"It's the Economy, Stupid!"
"It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism."
-- Frederic Jameson/Slavoj Zizek/Mark Fisher
Is it even possible to understand and engage with political economy, the invisible force that seems to shape how we live and die, via film?
How to make sense of economic history and theory, or poverty, inequality, and class relations?
With dramas like THE CLEARSTREAM AFFAIR, a story of financial corruption exposed, and THE OUTSIDER, recounting the extraordinary tale of how one young trader lost $ 4.9 Billion for a French bank, to Michael Apted’s unique documentary 56 UP, a mirror of the British class system, and Ilan Ziv’s monumental six-part CAPITALISM series, filmed in 23 countries, OVID has assembled an unmatched collection of original, illuminating, and well-argued films that take on this daunting challenge.
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2 itemsThe Society of the Spectacle
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Six years after the publication of his Situationist classic The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord released this semi-experimental, essay-film adaptation. Using the classic Situationist technique of “détournement” (think pre-digital remixing), Debord overlays a dizzying array of still and film ...
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How to Steal a Country
Directed by Rehad Desai, co-directed by Mark Kaplan • Documentary • 2020 • 87 minutes
[02/05/2025: Anyone see the NYT article today "What Is ‘State Capture’? A Warning for Americans." ? Here's a doc thriller about what went on in South Africa not so long ago!]
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY opens like ...
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Art and Oligarchs
Directed by Tania Rakhmanova • Documentary • 2010 • 52 minutes
A popular trend among Russian oligarchs is to purchase works of art. Why? It's a way to get into the Kremlin's good graces, to gild their image...and to cover up the origin of their fortunes, often acquired in the shadow of post-Sovi...
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When Banana Ruled
Directed by Mathilde Damoisel • Documentary • 2017 • 52 minutes
Bananas are everywhere: Americans eat nearly 10 billion of them per year, consuming more pounds of bananas than apples and oranges combined.
WHEN BANANA RULED tells the story of the men who made bananas the most ubiquitous fruit in...
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The Price of Progress
Directed by Víctor Luengo • Documentary • With Angelika Hilbeck, Gilles-Eric Seralini, Bernard Url, Nathalie Moll, Jean-Phillippe Azoulay • 2019 • 80 minutes
In the urgent context that shapes much of the discourse on the future of agriculture in the E.U., "The Price of Progress" delves into the ...
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As Goes Janesville
Directed by Brad Lichtenstein • Documentary • 2012 • 87 minutes
As Goes Janesville catapults viewers to the front lines of a national debate over the fate of the American economy and the survival of the middle class – a debate that turned into a pitched battle in the normally tranquil state of W...
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Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States
Directed by Olivier Azam, Daniel Mermet • Documentary • With Howard Zinn • 2016 • 100 minutes
"As long as rabbits don't have historians, history will be written by the hunters."
With the tremendous success of his book, A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn radically changed the w...
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The Forgotten Space
Directed by Allan Sekula & Noel Burch • Documentary • 2010 • 112 minutes
The 'forgotten space' of Allan Sekula and Noel Burch's essay film is the sea, the oceans through which 90% of the world's cargo now passes. At the heart of this space is the container box, which, since its invention in the ...
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Going Private
Directed by Stina Werenfels • Drama • With Michael Neuenschwander, Susanne-Marie Wrage, Bettina Stucky • 2005 • 98 minutes
H-P is an investment banker who lives with his wife and son in a luxurious lakeside villa. But things aren’t as perfect as they seem. H-P is involved in some dodgy deals and...
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Germinal
Directed by Claude Berri • Drama • With Renaud, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou • 1993 • 160 minutes
Winner of France’s prestigious César Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design, this epic film is based on the novel by Émile Zola.
During the Second Napoleonic Empire (the mid-19th cen...
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Waiting for the Carnival
Directed by Marcelo Gomes • Documentary • 2019 • 86 minutes
The small village of Toritama is a microcosm of relentless capitalism. Each year, more than 20-million pairs of jeans are produced in make-shift factories. The locals work non-stop hours, proud to be the masters of their own time. Durin...
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A History of the European Working Class (series)
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The working class has played an essential part of European countries’ history – through revolutions, wars and social progress. In four episodes of a spectacular tale, this show reminds us of what our societies owe to the workers’ movements and its struggles.
The story begins in the 18th century,...
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Master of the Universe
Directed by Marc Bauder • Documentary • With Rainer Voss, Angela Merkel • 2014 • 88 minutes
A brilliant documentary dissecting the global financial system as told by leading German investment banker Rainer Voss. A real life former master of the universe, Voss gives a disturbing insider's account...
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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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Xmas Without China
Directed by Alicia Dwyer • Documentary • 2013 • 63 minutes
Exploring the intersection of consumerism and immigration in American culture, XMAS WITHOUT CHINA is an intimate portrait of families wrestling with our drive to consume cheap products, but also with our desire for human connection and a...
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No Gods, No Masters: A History of Anarchism
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The Russian Revolution. The Spanish Republic. The Paris Commune. The Ukrainian revolution. The Mexican Revolution. From the late 19th century until World War II, anarchists played a key role in these events and in social movements that would shape the world we live in.
Yet these contributions a...
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Banking Nature
Directed by Denis Delestrac, Sandrine Feydel • Documentary • 2014 • 90 minutes
BANKING NATURE is a provocative documentary that looks at the growing movement to monetize the natural world-and to turn endangered species and threatened areas into instruments of profit. It's a worldview that sees c...
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Chicago Boys
Directed by Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano • Documentary • 2015 • 85 minutes
In the middle of the Cold War, the University of Chicago gave scholarships to a group of Chilean students to study economics under the teachings of Milton Friedman. Twenty years later, during Pinochet's dictato...
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Profit and Nothing But!
Directed by Raoul Peck • Documentary • 2001 • 52 minutes
Who said that the economy serves mankind? What is this world where one third of the population, in the rich countries, or more precisely the wealthiest two percent in these countries, control everything? A world where the economy is law, w...
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Company Town
Directed by Natalie Kottke-Masocco & Erica Sardarian • Documentary • 2017 • 90 minutes
Crossett, Arkansas is home to about 5,500 people, one Georgia-Pacific paper and chemical plant owned by the billionaire Koch brothers, and a startling rate of cancer and illness. This documentary follows local...
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Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive
Directed by Jon Alpert • Documentary • 1980 • 60 minutes
This Emmy Award-winning documentary tells the stories of six "ordinary" people who live or work along New York City's Third Avenue, which runs for sixteen miles through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, cutting through the complex social...
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Marx for Beginners
Directed by Bob Godfrey • Animation • 1978 • 6 minutes
How many people have actually read the work of Karl Marx? Based on the book by the Mexican cartoonist Rius, MARX FOR BEGINNERS is a hilarious animated film that highlights Marx's most influential ideas, and places them into the context of we...
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In the Aisles (w/ Franz Rogowski & Sandra Huller)
Directed by Thomas Stuber • Drama • With Franz Rogowski, Sandra Huller • 2018 • 125 minutes
When the reclusive Christian (Franz Rogowski, TRANSIT) takes a job working the night shift at a big box store, his new manager, Bruno from the Beverage Department (Peter Kurth, BABYLON BERLIN), teaches hi...
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Free Lunch Society
Directed by Christian Tod • Documentary • With Frances Fox Piven, Emmanuel Saez, Charles Alan Murray • 2017 • 92 minutes
That basic income is a powerful idea is indisputable: land, water and air are gifts of nature. They are different from private property that humans create by their individual ...
