Political
see all genres ›Politics as usual and politics as “unusual” offer great source material for documentary filmmakers who've mined scandal, personality and the search for the public “good” in creating films on public service and the political process.
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Genres / Documentary / Political
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Uncle Bob
On a fateful night in 1974, millions of Americans tuned in to the Academy Awards® and watched in shock as an anonymous man streaked naked across the stage in the middle of the show. In an instant, the prankster named Robert Opel rocketed to iconic status, but to this day few people know the full...Watch Movie
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Without a Home
Filmmaker Rachel Fleischer spent four years creating this extraordinary documentary that enters the lives of six homeless individuals in her hometown of Los Angeles. The film's subjects include families in temporary housing, a street performer who depends on banjo-playing for income and a...Watch Movie
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The Vanishing City
Global trends in major cities around the world have changed rapidly in the last several decades. These trends are perhaps best exemplified in the city of New York. Told through the eyes of city planners, developers, politicians, small business owners, landlords and tenants,...Watch Movie
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James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
James Baldwin was at once a major twentieth century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, Black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy. JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF THE TICKET captures on film the...Watch Movie
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Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Eleven years in the making, PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE is a unique and intimate portrait of the renowned singer, songwriter, poet, and activist. Patti Smith's music, poetry, and politics are fearless, funny, raw and original. Photographer-director Steven Sebring creates a...Watch Movie
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Class of Struggle
In 1967, Chris Marker and Mario Marret (under the aegis of SLON) produced À BIENTÔT J'ESPÈRE, which documented a strike and factory occupation, the first in France since 1936, by textile workers at the Rhodiaceta textile plant in Besançon, the goals of which prefigured many of...Watch Movie
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Be Seeing You
From 1967 to 1976 Chris Marker was a member of SLON (the "Company for the Launching of New Works"). One of several groups that emerged in those years in which filmmakers, militants, and others came together on a cooperative, parallel basis, SLON was based on the idea that cinema should not be...Watch Movie
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The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg
Visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist and teacher, Allen Ginsberg's remarkable life shaped the very soul of American counterculture. For twenty-five years,...Watch Movie
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Propaganda
Controversial to its core, this hard-hitting anti-Western propaganda film looks at the influence of American culture on the rest of the world from a North Korean perspective. As first reported on mainstream new around the world, PROPAGANDA is allegedly a video smuggled out of North Korea....Watch Movie
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Human Remains
HUMAN REMAINS is a haunting documentary which illustrates the banality of evil by creating intimate portraits of five of the 20th century's most reviled dictators. The film unveils the personal lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco and Mao Tse Tung. We learn the...Watch Movie
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Granito
In a startling loop of time and memory, GRANITO shows how a filmmaker's first documentary has been instrumental to indict Guatemalan ex-dictator Ríos Montt. Back in 1982, a young first time filmmaker, Pamela Yates, gained unprecedented access to Ríos Montt, his generals and leftist guerrillas...Watch Movie
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Black Roots
Lionel Rogosin took the fight for equality to his homeland with his astonishing fourth feature BLACK ROOTS. The extraordinary cast, including Reverend Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, attorney and feminist activist Florynce "Flo" Kennedy, musicians Jim Collier, Wende Smith, Larry Johnson and...Watch Movie
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The Foreign Aid Paradox
Why does the U.S. fund foreign aid? The United States spends approximately $37 billion dollars a year on foreign aid - just under 1% of our federal budget. THE FOREIGN AID PARADOX zeroes in on food aid to Haiti and how it affects American farming and shipping interests as well...Watch Movie
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7 Days in September
In the moments after 9/11 people ran for shelter in lower Manhattan. But a handful of New Yorkers turned to face the towers. In their hands, digital video cameras captured sounds and images few could ever have imagined. Then, in the days that followed, cameras continued to...Watch Movie
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The Mexican Suitcase
THE MEXICAN SUITCASE tells the story of the recovery of 4,500 negatives taken by photographers, Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David "Chim" Seymour during the Spanish Civil War and recovered 70 years later, in a closet in Mexico City. The film looks at the journey of these...Watch Movie
