What is the “will of the people?” How might it be established, threatened, undermined, expressed, and hopefully secured? These questions and more are explored in OVID’s collection DEMOCRACY AND ITS DISCONTENTS.
Directed by Kimberlee Bassford • Documentary • 56 minutes
In 1965, Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first woman of color in the United States Congress. Seven years later, she ran for the US presidency and was the driving force behind Title IX, the landmark legislation that transformed women’s oppo...
Directed by Sam Soko • Documentary • 2020 • 96 minutes
Boniface “Softie” Mwangi has long fought injustices in his country as a political activist. Now he’s taking the next step by running for office in a regional Kenyan election. From the moment Boniface decides to run, telling his wife, Njeri, ...
Directed by Anne de Mare • Documentary • 2018 • 76 minutes
A tight-knit group of friends travel to Cumberland County, North Carolina—the 2016 'posterchild' for voter suppression—intent on proving that the big idea of American democracy can be defended by small acts of individual citizens. What t...
Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1989 • 26 minutes
“Modern and ancient democracy have no genetic relationship” -- Mihalis Sakellariou
An in-depth—but not overly dense—exploration of how Athenian democracy worked, and the key ways it differs from modern states using the word. Ancient Gre...
Directed by Yale Strom • Documentary • With Eugene Victor Debs, Amy Madigan, Richard Wolff, Dr. Frances Fox Piven, Dr. Nick Salvatore • 2018 • 97 minutes
Bernie Sanders inspired a generation – but who inspired him? Yale Strom's new documentary traces the history of American populism by exploring...
Directed by Daniel Hendler • Drama • With Diego De Paula, Matías Singer, Ana Katz, Verónica Llinás, César Troncoso, Alan Sabbagh, Roberto Suárez. • 2017 • 84 minutes
In this wry and timely political comedy of manners, Martín Marchand, the son of a wealthy businessman, retreats to his lavish, sec...
Directed by Shola Lynch • Documentary • With Shirley Chisholm, Amiri Baraka, Octavia Butler, Bobby Seale • 2004 • 77 minutes
Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this compelling documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman...
Directed by R.J. Cutler & David Van Taylor • Documentary • With Oliver North, Chuck Robb • 1996 • 105 minutes
Sometimes horrifying, often hilarious, A Perfect Candidate is a twisted journey into the underbelly of American politics. In 1994 former Marine Oliver North re-emerged from the Iran-Cont...
Directed by Kevin Rafferty & James Ridgeway • Documentary • 1992 • 76 minutes
Using intercepted satellite feeds and footage of unsuspecting candidates shot during the 1992 presidential primaries, Feed presents the wild, wacky world of American politics.
Watch Hillary Clinton navigate her first ...
Directed by David Van Taylor • Documentary • 2012 • 87 minutes
The first documentary to go behind the lines and into the trenches of the judicial confirmation wars, ADVISE & DISSENT tracks two opposing lobbyists and two lions of the Senate through several recent nominations, each of which inflam...
Directed by Fred Peabody • Documentary • With Chris Hedges, Phillip Martin, Sarah Jaffe, Matt Taibbi, Lee Fang, John Ralston Saul • 2018 • 90 minutes
This investigative documentary exposes how corporations and billionaires have taken control of the American political process, and in doing so hav...
Directed by Alexander Abaturov • Documentary • 2013 • 50 minutes
Atchinsk is a Siberian town 2500 miles away from Moscow where Soviet dissidents and, before them, the Tsar's opponents were deported. It's pre-election season, and the small, sleepy town is abuzz with the voices of regime supporter...
Directed by Pablo Bryant • Documentary • With Dwayne Booth • 2018 • 70 minutes
A political cartoonist known for his outrageous and subversive art, Mr. Fish’s work has been published in places such as Harper’s, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly and The Village Voice and sites like trut...
Directed by Jurgen Schflechner, Tim van den Hoff • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes
The revival of nationalism paired with xenophobia, an increasing tribalization of politics, and a public sphere oscillating between cruelty and sentimentality mark significant parts of our current political Zeitge...
Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Seiko Hashimoto, Nobuteru Ishihara, Yoriko Kawaguchi • 2007 • 120 minutes
Can a candidate with no political experience and no charisma win an election if he is backed by the political giant Prime Minister Koizumi and his Liberal Democratic Party? Th...
Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Kazuhiko Yamauchi, Sayuri Yamauchi, Yuki Yamauchi • 2013 • 145 minutes
In response to the Fukushima disaster, Yama-san is running an election campaign with an anti-nuclear message. But unlike last time, he hasno money, no machine, no nothing. Does h...
Directed by Stephen Vittoria • Documentary • 124 minutes
When presidential candidate George McGovern took on incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972, no one really expected him to win – and he didn’t. But in his bold, grassroots, seat-of-the-pants campaign, which energized young and progressive American...
Directed by Lucas Belvaux • Drama • With Émilie Dequenne, André Dussollier, Guillaume Gouix • 2018 • 114 minutes
Marine Le Pen was defeated in the French election that brought Emmanuel Macron to power, but her far right-wing party, with its nationalist, anti-immigrant platform, lives on to feed...
Directed by Natalie Bookchin • Documentary • 2017 • 24 minutes
A riveting polyphonic documentary, NOW HE'S OUT IN PUBLIC AND EVERYONE CAN SEE presents a fractured narrative about an unnamed man whose racial identity is continually redrawn and contested by clusters of impassioned narrators. This ...
Directed by Pau Faus • Documentary • With Ada Colau • 2016 • 86 minutes
ADA FOR MAYOR follows Ada Colau for one year, from her time spent organizing the anti-eviction fight in Barcelona to the day she is sworn-in as its mayor. The intimate chronicle—featuring Colau’s own video diary—and privileg...
Directed by Tom Cohen • Documentary • 1982 • 90 minutes
Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.
Focusing on a mayoral race in Muncie, Indiana, THE CAMPAIGN follows closely the personalities, strategies, and pressures of an American political contest. In particular, it examines the sharply cont...
Directed by David Vainola • Documentary • 1996 • 51 minutes
:30 Second Democracy explores the disturbing relationship between political parties and the advertising industry during election campaigns. Through television advertising, techniques perfected to sell commercial products are readily app...
Directed by Steve Cowan • Documentary • 2011 • 58 minutes
PRICELESS examines the growing cost of federal elections, the impact of political campaign fundraising on members of Congress and on policymaking, and the citizen movement to limit the "undue influence" of large campaign donors.
This no...
Directed by Patricio Guzman • Documentary • 1975 • 96 minutes
On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende's democratically elected Chilean government was overthrown in a bloody coup by General Augusto Pinochet's army. Patricio Guzmán and five colleagues had been filming the political devel...