Bruce Parry (of the BBC's Tribe, Amazon & Arctic) embarks on an immersive odyssey to explore the different ways that humans relate to nature and how this influences the way we create our societies.
Hijacking Catastrophe places the Bush Administration's original justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neo-conservatives to dramatically increase military spending while projecting American power and influence globally by means of force. At the same time, the documentary argues that the Bush Administration has sold this radical and controversial plan for aggressive American military intervention by deliberately manipulating intel...
Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment. There are personal costs too. For the majority of people on the planet life is becoming increasingly stressful. We have less time for friends and family and we face mounting pressures at work.
One in five Americans, along with millions of children, are prescribed psychiatric drugs daily, and often for a lifetime. MEDICATING NORMAL follows the stories of five high-functioning people whose doctors prescribed pills to help with common problems such as stress, mild depression, insomnia and grief with devastating impact on their lives. This is the untold story of the serious consequences that can occur when profit-driven medicine intersects with human beings in distress.
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli pub...
If you think U.S. news has a liberal bias, this assumption-shattering film from Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, and Justin Lewis will have you thinking again. Making the common-sense case that mainstream news media are more committed to their bottom-line interests as large corporations than to left-wing advocacy, they dissect how news content gets shaped within a narrow, and ultimately conservative, institutional frame that marginalizes the progressive perspectives of a broad cross-section of th...
Globalized capitalism is destroying the biosphere while political unrest and war continue to dominate the headlines. Where might we turn for guidance in order to navigate these uncertain times? Enter Tamera: a radical intentional community 40 years in the making, whose research may provide keys to humanity’s survival. They recognized that most utopian communities fail due to the unresolved shadows around love, sex, money and power.
Humanity is more than ever threatened by its own actions; we hear a lot about the need to minimize footprints and to reduce our impact. But what if our footprints were beneficial? What if we could meet human needs while increasing the health and well-being of our planet? This is the premise behind permaculture: a design process based on the replication of patterns found in nature.
Plutocracy, by filmmaker Scott Noble, is the first documentary series to comprehensively examine early American history through the lens of class. Support the filmmaker's next film with a donation via his website."Absolutely brilliant on numerous levels, Scott Noble’s Plutocracy is the story of the American working class… I look forward to the day when this series will become part of the historical educatio...
A secret museum in an art hotel sparks intrigue when it's revealed to be a creation of controversial artist, Banksy. Using art as a form of political resistance, the hotel highlights the reality of life under Israeli military occupation. WALLED OFF journeys through the hotel, Palestine, and a relevant past to dismantle the mainstream media's bias towards the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality.
INHABITANTS follows five Native American communities as they restore their traditional land management practices in the face of a changing climate. For millennia Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain these processes. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land.
The Staging Post follows two Afghan Hazara refugees, Muzafar and Khadim. Stuck in Indonesia after Australia 'stopped the boats' and facing many years in limbo, they built a community and started the school which inspired a refugee education revolution. A real-life, real-time, multi-platform documentary. The Staging Post is about friendship, connection and the power of community.Uplifting and truly unforgettable.
From Executive Producer Mark Ruffalo comes the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature Movement, a “Paradigm Shifting” story where the 'Rights of Nature' has become ‘capitalism’s one true opponent.’ In the fall of 2014, for the first time in United States history, an ecosystem filed to defend itself in a lawsuit claiming its ‘right to exist’ in Grant Township, Pennsylvania.
All over the world species are becoming extinct at an astonishing rate, from 1000 to 10,000 times faster than normal. The loss of biodiversity has become so severe that scientists are calling it a mass extinction event. Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction is the first feature documentary to investigate the growing threat to Earth’s life support systems from this unprecedented loss of biodiversity.
Told through the life of Alan Clements, Spiritually Incorrect shatters numerous light-washed sacred cows of the spiritual movement and explores sustainability from an inner perspective - showing how we can escape the trap of spiritual narcissism and heal from trauma with empathy and compassion. Alan Clements is a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness, meditation and yoga teacher and spiritual/political satirist and activist. Directed by Peter Charles Downey.
"When today's stories of crushing greed and endless growth have come to an end, what, then, will be the new stories?" This film was created as an educational tool that can be used to move us beyond disempowerment, in order to enact real change in a changing world. Chris Wood of BALE (Building A Local Economy) was inspired to create a film that would answer the question: “Will we have the wisdom to survive climate chaos and planetary destruction?
Before starting a family, Soozie Eastman, daughter of an industrial chemical distributor, embarks on a journey to find out the levels of toxins in her body and explores if there is anything she or anyone else can do to change them. Soozie has just learned that hundreds of synthetic toxins are now found in every baby born in America and the government and chemical corporations are doing little to protect citizens and consumers.
Renowned energy expert Michael T. Klare provides an invaluable account of the new and increasingly dangerous competition for the world's dwindling natural resources. Arguing that the world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion -- one that goes beyond "peak oil" to encompass shortages of coal and uranium, copper and lithium, water, and arable land -- Klare shows how the desperate hunt for raw materials is forcing governments and corporations to stake their claim...
The Corporation is today's dominant institution, creating great wealth but also great harm. This 26 award-winning documentary examines the nature, evolution, impacts and future of the modern business corporation and the increasing role it plays in society and our everyday lives.
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