Films that bring previously obscured truths about the political process to the attention of the public, showing for example how offices of public trust are used for private purposes.
ANOTHER HOLOCAUST HERO IN BAU: ARTIST AT WAR In 1943, Joseph Bau (played by Emile Hirsch), a cartoon artist, was living in Kraków, Poland, trapped in a ghetto, forging passport documents to free his colleagues and friends. Eventually, he and his family go to the Płaszów concentration camp under the command of Franz Gruen (Yan […]
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SHOSHANA DESCRIBES A TURNING POINT IN ISRAEL’S DEVELOPMENT For several minutes, titles explain the historical background of the founding of the state of Israel. Much of the film is about life during the 1930s in Tel Aviv, a city carved out by Jewish refugees, featuring lavish restaurants and entertainment soirees, as major events unravel under
IN THE FIRE OF WAR ILLUMINATES A CRITICAL PERIOD OF MĀORI HISTORY Ka Whawhai Tonu, translated as “Struggle Without End,” has been released with the English title In the Fire of War. Dialog is almost entirely filmed in the Māori language, though with English subtitles. The film depicts how British were determined to control New
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A BILL BECOMES A LAWIN LILLY The first major piece of legislation under the Obama presidency was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed on January 29, 2009. Lilly explains who the bill was named after and how her situation—a woman receiving less pay than men for the same work—catapulted into a major amendment to
WORDS OF WAR FEATURES A MURDERED JOURNALIST At the end of Words of War, photographs appear on the screen identifying some of at least 1,500 journalists who have been murdered since the year 2000, often in headlines, others quietly. The film, directed by James Strong, focuses on one of those, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya (played
THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE IS ABOUT A REVELATION THAT WORKED In 1984, the film The Killing Fields informed filmviewers of a tragedy as millions of Cambodian lives were at risk during the Khmer Rouge takeover a decade earlier (1975-1979). Where was a similar graphic display of what the Nazis did to Jews during World War
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NO OTHER LAND PHOTOGRAPHS ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS A docudrama, No Other Land films Israelis as they forcibly take over land in the West Bank occupied by Palestinians for centuries. Filming starts in 2019 by showing how 1,000 Palestinians live in standard housing within Masafer Yatta, a group of 20 Palestinian villages in the mountainous
BONHOEFFER: PASTOR.SPY.ASSASSIN IS A BIOPIC ABOUT THE GERMAN RESISTANCE As a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (played by Jonas Dassler and Phileas Heyblom at a young age), the film has three subtitles to attract attention of filmviewers about someone long forgotten, but the story seems almost too contemporary. Directed by Todd Komarnicki, the film shifts back
THE APPRENTICE TRIES TO EXPLAIN THE TRUMP PUZZLE Donald Trump attracts voters regardless of his dangerous policy pronouncements, so domestic and foreign pundits have been baffled, unable to explain how such a person could exist in the United States of America. The Apprentice, directed by Ali Abbasi, seeks to lay out how his life evolved
REAGAN PROVIDES AN INSIDER’S VIEW OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT Biopics tend to glorify those portrayed, and Reagan does so in spades, resulting in applause at the end of the film in a Los Angeles theater even a few days after the premier. The film’s chronology begins in his childhood, when Ronny (played by David Henrie)