Activist Forum: Films for Organizers
Peacework asked activists across the country to fill in the blank, "If I could show one under-appreciated film or video to a room full of potential organizers, I'd show..." and explain why or how they'd use that film. A selection of their responses follows. Several of the more commercial of these films can be located via www.imdb.com. Some of them can be borrowed through the AFSC film and video library, www.afsc.org/resources/video-film.htm, and these films are marked below with an asterisk*. Please comment on these movies, and suggest your favorite activist films, on our first-ever, experimental, Peacework readers' forum. If you wish, you can close the forum and return to this article, or to the table of contents for the December 2006/January 2007 issue in which this article appeared.
Full Article:
Uprooted*
Jordan T. Garcia is an immigrant rights organizer with AFSC's Denver, CO office.
Uprooted is an amazing film for organizers for several reasons. First, it provides context by explaining the economic hardships that compel people to leave their home countries for the United States. Second, the film details the treatment of three immigrants once they gain entry to the US; from Bolivia, Haiti and the Philippines. Their stories sadden many viewers and anger others. Third, the film follows them as they organize to demand human rights and make real gains through the immigrant rights movement.
It's not just a border film. The film's action component inspires organizers, asking us to learn from the protagonists' experiences to strengthen our own organizing.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Echando Raices*( (Taking Root)
Graciela Martinez is the Program Coordinator for the Farm Labor Program (Proyecto Campesino) at the AFSC office in Visalia, CA. Echando Raices is available at www.afsc.org/takingroot/.
I would show Echando Raices to a non-minority group because many white people do not see the human faces behind the "immigration problem," and they easily buy into the rhetoric that immigrants come to take away jobs, tax our social service and educational system, and - well, you know the rhetoric.
Echando Raices is probably the closest some of these people will get to the emotional experiences of people who have immigrated to the US, to hear in their own words what it's like going to live in a town where you're not wanted or welcome, while scraping by to make the best of it. How callous we can be!
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Matewan*
Edward Hasbrouck served a jail sentence in 1984-1985 after being convicted of draft registration resistance and runs a website of information about resistance to conscription at www.resisters.info. He lives in San Francisco, CA.
Writer and director John Sayles' 1987 masterpiece, Matewan, is a cinematic textbook on organizing. Matewan is closely based on the real story of a coal miners' strike in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920, but the lessons it teaches are universal: how to forge unity in the face of adversity; how to overcome differences (deliberately exploited by the oppressors) of race, ethnicity, language, class, gender, and age; and the mixed role of religion in relation to progressive organizing.
This is a film of more than historical interest. Like another of my favorite writers, Jeremy Seabrook, Sayles is strongly conscious of the ways class and labor history within countries like the US and the UK parallel contemporary North-South global dynamics of privilege, wealth, and power.
There are heroes and villains in Matewan, but the characterizations, as acted by a brilliant ensemble, have more depth than is at first obvious, such as when the crude and stupid-seeming company thugs reveal their expertise and professionalism - as torturers. Sayles lets you draw your own conclusions about the relationship between violent and nonviolent tactics - this is a dramatic case study, not a sermon.
Yet, Sayles depicts both the temptation to respond to authoritarian corporate and state violence with violence of our own, and the ways that, when we do so, we replicate the problem we aim to overcome. Matewan has been hard to find, and the original conversion to video was reportedly of low quality, but it was restored and re-released in 2001 for a theatrical retrospective and a new DVD edition.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Good Night and Good Luck
Deborah Mellicker works in the Kansas City office of AFSC.
The McCarthy era in American politics mirrors our era, both are characterized by: the fear of being labeled a traitor, rounding up those accused of being enemies of the state, firing accused dissidents, listening in on conversations, and damning by association.
What is different now from the McCarthy era brought to life in this film is that the current US President has destroyed the right of habeus corpus. In addition, the public in the 1950s was willing to "tune in" to the honest broadcasting depicted in the movie, in contrast to the complacency of much of our present-day advertising-slogan fed public. We also had not jailed our scapegoats nor tortured them, nor kept them for years without counsel. Instead, McCarthyites hauled them in front of Congress and then destroyed their careers and their futures. One can reasonably argue that the situation is worse and the stakes higher today than during the McCarthy era.
The FBI came to my father's place of work, Piggly Wiggly, and implicated him and my mother as Communists. He lost his job and could not find work elsewhere. My childhood and my siblings' childhoods were impoverished and permanently affected. My mother's FBI file shows that she was visited and spied upon. The interview was with someone supposedly applying to live in the joint-living housing where my mother lived prior to my birth.
Organizers need to focus on the thousands of families directly affected by current repressive policies. We need to be aware that our greatest enemy is the current Bush/Cheney/Rove fear machine and the obliteration of democratic rights, coupled with a newsertainment/infotainment corporate press. I believe that the very heart and soul of America's democratic republic is on the line this time.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
The Murder of Fred Hampton
Dominique Robinson is the Area Program Co-Coordinator for the Baltimore Urban Peace Program in the Middle Atlantic Regional AFSC office in Baltimore, MD.
As an organizer who works with young people on the issues of civil liberties and political prisoners in the United States, I have used this film to help folks understand just how deadly the FBI's Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was.
Fred Hampton was an organizer with the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Chicago in the mid-1960s who brokered a gang truce and coined the term "rainbow coalition" to describe the alliance he helped build between the BPP, the Puerto Rican community-based Young Lords, and the Euro-American community-based Students for a Democratic Society.
Hampton was assassinated by the Chicago police while sleeping in his bed. Not only does the film demonstrate that the Chicago Police Department lied in their report about the purported "shootout" between police and members of the Chicago Black Panther Party, but the documentary also conveys the deadly intent behind the raid on Hampton's apartment.
For some, the film may act as a cautionary tale about the lengths the US government will go to suppress social movements. For others, it represents the degree to which young people of the post-Civil Rights/Black Liberation era were willing to go to bring significant social change to their communities. Either way, it is an informative and compelling documentary. Fred Hampton is a figure whose words and deeds still resonate with each consecutive generation of activists and organizers.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Fires in the Mirror & Twilight Los Angeles
Sue Aldine is an activist parent in Corvallis, OR.
I'd show Twilight Los Angeles (focusing on the riots following the acquittal of the white police officers who battered Rodney King), because Anna Deavere Smith, who interviews people of many races involved in racial conflict and then shapes their words into a dramatic production, embodying each one on stage, is the best model for active listening about race issues.
I think she is worth listening to any time she speaks, because she listens to and represents so many voices, and she makes us laugh/cry/cringe/scream throughout her performances. Smith's first film, Fires In The Mirror (focusing on the 1991 riots in Crown Heights Brooklyn in which tensions between African-Americans and Lubavitch Jews boiled over) is the second runner up. Anna Deavere Smith's name should become as familiar as that of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Breaking Our Silence
Craig Norberg-Bohm is the project coordinator of the Men's Initiative for Jane Doe, www.mijd.org.
I find the video Breaking Our Silence very valuable. This short (15 minute) video shows how a "Men Against Abuse" float was developed for an Independence Day parade by Gloucester Men Against Domestic Abuse. Well edited, this video has a strong impact and inspires one to do the same. Definitely, this video would work to an organizer's advantage. It works to mine. The video can be ordered at www.strongmendontbully.com.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
The Celebration
John Sanbonmatsu is a Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
I would show the film, The Celebration. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg as part of the experimental "Dogma" film movement in Denmark, the film chronicles the inexorable descent into chaos, violence, and (partial) redemption that attends a wealthy patriarch's 60th birthday party.
Family and friends flock to the family's massive ancestral home from all over the country. But when the patriarch's eldest son offers his toast at the formal dinner, he stuns everyone with a secret revelation about his father's sexual abuse of him when he was a child.
The remainder of the film can be read as an allegory about the way people collude in power and injustice, either passively, through silence, or actively, in their insistent denial of reality. But the film, which also touches upon Danish racism, misogyny, and the difficulty of coming to terms with sexual trauma, also shows how power can be successfully challenged and resisted through personal courage, perseverance, and cross-class alliances.
I recommend this film not only because it is so ripe for the analysis of power and patriarchy as a family structure, but because it also happens to be a truly great, immensely entertaining film. The scenes are by turns hilarious and appalling. And director Vinterberg's use of natural light and sound (strictures of the Dogma manifesto of filmmaking), only heightens the intimate naturalism of the events. We in the audience feel as though we are present at this ghastly party, and we leave it feeling exhausted, brutalized, but also enlightened.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Cry Freedom
Matt Meyer is a teacher and the author, most recently, of Time is Tight: Urgent Tasks for Educational Transformation -- Eritrea, South Africa, and the USA.
I'm showing Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom, about life in apartheid South Africa, to my high school students. Despite a Hollywood release and big name stars, it never got the attention I think it deserves, mainly because a lack of appropriate editing meant the portion of the movie focusing on the white character took up over half of the screen time.
Nevertheless, the piece is historically accurate and dramatically intense; Denzel Washington's portrayal of South African Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko, is amongst his best work. Using Biko's own words, with a spot-on accent, Washington brings Biko alive. And, for white audiences, the Donald Woods story can help many to shift from a liberal to a more radical critique of society.
A DVD version, complete with historical footage and reflections from South African leaders, would be a much-appreciated addition. However, lack of interest from corporate moguls, when coupled with critiques from the left, have made such a release slow in coming.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Fail Safe
Gino Dilorio is a professor of theater arts at Clark University.
I'm not sure if one would call it an activist film, but Fail Safe changed the way I saw the world and began my mistrust of governments, especially when it comes to the military. Directed by Sydney Lumet, the film is wonderfully written and acted. Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, and Larry Hagman give great performances. There's even a wonderful small part played by Dom De Luise.
It was released in 1963, the same year as Dr. Strangelove. What struck me then, as it does now, is the sense of madness that pervades the film. The lead character has a recurring dream of a bullfight. It's a wonderfully imperfect metaphor, just enough to make one think this world is out of control, that (in his words), "things are just going too fast." But the dream itself offers no comfort and no message. The warnings voiced in the film come not from civilians, but rather the military leaders themselves, who talk of a war machine that has gone out of control, a fail safe system that is anything but.
I have written a number of plays and in the theater, there is an old adage: "if a gun appears in act one, it must go off in act three." It speaks to the inevitability of weaponry. I believe it is as true of the world as it is true of one's home. If we bring firearms into the home, they're bound to go off. If we fill the world with weapons, we will be inclined to use them.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Captain Milkshake
Melanie Bennett and Adam Turner are promoters of Captain Milkshake in Carlsbad, CA.
Freshly freed from a legal battle that froze Captain Milkshake for over two decades and now back in the hands of its director, Richard Crawford, the film is a time-capsule anti-war film from San Diego in 1969. It captures the essence of the contrasting emotional and social struggles between Americans during the tumultuous Vietnam War era.
The love story between a Marine (Paul) back home on emergency leave from Vietnam and a free-loving peace activist (Melissa) with a key role in organizing an anti-war demonstration embodies the film's tagline: "Love can happen when you're free."
The audience sees Paul struggling to survive back in suburbia, constantly haunted by horrific events from his tour of duty. His attitude contrasts with the starry-eyed idealism of his new hippie acquaintances.
None of the characters have an ownership on truth and their flaws make them interesting, creating a picture of both sides of America during this time. Controversial then and even more relevant now in the new "war on terrorism" era, Captain Milkshake's message resonates clearly with audiences generations apart.
"Refuse to participate in the crime of SILENCE!" shouts a protest organizer. It would be very difficult for anyone seeing this movie today to not draw parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Some viewers say this film was ahead of its time. Others note that this film presages today's events. Almost all who see Captain Milkshake say it provokes unsettling questions about the justice of war, then and now.
Captain Milkshake has recently been screened at the New York Underground, Chicago Underground, Vienna International, and Leeds International Film Festivals, among others. The film is available on DVD through www.captainmilkshake.com.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
We
Steve Schnapp is the Education Coordinator of United for a Fair Economy,
If I could show one under-appreciated (or rarely shown) film to a room full of activists I'd show We, a film featuring a speech by award-winning author and social justice activist Arundhati Roy. Rather than just putting a brilliant talking head in front of the audience, as many such documentaries do, this film uses dramatic video footage and vibrant contemporary music to enhance Roy's incisive analysis of imperialism and social justice.
We is visually stunning and profoundly empathic, covering the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception, and exploitation. Roy's witty, compassionate, and incisive words -- her famous Come September speech -- strike to the heart, weaving an intricate tapestry of our modern global condition.
Amazingly, this fast-paced, 64-minute film was produced and uploaded to the Internet by an anonymous student from New Zealand and is available for free from popular video sharing web sites, such as YouTube and GoogleVideo. A high quality DVD-R can be purchased from www.weroy.org for a $5 donation.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
The Ground Truth
Medea Benjamin is the Cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange.
The Ground Truth is the heart-wrenching, largely untold story of the lives of wounded US soldiers returning from Iraq. War is bloody and gruesome, and leaves behind a trail of broken bodies and charred minds. But as long as Americans see only the anesthetized version of war, too many will continue to be cheerleaders.
I wish there were a similar film about the shattered lives of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis thanks to our invasion, but I doubt most Americans would be as touched as they will be by seeing The Ground Truth.
It's the story of the boy (and girl) next door, and while the film is not directly political, I can't imagine anyone leaving this movie thinking those soldiers were well-served by the commander-in-chief who sent them into this unprovoked, un-winnable, war.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
An Inconvenient Truth
Bonney Mattingly works at the Middle Atlantic Regional Office of AFSC in Baltimore, MD.
An Inconvenient Truth highlights the current environmental crisis we are facing worldwide. It is not a conventional 'movie' at all - it follows a PowerPoint presentation former VP Al Gore has shared with groups around the globe. For organizers, I think it shows how the power of technology can be harnessed to reach a larger audience. I think there is more power in visuals, whether they are graphs, numbers, pictures, and the like, as opposed to speeches or the written word alone. You see the power that some of the visuals in the film have on the audience. The film ends with ideas combined within the credits for viewers to help the problem of global warming and pollution and also gives viewers links and resources to do more research on their own.
The film was shown in conjunction with a panel discussion discussing how we, as audience members, could get involved in making change locally and regionally, and providing space for the audience to discuss how we were influenced by what we saw. Projecting and discussing films, or other multimedia presentations, makes it possible for local, regional, and even national groups to reach large audiences and move them to want to help work for change.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
The Awful Truth
Jon Krieg works in the Des Moines, Iowa office of AFSC.
If I could show one under-appreciated film or video to a room full of potential organizers, I'd show portions of the first and second seasons of Michael Moore's The Awful Truth TV show, for the following reasons.
Too often we alienate potential allies, turn off the media and depress ourselves by repeating refrains from our very worst "I have a nightmare" speeches. It's vital we ground our activism in accurate facts, but we can't get stuck there.
As The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report demonstrate, humor can be a powerful method of cutting through the fear and disinformation upon which the American empire depends.
Not all of Michael Moore's efforts deserve our applause, and certainly his tactics don't always jibe with AFSC's commitment to "seeing that of God in everyone." And yet his creative, courageous, and sometimes outrageous use of humor could be a model for tapping our own sources of creative activism.
As an example, Episode 4 of Moore's second season of The Awful Truth contains a segment in which Moore brings valuable attention to the struggle of immigrant workers at a Holiday Inn Express in Minneapolis - and helps them win an important victory. The final spot includes Sal Piro, The Awful Truth's bill collector, challenging BMW over the issue of reparations for slave labor.
Humor can help keep us going through all the muck we face. It's undeniably human; as activists, let's not forget that. The Awful Truth can be ordered through www.michaelmoore.com.
[Please comment on this film and/or this article]
Banking on Debt*
Tejan M. Muata is Senior Director of the Africa Peace Education Program at the AFSC Southeast Regional Office in Atlanta, GA, www.afsc.org/apep.
One doesn't have to show a film in its entirety, just the parts which most vividly dramatize people who are affected by the issue being addressed. I use a clip from Banking on Debt because in 15 minutes students who have never heard of Debt Cancellation, the IMF, or the World Bank, quickly get the point.
They learn that onerous debt creates misery in Ghana, the Philippines, and Brazil, which helps them draw several conclusions: that this issue affects people in poor countries on three separate continents, that this debt makes poor people in impoverished nations become poorer; and most dramatically, that the bankers are mostly from America and Europe.
Students from disenfranchised backgrounds relate these stories to the check cashing and small financial lending storefronts that pop up overnight in low-income communities offering high interest rate loans. One student's testimony generally creates a domino effect, inducing others to speak about the predicament of someone they know.
One question they sometimes ask is: why shouldn't these countries have to pay back what they borrowed? I respond that in aggregate, African countries have borrowed $201 billion - and have already paid back $289 billion to the lending institutions.
The challenge for educators or facilitators who only have a short period of time to work with a class or group is to choose a salient film clip that illustrates the issue(s) and thus leaves time for the audience/students to discuss the issues themselves and be heard. The video clip must connect the viewers' life with the people on film. The film must evoke a shared awareness that gives rise to inquiry, resulting in the murmuring of phases such as, "Can you believe that!" or, "No way!" The video, Banking on Debt tells the story, gets us thinking, helps viewers comprehend a global connection to our own lives, and moves us to action - with a little help from a facilitating educator.
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