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Film Reviews from World Wide Work bulletin

This is a searchable archive of movie reviews that appeared in past editions of the free emailed bulletin, World Wide Work. They appear in chronological order, from most recent to least recent.

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The American Dream. Two African American friends in L.A. film their final days before they are sent to fight in Afghanistan, as well as some of their experiences while there. Despite a slow start, the resulting film is an exceptionally effective and unusual work of art about war, race, friendship, and American culture.

Austin Unbound. Austin was born a girl but felt from a very young age that he was really a boy. At the time this 43-minute documentary was filmed, he was going through his final operation to become a man. Born deaf and with an open and engaging personality, he shares the feelings that brought him to this point and leaves no question unanswered.

On the Ice. This gripping feature film begins by showing the lives of native teenagers in an isolated Alaskan town 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where parties feature homegrown rap music performances. When two boys go on a seal hunt with a friend, a life-changing accident creates a crisis for them, their families, and their community. The film’s powerful authenticity is enhanced by a director and cast of native people from that region.

COINTELPRO 101. A 56-minute documentary consists primarily of interviews about an FBI program in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to disrupt, discredit, and “neutralize” leaders of black, Latino, Native American, and white radical organizations. Many such leaders were assassinated or imprisoned. The FBI infiltrated such organizations to sow dissension or provoke actions that could be used as an excuse for repression. Footage from the time includes clips of U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) whose committee investigated and documented these activities by the FBI and CIA that used “national security” as a pretext for violating Americans’ basic civil liberties.

Dhobi Ghat. Four characters from varying economic classes in Mumbai intersect in this engaging story that tells a lot about India and a lot about the class divide anywhere.

Windfall. This timely 83-minute documentary shows the neighbor vs. neighbor controversy that developed in a small town in rural New York where wealthy outside developers wanted to install 400-foot tall windmills. Residents faced visual and noise pollution and health and safety hazards, while receiving only nominal fees from the Wall Street developers and energy companies that would profit from special tax subsidies. The punch line: wind energy is not a “green” panacea, and the only real solution to our energy problem is to use less.

Art Is…The Permanent Revolution. Some of the best-known artists of Europe such as Rembrandt, Goya, Daumier, and Picasso created graphic prints protesting war, inequality, poverty, and exploitation, and many were jailed or exiled for doing so. This unusually creative film shows some of the best protest work by 60 of them. It is accompanied by commentary by three contemporary American protest artists who also show, step by step, how they make etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs today.

Unveiled. An Iranian woman faces prosecution for having a female lover. She escapes to Germany, where life is hard for immigrants. To survive, she disguises herself as a man until a co-worker takes pity on her and slowly discovers her secrets.

The Flaw. This exceptionally well-made, 82-minute documentary about the causes of our economic crash combines expert commentary, entertaining graphics, and human interest stories. The story begins with decades of success by the 1% and corporate CEOs in driving down incomes for everyone else. How could the majority of Americans maintain their standard of living despite stagnating wages and income? By borrowing. How could the 1% and Wall Street make the most return on the wealth they were accumulating as they paid working people less? By lending it to those same working people.

Meanwhile, “Inside Job,” another excellent documentary that covers other angles about Wall Street’s destruction of the economy, is now available free online.

This Is Where We Take Our Stand. A deeply moving, must-see, hour-long documentary features young men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan talking about what they saw and how the experience changed their views. Available on DVD and also in segments online.

A Better Life. An exceptionally authentic and poignant feature film puts the audience in the shoes of a Mexican immigrant raising his son as a single father in a country that wants his labor but denies him legal status.

A Question of Integrity. The U.S. Supreme Court has become a subsidiary of Wall Street and other big corporations. Some call it the Corporate Court or the Supreme Corp. This 15-minute film, available free online, describes how Justices Scalia and Thomas attended and helped promote political strategy and fundraising conferences hosted by the oil billionaire Koch brothers, primary funders of the Tea Party and other political fronts for corporate interests. Justice Alito has headlined fundraisers for other corporate political causes. How impartial will these justices be when they have to choose between the constitutional rights of the 99% or the interests of oil, insurance, or drug companies?

Crime After Crime. This is a wrenching documentary about a woman who went to prison in connection with the murder of a boyfriend who brutally abused her. After 20 years, two attorneys helped her reopen the case, only to run into one outrageous roadblock after another.

• The Welcome. Several dozen U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam (nearly all of them white) met for several days and, with the help of a professional facilitator, talked and wrote poignant stories and poems about their traumatic experiences during and after their service. This should be a must-see film for all non-veteran Americans to get a glimpse of this aspect of the damage these wars are doing.
• Amigo. John Sayles’ new film is set in a village in the Philippines in 1900. The U.S. has taken the country from Spain and made it an American territory. Insurgents are fighting to regain control of their nation. The war’s principal effect, Sayles suggests, was to make many in the younger generation of Filipinos hate the United States. Some viewers may see parallels to America’s more recent wars.
• Anpo. The unusual way this documentary is made makes it particularly interesting. The subject is the popular movement in Japan from the end of World War II to the present day to protest the continued presence of large-scale U.S. military bases. The story is told not by a narrator but through interviews with Japanese painters, photographers, and film makers, along with images from their work related to this subject.
• Unnatural Causes. An American’s health and life expectancy are closely related to whether they have a job, how much money they have, where they live, and the color of their skin. A seven-part series documents this reality that has been largely unmentioned in national and state-level debates about health care reform. One segment is an hour long and the others a half hour each. All are available in English and Spanish.
• Lebanon, PA. Providing counterpoint to the film “Juno,” this feature shows the real choices, all of them bad, that a pregnant teenager faces.
• Burning in the Sun. A 26-year-old activist originally from Mali returns to his homeland to help villagers use solar power to access electricity for the first time. Available in two versions, one 22 minutes and one 83.
• I Am a Man. A 27-minute documentary features participants, as well as their descendants, from the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis that Dr. Martin Luther King was visiting when he was killed. The strike, sparked by the deaths of two workers on an unsafe truck, added momentum to a nationwide drive for unionization and better treatment for city and county workers paid poverty wages. The film and a study guide can be downloaded from the project’s website.
• Locked Out. This hour-long documentary shows, from beginning to end, a four-month battle by nearly 600 borate miners in a remote desert town in California against drastic takeaways demanded by Rio Tinto, the third largest mining company in the world.
• American Teacher. An argument for paying teachers more, this documentary has good intentions but runs much too long.
• Even the Rain. This innovative feature tells the story of a Spanish crew that is making a dramatic film to show the truth about the conquest of the Americas. They decide to shoot their film in Bolivia where they will be able to pay most of the actors only two dollars a day. Their film, as we see it being shot, succeeds in bringing the conquest alive from the natives’ point of view. But the production schedule is threatened when one of the indigenous people the directors hired as an actor becomes involved in leading protests against the government over access to drinking water. The film we are watching and the film within it become intertwined as the directors’ core values are challenged.
• Meek’s Cutoff is an artfully directed feature film about a small band of white families traveling the Oregon Trail from the Midwest in the 1840s. Its spare dialogue, slow pace, and beautiful but harsh scenery combine to give viewers a powerful impression of what these men and women experienced.
• Brother Towns/Pueblos Hermanos. More than a thousand workers from a town in Guatemala have moved to Jupiter, a coastal town in Florida. Jupiter has responded by creating a center where immigrants can learn English, get training, and connect with employers. Some local residents object, saying the center encourages lawbreaking and drives down wage levels. This hour-long documentary, shot in both communities, shows why the Guatemalans come and gives voice to all perspectives on the immigration issue.
• There But for Fortune. Phil Ochs was one of the most influential songwriters of the 1960s. His songs became anthems of the anti-war and social justice movements, but as the social upheaval of that period lost momentum, he became depressed and plagued by alcoholism until, at age 35, he committed suicide. The film is a touching requiem for the man and the movement he was part of.
• William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a profile of one of the most important lawyers of the 1960s and 1970s, from major civil rights cases to the Chicago 8 to the Attica prison revolt to the American Indian Movement occupation at Wounded Knee.  The film was made by his daughters, Sarah and Emily, who are activists themselves. They use their special access not to glorify but to present a nuanced portrait of a controversial figure whose choices many people, including friends and family, did not always agree with.
• Queen of the Sun and Vanishing of the Bees. At least 40% of our food supply depends on pollination by bees. Yet, hundreds of millions of bees are being affected by some combination of industrial production practices, climate change, pesticides, pollution, and genetic modification of crops. Both of these films travel the world to explore the problem. “Queen of the Sun,” by the maker of “The Real Dirt on Farmer John,” concludes by showing individuals who are turning to small-scale, backyard beekeeping. “Vanishing of the Bees,” narrated by Ellen Page, follows beekeepers who are pushing for political solutions over the opposition of powerful chemical companies and other corporate interests.
• Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls is a documentary about one of New Zealand’s most popular entertainment acts for the past 25 years: lesbian identical twin farm girls who tell jokes, sing country songs, have had their own network television series, and appear at fairs and other events as a variety of characters, including a pair of male country farmers who both happen to be named Ken.
• Hot Coffee. Americans are losing the right to get justice in the courts as a result of a coordinated campaign by corporate interests and their political allies. This exceptional film tells four stories about individuals who exemplify these attacks on our legal rights. One is the woman who sued McDonald’s after being severely burned by coffee heated to an unsafe temperature – a case many Americans have heard of and few understand. Another is a female employee of Halliburton in Iraq who was raped by fellow employees in a male barracks where she was required to live. She was blocked from suing until recently because of a requirement in her employment contract requiring her to abide by mandatory arbitration (by an arbitrator chosen by the company). Such requirements have become standard not only in many employment contracts but in the fine print most Americans sign when they acquire consumer products such as phones and credit cards. The film is scheduled to be broadcast on HBO around June 27.
• Benavides Born. In a Mexican-American community in Texas, a student on the girls’ high school powerlifting team desperately tries to earn an athletic scholarship so she can afford to go to the university in Austin. This feature film that feels like a documentary shows how poverty and racism limit the options she and her friends and family members have in life despite all their best efforts.
• Araya is a stunningly visual, prize-winning, black-and-white documentary from 1959 that has recently been restored. It shows the daily lives of families on a remote peninsula in Venezuela where for 450 years the only way to make a living besides catching fish was to collect, stack, and ship salt from the sea.
• How to Die in Oregon. Under Oregon’s Death with Dignity law, terminally ill people can get prescriptions for lethal medications so they control the timing and circumstances of their death. This documentary tells the intimate stories of several people who have used this law, including a 54-year-old woman with incurable liver cancer. The film raises the question of why most states do not allow individuals to decide how much pain and indignity they choose to endure.
• SoLa is an hour-long documentary about massive destruction of wetlands along the Gulf Coast to serve the interests of the oil and gas industry, and how that greatly increased the damage from Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.
• The Big Uneasy makes a good companion film to SoLa, as it documents the failures of the Army Corps of Engineers that turned Katrina from a big storm into the destruction of major parts of New Orleans.
• Inuk is a beautiful feature film that takes place at a home in northernmost Greenland for Inuit students whose urbanized families can’t take care of them. The children bond with the few remaining Inuit men who make their living by hunting and, in the process, all concerned learn more about who they are.
• Inside Job is a must-see film and organizing tool. The fast-paced, no-holds-barred Academy Award winner for best documentary explains what Wall Street did that destroyed jobs, put millions out of their homes, and led to massive cuts in schools and other public services. There are a few flaws – it spends too much time on how academic and administration economists are bought off and too little on corporations’ attacks on workers and their unions, for example. But overall it provides a dramatic and understandable account that has been sorely missing from most of the news media.
• Triangle (HBO Films). This film reminds us what happens when there are no public safeguards that all corporations must follow. It marks the 100^th anniversary of the killing of 146 garment workers in the Triangle factory fire in New York. Ways to prevent such deaths – sprinklers; fire drills; adequate exits, stairways, and elevators -- were known at the time but were not required and therefore not provided by the factory owners (who collected their insurance money after the slaughter and resumed business as usual). The deaths led to a new understanding of the need for government safeguards in New York and eventually in the nation as a whole. An unusual feature of this documentary is that virtually all the narration and commentary is provided by descendants of Triangle workers and managers. Release of the film is accompanied by publication of a book of photos and text, The New York City Triangle Factory Fire by Benin, Linne, Sosin, and Sosinsky (Arcadia).
• Human Terrain provides an unusual and valuable perspective on the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The film begins at the point around 2005 where some U.S. military commanders realize they are losing those wars and blame it on their troops’ lack of understanding of native culture. They bring in sociologists and anthropologists to teach American soldiers about local customs. The filmmakers gained extraordinary access to training programs where young U.S. recruits do roleplaying and use video simulators to practice encounters they are likely to have overseas. They also obtained recordings of military units and their embedded social scientists engaged in field operations in Afghanistan. Social scientists who have chosen not to assist the military argue in the film that the wars are misguided to begin with and that steps like encouraging soldiers to grow moustaches so they will look more like the locals really miss the point.
• Conviction starring Hillary Swank is a powerful feature film based on the true story of a young woman who, with the support of the Innocence Project, reversed the successful police frame-up of her brother for a murder he did not commit.
• Waste Land is an Academy Award nominated documentary about a successful Brazilian artist living in New York who goes home to create a major art project in collaboration with garbage pickers who pull recyclable materials out of the world’s largest dump. The film explores many questions about class, sustainability, personal transformation, and the nature of art.
• The Real Cost of Repeal is an emotional 6-minute video featuring three households who describe the value of the Obama health care reforms from their own experience.
• Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change compiles interviews with Arctic dwellers about the effects of climate change that they are seeing.
• Budrus. When Israel began constructing a barbed wire “separation barrier” on Palestinian land that it said was necessary for national security, olive trees that villagers depended upon for their livelihood were being uprooted. As this 82-minute documentary shows, Palestinians decided to mount a campaign of nonviolent resistance, blocking bulldozers with their bodies. In a break from cultural traditions, women took an active part in the demonstrations. The protesters were joined by hundreds of supporters from Israel. Israel eventually was forced to reroute some of the barrier so it would not intrude on Palestinian land, but the dispute continues.
• Peepli Live. In this clever satirical film from India, two poor peasants about to lose their land are encouraged to take advantage of a new government program that provides lump sum payments to the families of small farmers who commit suicide.
• Made in Dagenham. Women who produced auto upholstery at a Ford plant in England made history in the late 1960s when they went on strike for pay rates equal to men at similar skill levels. Their struggle, which contributed to passage of their country’s Equal Pay Act, had to overcome threats by Ford to close the plant, as well as indifference on the part of much of the male-dominated union hierarchy. This feature film in the Norma Rae tradition may not always be precise in every historical detail, but it manages to be both entertaining and educational as it shows working people overcoming great odds by taking action together.
• 7 Days in Slow Motion. This creative, lovable, and funny feature film pokes fun at Bollywood while looking inside middle class life in India.
• Louder Than a Bomb. Six hundred students from 60 high schools in Chicago participate in the largest youth poetry slam in the world. This documentary follows four of the teams from the beginning of the school year through the competition and shows what they learn about themselves, about students from other parts of the city, and about what it means to be part of a team.
• The Mean World Syndrome, Tough Guise, and Not Just a Game are three educational films from Media Education Foundation. Mean World is about how the news media cultivate fear in America, with the result that many who watch a lot of television have an inaccurate perception of the reality around them. Tough Guise argues that the media reinforce a definition of masculinity that contributes to violent behavior, abuse of women, and war. Not Just a Game is about ways that sports are manipulated by the powerful for political purposes. All feature extensive media clips. At about an hour in length each, all could have been shorter.
• Me, Too (Yo, Tambien). From Spain comes this highly unusual, well-made feature film that focuses on two characters – the first person with Down’s Syndrome to graduate from a Spanish university, and his office mate at his first job, an attractive but unhappy woman. The film carefully dodges predictable clichés as their relationship develops and we learn more about their respective pasts.
• La Mission. In this feature film full of sympathetic and appealing characters, a tough Latino single father in San Francisco reacts with rage when he discovers that his teenage son is gay. His understanding of his son and of domestic violence evolves through interactions with neighbors, friends, and family.
• Udaan. A young man in India wants to become a writer, but his authoritarian and even abusive father demands that he start working his way up to take over the family steel- making business. This memorable 134-minute feature film is an example of new Indian cinema that transcends Bollywood clichés to deal with real cultural issues.
• Temple Grandin. The true story of an autistic girl who grew up to be a successful agricultural engineer is told in this effective two-hour feature film that shows what the world looks and feels like from her point of view.
• Harvest of Loneliness. Policymakers in Washington, DC continue to consider a so-called “guest worker” program that would bring cheap labor from Mexico and other countries into the U.S., with no right for the workers to become citizens once their temporary work contract is completed. An hour-long documentary, in both English and Spanish versions, reviews the history of the bracero program that fulfilled a similar function from 1942 to 1964. Interviews with former braceros and their families, along with stunning photos gleaned from archival research, reveal the human cost of the temporary worker policy. The film brings the issue up to date, describing how so-called “free trade” agreements have destroyed agriculture in Mexico and forced millions of people to come to the U.S. to find work.
• Out of the Silence. Two men living in the Washington, DC area placed an announcement of their wedding in the newspaper of the small town of Oil City, PA, where one of them was raised. The controversy this caused prompted them to do an hour-long documentary about the situation of gay and lesbian teens and adults in that town. The filmmakers are encouraging organizations in small towns and rural areas across the U.S. to use the film to spark discussion.
• Salt. Each year, an Australian photographer spends a week on Lake Eyre, a salt flat so huge that when he takes his cameras and camping gear out on it, he can’t see anything else in any direction. He compiled an hour-long film that combines time-lapse video footage, still photos, and recordings of his own musings during his time in isolation.
• The Horse Boy. An engaging documentary about the very likeable parents of an autistic American boy who take him to be seen by a shaman in Mongolia. The film combines an open, honest story with gorgeous scenery and a basic introduction to autism.
• Letters to Father Jacob. A simple, beautifully produced Finnish feature film about a blind priest who answers letters from troubled strangers and is sent an assistant who spent many years in prison.
• Sweet Crude. This 93-minute documentary explores corruption, environmental damage, and civil conflict surrounding oil production in Nigeria, the source of more than 10 percent of the U.S. oil supply.
• Citizen Architect. An hour-long film portrays a program of Auburn University that gives architecture students a chance to work closely with poor communities in rural Alabama to find innovative solutions to meet their housing needs.
• Reel Injun. In this 88-minute documentary, a Cree filmmaker makes fun of the way stereotypes about native peoples have been created or reinforced by portrayals in Hollywood movies through the years.
• Entre Nos. An immigrant from Colombia raised her two children alone in the U.S., supporting them by collecting cans from the city’s garbage. Now, her daughter and another filmmaker have collaborated to tell her story in an 82-minute tearjerker.
• Frozen Dreams ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ). In 2007, 160 immigrant workers at a Del Monte food packing plant in Oregon were detained in a federal raid. Some of them tell their story in this 30-minute film, which also includes footage showing why immigrant workers come to the U.S. in the first place.
• 8: The Mormon Proposition. A former Mormon evangelist who is now a journalist directed this 78-minute documentary about how the Mormon Church drove the initiative campaign in California that took away the right of gays and lesbians to marry. The film says the Mormons plowed $30 million into the campaign through front groups, while bringing in canvassers from Utah who were instructed not to wear white shirts and ties that would identify their affiliation. Interviewees include a gay descendant of one of the church’s original founders.
• Word is Out. This 2 hour and 15 minute film was originally issued in 1977 and has now been restored. It is believed to have been the first feature-length documentary about lesbian and gay identity, featuring moving, intimate interviews with 26 people of many different backgrounds. It provides a good history lesson, while provoking thoughts about what has and has not changed.
• Obselidia. In this entertaining 97-minute feature, shot in L.A. and Death Valley, a librarian spends his off hours compiling an encyclopedia of obsolete things as he mourns the rapid disappearance of American cultural traditions. He also studies the deadly effects of climate change, which he learns may already be irreversible. After he interviews a silent movie theater projectionist for his book, the two strike up a friendship and help each other find joy and beauty in an increasingly troubled world.
• Whiz Kids. Coming of age is a different experience for high school students engaged in serious scientific research and competing in a prestigious national competition. This 82-minute film focuses on three – an immigrant from Pakistan, a first-generation Ecuadorian-American, and a student in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who researches a pollutant dumped in the Ohio River by the region’s largest employer.
• The Most Dangerous Man in America. Daniel Ellsberg risked life in prison to leak secret Pentagon documents showing the government’s deception about the Vietnam War. This 94-minute documentary dramatically raises the question of why a few individuals go against the tide and challenge the powerful despite the likely personal cost.
• Outrage. This hard-hitting 89-minute film focuses on closeted gay politicians who cynically take strong stands against gay and lesbian rights. One who is featured is Florida Governor Charlie Crist, now a candidate for U.S. Senate. The film discusses Crist’s history of having gay relationships, carrying out anti-gay policies, and suddenly acquiring a female partner during election campaigns, only to “break up” immediately after the votes are counted.
• On the Road to Tel-Aviv. A brilliant 15-minute short shows Israeli Jews getting on a bus not long after another bus was blown up by suicide bombers. An Arab woman carrying a large bag gets on the bus, and the passengers panic. The story provides a great starting point for discussion about profiling and about actions individuals will take when in a group seized by fear.
• Objectified. In this wide-ranging 76-minute documentary, cutting edge designers of consumer goods from around the world show how they do their work. They also talk about being caught between corporations’ short-term profit motive and their own desire to design products that are sustainable and that serve the needs of the great majority of humanity that is not wealthy.
• The Four-Faced Liar. This endearing and clever 84-minute feature artfully adds 21^st century dimensions to the coming of age genre as an uptight young woman soon to be married finds that her true love is female.
• The Solitary Life of Cranes. Unusual footage in this 27-minute documentary shows what crane operators see from high above London, although not as much as it might about the actual work they do.
• Garbage Dreams. In Cairo, 60,000 people made their living collecting the city’s garbage and recycling 80 percent of it. Now, foreign firms have been brought in, using modern equipment but recycling only about 20 percent of the waste. The makers of this 60-minute documentary are encouraging community groups to use the film in local events to provoke discussion.
• No Impact Man. An unusually honest, fun, and thought provoking 90-minute documentary follows a New York couple who conduct a year-long demonstration project in sustainable living, doing without petroleum-powered transportation, disposable packaging, food that is not produced locally, electronic conveniences, and more. In the process, they discover that this new way of living without a focus on television and consumer culture opens the way to more quality family time and community relationships.
• The Necessities of Life. This well acted,102-minute film provides a warm and touching portrait of an Inuit man and boy who are affected by a tuberculosis epidemic in the early 1950s and are taken far from their native land to a hospital in Quebec City.
• The Coca-Cola Case. This 85-minute documentary follows a campaign supported by U.S. unions aimed at holding Coca-Cola legally accountable for the murder of union leaders and activists in Colombia. Company lawyers have been trying to prevent the film from being seen.
• Mother Jones: America’s Most Dangerous Woman. This 24-minute documentary provides useful visuals for labor history classes, focusing on one of America’s most famous union organizers.
• A Crack in the Pavement and The New Neighbors are two related half-hour documentaries. The first shows how many of America’s first inner suburbs are falling apart as government policy supports further sprawl rather than maintenance of existing infrastructure. The second focuses on a diverse group of residents of Pennsauken, New Jersey, that is working to promote and maintain integration in their community.
• American Faust is a thoroughly researched 89-minute documentary about Condoleezza Rice from her childhood during the civil rights era in Birmingham to her authorization of illegal torture during the Bush administration. It shows her turning her back on affirmative action for others after she herself benefited from it, lying to the American public about Iraq, and lending P.R. cover to Chevron to the point that it named an oil tanker after her. Today, Stanford University students are trying to get her ousted as a professor because of her role in illegal torture.
• The Yes Men Fix the World shows the key stunts that two activist performance artists have pulled off by impersonating corporate or government officials in television interviews or conference speeches and making the announcements those officials ought to make if they put the public interest first. The film’s release is quite timely, given that in October the Yes Men pulled off a similar action by announcing at the National Press Club that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had decided to endorse strong action on climate change. The announcement was carried by Reuters and the New York Times web site, until the Chamber came forward awkwardly to deny that it supports climate change solutions.
• The Exiles is a restoration of a tragic but beautifully made 72-minute film first released in 1961. It portrays one night in the lives of Native Americans who were uprooted from their land by official U.S. government policies and exiled with no future to Los Angeles (as well as other urban centers).
• Crossroads on the Columbia is a 24-minute documentary about the response of a small Oregon community to a plan by Texas financiers to install massive liquefied natural gas terminals on the Columbia River.
• Obama’s War. Every American should see this powerful, one-hour PBS documentary before Obama sends more troops to Afghanistan. It follows American units as they try to carry out Obama’s directive to win the people’s hearts and minds and establish peace and security. The film also includes extensive interviews with U.S. military commanders at all levels, as well as footage of Washington conferences and meetings where the discussion bears little resemblance to reality on the ground. The film’s objective style adds greatly to its credibility as it asks what the U.S. can really hope to achieve in Afghanistan by military means.
• Rethink Afghanistan. This 70-minute film is most notable for commentary by critics of U.S. involvement in that country.
• Departures. This beautiful feature from Japan about work with dignity and death with dignity won this year’s Academy Award winner for best foreign film, and with good reason.
  A Sea Change, The Last Beekeeper, and Split Estate are a few of the initial films in the Reel Impact series aired on Planet Green. (Click on the links to find where and when in your area.) A Sea Change shows how the chemistry of the world’s oceans is changing, threatening the survival of the fish supply we all depend upon. The Last Beekeeper follows three commercial beekeepers – in South Carolina, Montana, and Washington state – who are wrestling with the impact of the worldwide decline in bee health. Split Estate tells how oil companies are drilling under other people’s land for natural gas and polluting land and water in the process.
• Tortured Law is a 10-minute film by the Alliance for Justice that calls on the Obama administration to hold accountable the Justice Department lawyers who wrote highly controversial memos that were used by the Bush administration to justify the practice of torture. One of those lawyers was rewarded by Bush with a lifetime appointment to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg. Aviva Kempner’s latest is a profile of Gertrude Berg, who, despite being Jewish during a period of strong anti-semitism, was one of America’s leading radio and then TV stars and one of the most famous and wealthiest women in America in the 1930s and 1940s.
• Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo. Since 1940, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary has held an annual rodeo in which inmates compete, to the delight of thousands of spectators. Since 2006, female inmates have been allowed to take part. Many of them are young mothers, separated from their families because of drug-related crimes. The rodeo poses the real possibility of lifelong injury, especially for these amateurs with only minimal training, but both women and men participate to relieve the intense boredom of prison life. This two-hour, heartbreaking documentary introduces some of them, and in the process provides a poignant portrait of the inhumanity of the U.S. prison system.
• Between the Folds. This unusual 56-minute documentary features stunning art created by folding single sheets of paper; introduces ten artists, some with serious scientific credentials; and shows fascinating links between science and art. Will be shown on PBS’ Independent Lens in December, 2009. See the film’s web site for other screenings.
• Journey of a Red Fridge. More than 60,000 children in Nepal make their living as porters, carrying backpacks and supplies for tourists or transporting goods in a region in which there are few good roads or vehicles. This 54-minute documentary focuses on one of them.
• Inventing L.A. By tracing the history of the Chandler family that founded the Los Angeles Times, this 116-minute PBS documentary also tells important parts of the history of southern California, including decades of fierce anti-union campaigns and manipulation of politicians and public resources for personal gain. The film also describes internal battles between ultraconservative and relatively liberal family members that led to the paper’s rapid decline.
• Ask Not. More than 12,000 men and women have lost their jobs in the military under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, including many who speak Arabic or have other vital skills that are in short supply. This 73-minute film tells some of their stories. It also recounts how President Clinton considered segregating gay soldiers in separate units, similar to the blacks-only units that existed until President Truman issued an executive order ending the practice.
• The Philosopher Kings. This 70-minute film profiles eight janitors at various U.S. colleges who have persevered despite serious obstacles in their lives. Service workers like these are often invisible, even to those they serve. The film shows that they are people with pride in their work, wisdom learned from hard experience, and determination to get the most out of life. It leaves to other films questions about why they receive only poverty wages and how people like them have joined together to improve their situation.
• On Paper Wings. During World War II, Japanese girls were assigned to fold paper for huge balloon bombs that were floated to America. One of the bombs killed a young woman and four children near the rural town of Bly, Oregon. A half century later, some of those Japanese women traveled to Bly to meet relatives and friends of those who were killed. Some of the hosts talk about the concentration camp for Americans of Japanese descent that was operated during the war a short distance from Bly. The film also includes file footage of the destruction caused by U.S. firebombing and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, although it doesn’t show Americans traveling to Hiroshima or Nagasaki to express their sorrow.
• Prom Night in Mississippi. Even after the high school in Charleston, Mississippi, was integrated, white families continued to hold a separate senior prom. Actor Morgan Freeman, who comes from Charleston, offered to pay for a prom in 2008 – if it was integrated. The school accepted, but problems remained. The story provides an opportunity to explore racial attitudes today.
• Upstream Battle. The death of nearly 70,000 adult salmon in the Klamath River in 2002 focused attention on a conflict over water rights involving native Americans, Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp, ranchers, farmers, and commercial fishermen. While the film tells the story from the tribes’ point of view, other participants have their say in candid interviews as well.
• Everlasting Moments. A beautifully made Swedish film about a working class married woman in the early 1900s who finds her own identity with the help of an old camera and a photography store owner.
• Automorphosis. A delightful and humorous 77-minute documentary about a huge range of mostly eccentric people who have turned their cars into works of art.
• Short Term 12. This dramatic, powerfully acted short takes us inside a residential facility for abused children and brings both staff and residents to life.
• Hutto: America’s Family Prison. This short documentary is about a prison in Texas that holds immigrant families, including pregnant women, children, and infants, none of whom has a criminal past. It is administered by the country's largest for-profit “corrections” company.
• The Garden. A heartbreaking, 80-minute documentary about the demolition of immigrant families’ 14-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles at the whim of a private developer -- as supposedly progressive politicians sit on their hands.
• Throw Down Your Heart. A 97-minute documentary about American banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck’s trip to Africa to jam with musicians playing native instruments, including forerunners of the one he plays.
• Fuel. This 112-minute film reviews the history of America’s dependence on oil and argues that biofuels are a key alternative.
• A Day’s Work, A Day’s Pay. Bill Clinton presided over “the end of welfare as we know it.” This film follows three people in New York who were deprived of opportunity and hope as a result, and shows what they and others did to fight back.
• The Greening of Southie, a highly unusual 82-minute film, is a terrific discussion starter for all audiences, regardless of class background or attitude toward efforts to deal with climate change. It follows construction workers from the first meeting where the green building techniques are discussed through completion of the 14-story luxury apartment structure. While serving as an excellent introduction to the value of green building to society, the film does not shy away from showing doubts, glitches, and contradictions that emerge along the way.
• A Snowmobile for George. For this 95-minute, entertaining documentary, the filmmaker visited Americans impacted by battles over deregulation. Republican ranchers in Wyoming wake up one morning to find Texas oil companies drilling under their land and ruining the surface for cattle grazing in the process. Yurok fishermen on the Klamath River discover that Karl Rove had rewritten the rules about how much water a fish needs to survive. Firefighters in New York get life-threatening diseases from 9/11 exposures but the government looks the other way. Snowmobiles pollute at 27 times the rate of cars, yet the government and manufacturers refuse to use cleaner technology that is readily available. In an unintentionally revealing interview, the chief lobbyist for the snowmobile industry describes how influence peddling works in Washington, DC.
• Refusing to Be Enemies (www.refusingtobeenemies.org).Twelve women in Michigan – six Jewish and six Arab – formed a group, first for discussion about their experiences, identities, and feelings about Israel and Palestine, and then for action and education in their communities. This hour-long documentary shows that with direct personal exposure, honesty, and a sense of humor, they were able to overcome their prejudices and anger and find common ground.
• Military Families Speak Out (www.mfso-oregon.org). This half-hour film consists entirely of relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq talking about their feelings about the war, their government, and their loss.
• Access Denied? (www.afj.org). When a professional musician went to the emergency room because of a migraine headache that wouldn’t go away, the inadequately labeled drug she was given caused gangrene that required amputation of her arm. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it cannot be held liable since the drug was approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. At issue is a new legal theory developed by big corporations and the Bush administration that would eliminate the right Americans have had for more than a hundred years to hold corporations legally accountable for unsafe products.
• Trouble the Water (www.troublethewaterfilm.com). A resident of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, too poor to evacuate, used a camcorder to capture what she and her neighbors were experiencing during and after Katrina. A professional filmmaker then teamed with her to produce a documentary that is highly unusual because the perspective is from the inside in real time.
• August Evening (www.augustevening.com). This gorgeous independent feature about cross-generational relationships in a working class Mexican family in Texas has the authentic emotion and subtlety that is missing from most Hollywood blockbusters. Key roles are played powerfully by people from the area who never acted before.
• Traces of the Trade (www.tracesofthetrade.org) is a fascinating film made by a descendant of the largest slave trader in U.S. history. Together with nine other relatives, she visits key sites from the New England town whose economy depended on her family’s business to a fort in Africa where slaves where held in a dungeon before they were loaded on ships to a plantation in Cuba where the Africans were brought to produce sugar cane that was then used to make rum. The journey forces the family members to confront their whiteness in new ways and to commit to action. The film and an accompanying book called Inheriting the Trade by Thomas DeWolf make a case for reparations and puncture the myth that slavery was simply a southern phenomenon.
• Uncounted (www.UncountedTheMovie.com) is an alarming 80-minute documentary that in factual, credible terms exposes methods systematically used in 2004 and 2006 to suppress voting by working people and poor communities and to undercount the votes that were cast.
• This is War (www.luckyforwardfilms.com) follows an Oregon National Guard unit that was sent to Iraq. Their sole focus becomes their own survival as they appear to show little interest in the war’s larger context.
• Larger Than Life (www.stevegoodman.net) is a video of a benefit concert to celebrate the life of the late songwriter, Steve Goodman. His songs are performed in the film by Arlo Guthrie, Iris Dement, Todd Snider, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, and John Prine.
• Outsourced (www.outsourcedthemovie.com). This romantic comedy follows a young “fulfillment executive” in Seattle who is sent to India to train workers who will be taking over the work the team he supervised used to do. In the process, he falls in love, learns something about Indian culture as well as his own, and finds out that Indians too are subject to the whims of global capital.
• Freeheld (www.freeheld.com). A 38-minute Oscar winner for short documentary, Freeheld is a powerful tool for provoking discussion about the rights of partners of the same sex. As a woman who has served for 25 years as a police officer in Ocean County, New Jersey, is dying of cancer, county politicians refuse to exercise their power to pass on her pension to her female partner, as it would be to a male husband. The male officers she has worked with lead a community movement that forces change.
• War Made Easy (www.warmadeeasythemovie.org). A 73-minute documentary, this film collects in one place virtually all of the key video clips from U.S. presidents from Lyndon Johnson through Bush the Second that show Republicans and Democrats alike lying to the public to justify the launching and prolonging of wars. By juxtaposing nearly identical clips from media coverage of war after war, the film exposes a pattern of government-media collaboration to mislead, cheerlead, attack or ignore critics, and then insist that withdrawal would cause more damage than continuing the war indefinitely.
• Superheroes (www.superheroesthemovie.com). This feature film takes the viewer inside the head of a returning Iraq war veteran whose wounds – physical and psychological – dominate his life even as he tries to make a new friend back home.
• Secrecy (www.secrecyfilm.com). An 87-minute, dispassionate documentary interviews intelligence and military insiders as well as outside watchdogs on the question of how to balance the public’s need for information to make democratic decisions and agencies’ desire to maintain secrecy.
• Young@Heart (foxsearchlight.com/youngatheart). A documentary that is both warm and poignant about a musical performing group of people in their 70s and 80s whose repertoire includes hard-driving punk rock songs as well as favorites from the 1960s.
• My Effortless Brilliance (www.lynnshelton.net). A rare movie that explores male friendship as a young writer tries to reconnect with a buddy he lost touch with after achieving some commercial success.
• 7,500 Miles to Redemption (www.7500miles.com). This half-hour documentary about Asian-American inmates in an Oregon prison who raise money to build a school in rural Vietnam underscores the waste of human potential when millions of Americans are warehoused behind bars.
• What Happened to Saturn? (www.merrimack-films.com). A largely unmet challenge for the union movement that mainly focuses on pay and benefits is how to satisfy the desire of most working people to have input into and be able to take pride in the quality and efficiency of the work they do. In the 1980s and 1990s, some corporate executives and academic consultants promoted a variety of programs such as “team concept” or “quality of worklife” that were supposed to meet that need by making partners out of workers and management. The great majority of these experiments ultimately failed, in large part because when push came to shove management was interested only in potential productivity gains and not in sharing authority or in improving working conditions. A new 30-minute film provides interviews with participants in perhaps the most famous of those experiments – the labor-management partnership at the Saturn auto plant in Tennessee. The film gives all sides some air time, with an emphasis on those who supported the project and were sorry to see it fail.
• The Trials of Darryl Hunt (breakthrufilms.org). In 1984, a 19-year-old black man in North Carolina was charged with a murder he did not commit and for which there were no eyewitnesses and no physical evidence. By 1994, DNA testing cleared him, but he was not released for ten more years. This feature-length documentary tells the story from the point of view of Hunt himself, his defense attorneys, and a journalist who dug into the case.
• Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (www.jimbrownfilms.com). This feature film profiles the singer who lent his talents to nearly every major social movement of the 20^th century. It shows how he tapped into the desire of audiences of all ages and types to sing along, often in harmony, rather than sitting in silence while one person performed. The popularity of karaoke among many young people today suggests that the interest in participation is still alive and well, yet virtually none of Seeger’s successors as socially conscious musicians have followed in his footsteps by leading their audiences in song.
• The Motherhood Manifesto (www.bullfrogfilms.com ). This hour-long film, financed by contributions from SEIU and AFSCME, shows the need for public policies that support working parents, including paid family leave, flexible hours, benefits for part-timers, quality after-school programs, and improvements for both the providers and users of child care services.
• No End in Sight (www.noendinsightmovie.com). U.S. military and State Department officials who were in charge in Iraq during the first phases of the occupation detail what they say were a series of disastrous strategic decisions by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush – decisions they claim they advised against at the time.
• Thirst (bullfrogfilms.com). As the world moves toward a day when wars will be fought over water as well as oil, this hour-long film focuses on three communities – in the U.S., Bolivia, and India – facing the drive by global corporations to turn water into a profit-making commodity.
• Supreme Injustices (www.allianceforjustice.org). This free 14-minute film focuses on two of the many backward steps taken by the Bush Supreme Court. One involves a woman from Alabama who was paid less than her male counterparts but denied a remedy by a convoluted Bush Court decision. The second was the overturning of a voluntary school integration plan in Louisville.
• Made in L.A. (www.madeinla.com). A moving 70-minute profile of three Latina sweatshop workers who help lead a three-year campaign against an exploitative clothing retailer shows how the organizing experience changes their views of themselves and the society in which they live.
• Morristown. An excellent tool for provoking discussion about immigration, this hour-long documentary gives voice to native-born workers in a small town in Tennessee who have lost their jobs as big corporations moved their operations to Mexico, and also to Mexicans who have come to Morristown to work in fields and factories. During the film the Tennessee workers take a trip to Mexico to see conditions for themselves, while Mexican workers in Tennessee win a union organizing drive with backing from local unions.
• Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night. This 27-minute documentary interviews young people in India who have obtained coveted jobs as telemarketers for many of the largest American corporations.
• The Ax. A noir feature film set in France and made by Costa-Gavras from an American novel about a paper company executive who loses his job as a result of corporate “restructuring” and comes to see others who are in the same boat as enemies rather than potential allies.
• Mirrors of Privilege. White people talk about their struggles to overcome their own racism.
• Hear and Now. One of the best documentaries of recent years features a deaf couple in their 60s who decide to get implants so they can hear. Their story provides an in-depth look at what hearing impaired people face every day and a poignant view of aging, marriage, and family.
• Prison Town. Rural communities across America have become company towns similar to those created in the heyday of coal mining and steel making, but now prisons are the industry that dominates the economy, politics, and culture. By following a laid-off mill worker and dairy worker who are reluctantly entering training to be guards, this film gives a unique perspective on the social damage the prison-based economy is causing..
• Mardi Gras: Made in China and China Blue. Two documentaries that introduce U.S. consumers to the young women in China who produce, respectively, blue jeans and Mardi Gras beads for sale in America. The director of China Blue spent years working on the film and as a result has terrific inside footage. Mardi Gras adds a dimension by juxtaposing happily unaware partygoers in New Orleans with the Chinese workers who supply traditional props for the celebration.
• The Boss of It All. The top executive at a Danish software development company invents a mysterious “boss of it all” who supposedly lives in America and is responsible for all the tough decisions employees just have to live with. When he decides to sell the company out from under the hard-working staff, he needs a signature from the made-up boss on legal documents. He hires an unemployed actor to play the part, and that’s when the film turns both hilarious and revealing about corporate culture in today’s world. 
• Store Wars. Shows events over a one-year period as a small town in Virginia decides whether to accept a Wal-Mart store.
• Crossing Arizona. All sides get their say in this documentary about the border, from immigrants who try to cross the desert to farmers who need their labor to political groups who oppose or support immigrant rights.
• Farmingville. Filmmakers spent a year documenting the complex interaction of Mexican immigrants and residents of a small suburban New York town, where immigrant labor is an economic necessity to some and a threat to others. The town had attracted national attention after the attempted murder of two immigrants.
• Thieves and Liars (www.thieves-and-liars.com). A powerful feature film that tells the stories of three families affected by the drug trade that increasingly corrupts life in Puerto Rico, a key shipping transfer point for cocaine bound from Latin America to the U.S. east coast. Outstanding acting performances elicited by directors Ricardo Mendez Matta and Poli Marichal have helped the film win recognition in film festivals all over the world.
• Quiet Revolution by Alliance for Justice (www.afj.org). A 23-minute video that shows how right-wing extremists have placed activist judges on the courts to undermine well established rights and protections. News clips show the right’s message discipline. Of most interest to law students and liberal activists.
• California and the American Dream (www.californiadreamseries.org) is a four-part series of one-hour documentaries that includes “The New Los Angeles” by former Academy Award nominee Lyn Goldfarb about the transformation of L.A. in the past 30 years into a breeding ground for progressive organizing; “Ripe for Change” about issues related to the food industry and farm worker organizing since the 1930s; “The Price of Renewal” about urban redevelopment; and “California’s Lost Tribes” about the impact of the new gaming industry on Native Americans and surrounding communities.
• Class Dismissed is a one-hour discussion of the way mainstream TV shapes negative stereotypes of working class people and covers up class, race, and gender issues in America. The film features telling clips from many shows from the 1950s to the present, along with talking head commentary from a variety of professors. See www.mediaed.org.
• Clear Cut is a fair-minded documentary about the culture clash in a rural Oregon town between the Christian-right heirs to the local logging fortune and the elected school board. The logging magnate’s family traditionally paid state college tuition for every interested graduate of the high school, but in recent years pulled their money to protest science classes about the ecology of the forestry industry, the formation of a gay and lesbian students’ club, and other changes.
• Half Empty is a funny feature film about a “happiness consultant” to corporate leaders. With his new book not selling in the U.S., the fun begins when his handlers send him to Germany to be escorted by a local woman to book signings and an appearance at a workshop for global managers.
• After Innocence is a powerful documentary about men who have served up to 25 years in prison for crimes they did not commit – and who are now being released because of DNA testing or other new developments in their cases. One of the men was originally jailed after a rape victim picked him out of a line-up, only to be released years later when the actual rapist confessed. The woman who was raped now tours the country giving talks about the weaknesses of eyewitness testimony. Another subject points out how lucky he is that he was jailed in a state that does not have capital punishment; otherwise, he would have been executed before his innocence was finally proven.
• Kissed by Winter is an exceptionally moving and beautifully acted feature film about redemption that focuses on a Swedish woman who leaves her medical practice in Stockholm to be a country doctor in a small town in Norway after her young son dies in an accident she believes to be her fault.
• North Country. A surprisingly entertaining and well-acted Hollywood story of an actual struggle by women miners in Minnesota during the 1970s and 1980s that advanced sexual harassment law in the U.S. Good for provoking discussion about what has and has not changed for women since then.
• Occupation: Dreamland is a documentary that presents an intimate view of a U.S. army unit in Faluja. Instead of the heavy-handed Michael Moore propaganda style, these filmmakers intertwine footage of the soldiers daily experiences with thoughtful interviews about their sometimes conflicting feelings about their mission and their encounters with Iraqis in the streets. The result is a highly credible and moving film that quietly lets the soldiers themselves reveal the counterproductiveness of the military presence and shows how much common ground there could be between Americans and Iraqis if circumstances were different.
• Touch of Sound is an enchanting documentary about one of the world’s leading percussionists, Evelyn Glennie, who as a hearing impaired woman shares her distinct sensibility and relationship to sound. Includes stunning performance footage.
• The Last Trapper is a documentary with some scenes reenacted that portrays a couple who live year round in the Yukon wilderness.
• Sir! No Sir! -- a documentary film by David Zeiger.  Many people today think of the “anti-war movement” during Vietnam as something that happened only on college campuses. This film tells the timely story of the courageous opposition to the war that grew within the ranks of the military itself.
• Afterlife. This Scottish drama about a 21-year-old woman with Down syndrome and her widowed mother and older brother has a strong story and unexpected ending.  The actress who plays the daughter and actually has Down syndrome steals the show with her expressiveness and warmth.
• My Flesh and Blood. An uplifting and often funny documentary about a California woman who adopted 13 children, each with a severe disability or life-threatening disease.  Connects the audience to what is best in human beings.
• Bread & Roses. This tells a fictional story of two sisters and an organizer involved in the Justice for Janitors movement in Los Angeles. The film is directed by Ken Loach, a British director who specializes in working class and left political themes and whose past films include My Name is Joe, Riff-Raff, Land & Freedom, and Carla's Song.

Courtesy of TheWorkSite.org.