Democracy and Its Discontents
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.
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Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden)
Directed by Lizzie Borden • Drama • With Honey, Adele Bertaei, Jeanne Satterfield, Flo Kennedy, Ron Vawter, Eric Bogosian • 1983 • 80 minutes
The movie that rocked the foundations of the early indie film world, this provocative, thrilling classic is a fantasy of female rebellion set in America t...
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Donga
Directed by Muhannad Lamin • Documentary • With Ali Sabty • 2023 • 90 minutes
During Libya's 2011 uprising, young Donga filmed battles, infusing moments of community and humor amidst the war's chaos. Decades later in Istanbul, wounded he grapples with war's grim realities, yet his enduring spiri...
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Ice
Directed by Robert Kramer • Drama • With Robert Kramer, Leo Braudy, Tom Griffin, Paul McIsaac • 1969 • 128 minutes
ICE is an innovative independent thriller, shot in New York City, which centers on a revolutionary group plotting to attack a fascistic political regime. Using a fictitious war with...
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This Is Our Land
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...
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Kent State: The Day the War Came Home
Directed by Chris Triffo • Documentary • 2000 • 48 minutes
This documentary tells the story and haunting legacy of the May 4, 1970 Kent State shootings. The unforgettable photograph of Mary Vecchio poised in anguish over the body of a slain student. The fervor of the wounded student activist sti...
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Capturing the Flag
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...
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Taking Back the Legislature
Directed by Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers • Documentary • 2021 • 46 minutes
TAKING BACK THE LEGISLATURE unspools over the course of a single day – one that marked a critical moment in the 2019 Hong Kong protests against the new extradition law.
On July 1, Hong Kong marked the 22nd anniversar...
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Finally Got the News
Directed by Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner • Documentary • 1970 • 55 minutes
FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is a forceful, unique documentary that reveals the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers inside and outside the auto factories of Detroit. Through interviews with th...
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Softie
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, ...
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Frontrunners
Directed by Caroline Suh • Documentary • 2008 • 83 minutes
Frontrunners is a smart and funny political documentary that follows the student council presdiential campaign at one of the country's most prestigious public high schools: Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Follow four charming an...
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Inside the Red Brick Wall
Directed by Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers • Documentary • 2021 • 88 minutes
In 2019, the world was captivated by pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Demonstrators, many with colorful umbrellas, faced teargas and rubber bullets for calling to an end to increasing Chinese control of Hong Kong....
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The Toxic Reigns of Resentment
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...
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The Dirty War on the National Health Service
Directed by John Pilger • Documentary • 2019 • 106 minutes
Britain's National Health Service, the NHS, was the world's first universal public health service. Designed to give millions of people "freedom from fear" following World War II, the NHS today is under threat of being sold off and conver...
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You Got to Move: Stories of Change in the South
Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver • Documentary • With Myles Horton, May Justice, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bernice Robinson • 1985 • 85 minutes
Lucy Massie Phenix's You Got to Move: Stories of Change in the South is about individuals who have dared to change the world for the be...
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Berkeley in the Sixties
Directed by Mark Kitchell • Documentary • With Ronald Reagan, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mario Savio, Huey Newton, Allen Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix • 1990 • 117 minutes
Berkeley in the Sixties recaptures the exhilaration and turmoil of the unprecedented student protests that sha...
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Putin's Witnesses
Directed by Vitaly Mansky • Documentary • 2018 • 102 minutes
On December 31, 1999, Russian president Boris Yeltsin went on live television just before midnight. He announced he was stepping down, and his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin, would take over as acting president. Putin promised a pres...
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American Socialist: Eugene Debs
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...
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The Corporate Coup d'État
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...
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Arguing the World
Directed by Joseph Dorman • Documentary • With Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Irving Kristol • 1997 • 109 minutes
Arguing the World is the story of four brilliant and engaging men caught up in the central struggles of our time. This enthralling film creates a vivid picture of intellect...
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Advise & Dissent: Where the Supreme Court and Politics Collide
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...
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The Revisionaries
Directed by Scott Thurman • Documentary • With Ron Wetherington, Kathy Miller, Cynthia Dunbar, Don McLeroy • 2012 • 83 minutes
In Austin, Texas, fifteen people influence what is taught to the next generation of American children. Once every decade, the highly politicized Texas State Board of Ed...
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Lost Course
Directed by Jill Li • Documentary • 2020 • 180 minutes
Embedding herself in the village of Wukan, southern China for several years starting in 2011, first time documentarian Jill Li witnessed an unprecedented experiment in local democracy. Corrupt officials had illegally sold villagers' land, bu...
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Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority
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...
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The Owl's Legacy: Democracy, or City of Dreams
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...