Clay Colt is an activist based in Connecticut and is co-proprietor of Donnelly/Colt Progressive Resources, which distributes videos for social change, including many of the films mentioned below, as well as buttons, bumperstickers, and t-shirts, www.progressivecatalog.com [5].
Full Article:
There has been a renaissance in documentary film making in recent years, due in part to the increasing affordability and accessibility of digital video equipment.
For example, New York documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras traveled by herself, equipped only with a video camera - no film crew - to Baghdad in January 2003 where she met an Iraqi family who allowed her to film their everyday life during the weeks leading up to the election. It is the most candid and intimate portrait yet to come out of Iraq. The film, My Country, My Country, opened in a few small theaters around the US in November and December 2006. It will come out on DVD in January 2007.
There is a small circuit of theaters in this country that show independently-made films. Those living outside of major cities usually can't find these films, but have to wait until the film is released on DVD, which can take anywhere from days to months after its theatrical release. So far, no political documentaries have had a theatrical, television and DVD release scheduled at the same time. But that, too, could happen in the future.
Even so, some outstanding commercial films from the past are available on DVD. For example, the 1973 Academy Award-winner for Best Documentary, Peter Davis' classic anti-war film, Hearts & Minds, and Emil deAntonio's 1969 agit-prop documentary, In The Year of the Pig, both made during the war in Vietnam, are now available. Costa-Gavras' 1982 first English-language film, Missing (based on the true story of American Charles Horman, who was arrested, tortured, and killed along with thousands of Chileans in the 1973 military coup against Salvador Allende in Chile) was released on DVD in 2005, but still can't be found in most video stores. (Gavras' astounding 1969 film, Z, based on the cover-up of the state-sponsored assassination of Greek pacifist, Grigoris Lambrakis, is also now out on DVD.)
Some filmmakers, including Robert Greenwald, circumvent theatrical release altogether by releasing documentaries directly to activists on DVD across the country through email and website promotion. They often offer the film at a very low price so activists can set up local home screenings during a chosen week or month. Greenwald's film, Iraq For Sale, about private contractors profiting from the US war in Iraq, was released in this manner in October 2006. Another excellent film distributed directly for home and small group screenings in October, The Ground Truth, made by Patricia Foulkrod, was timed for release before the November elections and Veterans Day. This film let recent US veterans of the Iraq War speak for themselves about the war and their involvement in it.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a difficult to find film which provides an inside view of the April 2004 kidnapping and attempted coup d'etat against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. An Irish documentary film crew happened to be making a film about Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution when they were caught inside the presidential palace while history was in the making. It is a riveting firsthand account of the events of that week.
Some other outstanding films available on DVD include:
" Salt of the Earth (1954; suppressed classic on labor, feminism, and human rights)
" Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days (2006; based on the students at Munich University who created, in 1942-43, "The White Rose," an organization which passed out leaflets denouncing Nazi crimes. The film is based on the recently uncovered courtroom transcripts of Sophie Scholl's so-called trial for treason.)
" Why We Fight (2005) A well-crafted history of the rise of the US military-industrial complex, using personal stories of Americans affected by war. By the director of The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Eugene Jurecki.
" Sir! No Sir! (2006 documentary on the movement within the US military working to end the US war against Vietnam)
" Soldiers Speak Out (2006) US veterans of the current war in Iraq describe how and why they came to be opposed to the war. By the producers of the 1980s Academy Award winning Panama Deception, and Cover-up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair.
" Mardi Gras: Made in China (2005) A unique look at globalization. The plastic beads that are everywhere at Mardi Gras are produced in Chinese sweat shops. The filmmaker interviews party revelers on the streets of (pre-Katrina) New Orleans during Mardi Gras about where they think the beads come from.
He travels to a factory in China where they are made and lets the factory manager and the workers speak for themselves. We see the working conditions and how a frivolous popular product is created and brought to the US market.
The contrast between producers and consumers is an eye-opening experience.