Democracy & Its Discontents

Democracy & Its Discontents

Are you ready for the counter-revolution? Just in time for the coming elections we've updated our collection of films on the theory and practice of democracy here in the U,S., in Russia, and other countries around the world -- is there a future in it?

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Democracy & Its Discontents
  • Confounding Father: A Contrarian View of the U.S. Constitution

    4 items

    This documentary tells the story of the constitutional convention from the contrarian viewpoint of the opponents of the document. It serves as a timely reexamination of the U.S. political system and features Luther Martin, a Maryland delegate to the 1787 constitutional convention who opposed the ...

  • With God On Our Side (series)

    6 items

    WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE is a six-hour documentary series treating one of the most important political and cultural stories in contemporary America: the rise to power of the Religious Right.

    This in-depth investigation traces its roots from the anxious "Christian anti-Communism" of the 1950's to th...

  • 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...

  • Town Destroyer

    Directed by Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman • Documentary • 2022 • 53 minutes

    Town Destroyer explores the ways we look at art and history at a time of racial reckoning. The story focuses on a dispute over historic murals depicting the life of George Washington: slaveowner, general, land speculator,...

  • 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...

  • Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times

    Directed by John Junkerman • Documentary • 2002 • 74 minutes

    “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: Stop participating in it.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in our Times gives the public a rare opportunity to see and listen to one of the m...

  • And She Could Be Next (series)

    2 items

    Directed by Grace Lee, Marjan Safinia • Documentary • With Stacey Abrams, Rashida Tlaib, Bushra Amiwala, Maria Elena Durazo • 2020

    In a polarized America, where the dual forces of white supremacy and patriarchy threaten to further erode our democracy, a game-changing transformation is happening ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • A Perfect Candidate

    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...

  • Jesus Politics

    Documentary • 2008 • 90 minutes

    After fighting as an Israeli soldier in the 1973 war, and troubled by the nation's obsessive mixing of the Bible with politics, the filmmaker left for America, which he considered a "safe haven" because of its separation between church and state. Thirty-five years...

  • Now He's Out in Public and Everyone Can See

    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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • The Candidate

    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...

  • Welcome to Leith

    Directed by Michael Beach Nichols & Christopher K. Walker • Documentary • 2015 • 86 minutes

    Welcome to Leith chronicles the attempted takeover of a small town in North Dakota by notorious white supremacist Craig Cobb. As his behavior becomes more threatening, tensions soar, and the residents des...

  • 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...

  • Feed: A Comedy About Running for President

    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 ...

  • One Bright Shining Moment

    Directed by Stephen Vittoria • Documentary • 2005 • 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 A...

  • When Abortion was Illegal

    Directed by Dorothy Fadiman • Documentary • 1993 • 28 minutes

    Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short

    The era of illegal abortion, roughly the period between the turn of the century and the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, has been a sealed chapter in women's history. 

    The prof...