How to Fight Back!
For the elections, we did DEMOCRACY AND ITS DISCONTENTS, for the inauguration we did EAT THE RICH. And now, in this era of the lawless Trump-Musk power grab and their brazenly cruel and incompetent actions, we ask: how far can civilian resistance and revolt go? These films look at the long game fight against oligarchy and increasingly autocratic governments, and for the protection (or restoration) of democracy across the globe.
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She's Beautiful When She's Angry
Directed by Mary Dore • Documentary • With Chude Pamela Allen, Judith Arcana, Nona Willis Aronowitz • 2014 • 92 minutes
A provocative, rousing and often humorous account of the birth of the modern women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s through to its contemporary manifestations in the new...
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Sir! No Sir!
Directed by David Zeiger • Documentary • 2006 • 84 minutes
In the 1960's an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn't take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy to...
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The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It
Directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Tejada-Flores • Documentary • With Ed Asner • 2002 • 57 minutes
Millions of people from Allied countries fought to liberate Europe from Hitler’s grip during World War II . Yet 40,000 Americans refused to shoulder weapons in “the good war.”
Narrated by Ed Asn...
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Last Summer Won't Happen
Directed by Peter Gessner & Tom Hurwitz • Documentary • With Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krassner, Tom Osha Neuman, Phil Ochs • 2002 • 58 minutes
Shot in 1968, one year after the Summer of Love, LAST SUMMER WON'T HAPPEN is a critical yet sympathetic examination of the anti-war movement in New York City....
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Integration Report 1
Directed by Madeline Anderson • Documentary • 1960 • 20 minutes
INTEGRATION REPORT 1 examines the struggle for black equality in Alabama, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., incorporating footage by documentary legends Albert Maysles and Ricky Leacock, protest songs by Maya Angelou, and a speech by M...
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Reconstruction of Occupation
Directed by Jan Šikl • Documentary • 2021 • 99 minutes
For 30 years, director Jan Šikl has collected amateur films from families in his community. Then one day, he is brought archival materials - stock shot by Czech military cameramen, which remained hidden for over half a century. Jan accomplis...
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The First Year
Directed by Patricio Guzmán • Documentary • 2023 • 96 minutes
THE FIRST YEAR is a jubilant record of the 12 months following the election of Chile’s first socialist president, Salvador Allende. Director Patricio Guzmán travels the country, meeting workers who no longer have to answer to the capr...
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The Battle of Chile (Part 1)
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 dev...
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'63 Boycott
Directed by Gordon Quinn • Documentary • 2017 • 30 minutes
On October 22, 1963, more than 250,000 students boycotted the Chicago Public Schools to protest racial segregation. Many marched through the city calling for the resignation of School Superintendent Benjamin Willis, who placed trailers, ...
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We Are The Radical Monarchs
Directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton • Documentary • 2018 • 86 minutes
Set in Oakland, a city with a deep history of social justice movements, WE ARE THE RADICAL MONARCHS documents the Radical Monarchs - an alternative to the Scout movement for girls of color, aged 8-13. Its members earn badges ...
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Boom Boom
Directed by Laurie Lassalle • Documentary • 2022 • 110 minutes
"I meet Pierrot in the fall of 2018. We protest together in the heart of the "Gilets jaunes" movement. The earth trembles and so do our hearts. Our bodies mingle with thousands of others who express their anger in the street every Sa...
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The Case of the Grinning Cat
Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 2004 • 58 minutes
In his newest film, French documentarian and cinema-essayist Chris Marker reflects on French and international politics, art and culture at the start of the new millennium. In November 2001, the filmmaker became intrigued, as did many ot...
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Class of Struggle
Directed by The Medvedkin Group • Documentary • 1969 • 37 minutes
In 1967, Chris Marker and Mario Marret (under the aegis of SLON) produced A BIENTOT J'ESPERE , which documented a strike and factory occupation-the first in France since 1936-by textile workers at the Rhodiaceta textile plant in B...
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Be Seeing You
Directed by Mario Marret, Chris Marker • Documentary • 1968 • 39 minutes
From 1967 to 1976 Chris Marker was a member of SLON (the 'Company for the Launching of New Works'), a group based on the idea that cinema should not be thought of solely in terms of commerce. 1967 was also the year an impor...
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Dykes, Camera, Action!
Directed by Caroline Berler • Documentary • 2019 • 61 minutes
Lesbians didn't always get to see themselves on screen. But between Stonewall, the feminist movement, and the experimental cinema of the 1970s, they built visibility and transformed the social imagination about queerness. Filmmakers B...
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And She Could Be Next: Part One - Building the Movement
Directed by Grace Lee, Marjan Safinia • Documentary • With Stacey Abrams, Rashida Tlaib • 2020 • 111 minutes
“Episode One: Building The Movement” opens with the powerful reminder that “women of color have been the backbone of our communities forever.” An energetic montage of modern American civi...
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Stories of A
Directed by Charles Belmont and Marielle Issartel • Documentary • 1973 • 89 minutes
Shot in Paris in 1973, this feminist film on the fight for abortion rights was banned as soon it was released. A large-scale game of hide-and-seek ensued, as activists created an underground distribution network,...
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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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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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Myanmar Diaries
Directed by Myanmar Film Collective • Documentary • 2023 • 70 minutes
MYANMAR DIARIES is comprised of short films by ten young anonymous Burmese filmmakers, combined with emotionally harrowing citizen journalism documenting the junta’s brutality, as well as courageous resistance to it.
The film...
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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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Blue Island
Directed by CHAN Tze Woon • Documentary • 2022 • 98 minutes
BLUE ISLAND documents three people who engaged in rebellions when they were young. Through reconstructing these events, the film dramatizes their scarred memories and experiences by using four young people who participated in the 2019 A...
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Downstream to Kinshasa
Directed by Dieudo Hamadi • Documentary • 2021 • 89 minutes
Over six bloody days in June 2000, the Congolese city of Kisangani was the scene of deadly violence between the Ugandan and Rwandan armies. More than 10,000 shells exploded, killing thousands and injuring thousands more.
Since then, v...
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Come Hell or High Water
Directed by Leah Mahan • Documentary • 2014 • 56 minutes
COME HELL OR HIGH WATER follows the painful but inspiring journey of Derrick Evans, a Boston teacher who returns to his native coastal Mississippi when the graves of his ancestors are bulldozed to make way for the sprawling city of Gulfpor...