Films that portray the way in which ordinary people have a right to choose public policies and can bring about political change by making officeholders accountable to the people.
JOHN SAYLES SCORES ANOTHER HOME RUN WITH AMIGO Feature films are often more effective than documentaries because they humanize issues, depicting interpersonal relationships that symbolize policy problems. From 1899-1902 the United States conquered the Philippines by suppressing the independent Philippine Republic in a war with perhaps 1.5 million casualties. In Amigo, Political Film Society awardwinner […]
OF GODS AND MEN ASKS, “WHAT PRICE TERRORISM?” Grand prize winner at Cannes in 2010, Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux) is a true story of seven French Catholic monks in Tibhinine in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria (though filmed in Morocco) during the war of independence from 1954-1962. As monks, they
THE BIOPIC JOHN RABE CELEBRATES A NAZI WHO SAVED 200,000 CHINESE LIVES Historians record the death of 300,000 Chinese in the “Rape of Nanjing” of 1937 at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. Similar to Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), the film John Rabe, directed and written by Florian Gallenberger from John Rabe’s diary, reveals
PRINCESS KA‘IULANI DRAMATIZES THE FALL OF THE HAWAIIAN MONARCHY After years of research at the Bishop Museum, Marc Forby directs Princess Ka‘iulani as a tribute to the sad history of the fall of the Hawaiian monarchy. The drama picks up steam when King Kalākaua (played by Ocean Kaowili) is forced in 1887 to sign the
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FORMOSA BETRAYED DEPICTS THE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IN TAIWAN In 1989, the Political Film Society voted A City of Sadness (Bei qing cheng shi) as the best political film at the East-West Center Film Festival. The film depicted the brutal takeover as the Nationalist China Army retreated from Mainland China to the island of Taiwan, killing
A JOURNALIST IS IMPRISONED FOR WITHHOLDING A SOURCE IN NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH In 2005, New York Times journalist Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court–refusing to disclose who outed Valery Plame as a CIA agent. In an effort to dramatize the issue, Nothing But the Truth focuses on journalist Rachel
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MILK IS A BIOPIC OF THE MAN WHO MOBILIZED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT The election of Harvey Milk as San Francisco Supervisor in 1977 was of the first openly gay American politician of stature. The film Milk begins with a montage of documentaries about police hostility to gays, including the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969.
CHANGELING EXPOSES HOW “FACTS” CAN BE FIT TO A POLICY TO SUIT A SECRET AGENDA During the Prohibition era the police were asked to enforce laws while lawbreakers made millions. Although The Untouchables (1987) focuses on heroic efforts of the federal government against Chicago mobsters, less attention was directed at corrupt police departments that wiped