DVD Library

We’re excited to announce that the While You Were Sleeping Documentary Library has found a permanent home!

For too long our DVD collection of interesting documentary films on a range of social, political and environmental topics has been stashed away on one of our book shelf. Our documentaries are now much more accessible to the general public and can be found at:

Idasa’s Cape Town Democracy Centre
6 Spin Street
Cape Town
Opening hours: 8:30am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday
Contact: Andreas at aspath@idasa.org.za or 021 467 7606

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Here are some of the documentaries in our collection:

A Convenient Truth: Urban solutions from Curitiba, Brazil

Director: Maria Vaz Del Bello
52 minutes
2006
www.mariavazphoto.com/curitiba

A Convenient Truth: Urban solutions from Curitiba, Brazil includes exclusive interviews from world renowned Curitiba’s mayors Jaime Lerner and Cassio Tanigushi, as well as other brilliant minds who made Curitiba a world class model. A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil is an informative, inspirational documentary aimed at sharing ideas to provoke environment-friendly and cost-effective changes in cities worldwide. The documentary focuses on innovations in transportation, recycling, social benefits including affordable housing, seasonal parks, and the processes that transformed Curitiba into one of the most livable cities in the world. Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world.

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Beyond Elections – Redefining democracy in the Americas

Director: Michael Fox & Silvia Leindecker
104 minutes
2008

http://www.beyondelections.com/

From Venezuela’s Communal Councils, to Brazil’s Participatory Budgeting, from Constitutional Assemblies to grassroots movements, recuperated factories to cooperatives across the hemisphere. This documentary is a journey, which takes us across the Americas, to attempt to answer one of the most important questions of our time: What is Democracy?

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Buried in Earthskin

Director Helena Kingwill
50 minutes
2009

An Investigative journey into the impact of nuclear power on the environment and peoples of South Africa, and a glimpse into potential alternative solutions. Who pays the real price for our electricity? This is a woman’s personal journey to understand what lies behind South Africa’s energy dilemma. Helena Kingwill, a journalist and concerned South African citizen – sets off on a road trip to follow the route the nuclear waste trucks take to the dump in Namaqualand. She meets men and women of the Nama-Khoi tribe, who live nearby, and listens to their untold stories of accidents at the dump and their fears of the underground water becoming polluted. The second leg of her journey takes Helena to Pelindaba, the nuclear research centre near Pretoria. She speaks to officials, who tell her off the record that the waste they are about to bury in a pipe storage facility near the city, will remain radioactive for “millions of years”. Her investigation brings her into debate with nuclear analysts, economists, the government minister of minerals and energy, a nuclear activist, and the owner/manager of South Africa’s first wind farm. It takes place over a period of 8 years, across South Africa as she investigates the impact of nuclear power, and searches for alternatives.

Over this time, Helena becomes a mother of two girls. This becomes further motivation to question reasoning behind the energy choices being taken now by decision makers, as they will determine what kind of earth her children will inherit. This film aims to look at the nuclear issue as holistically as possible, and sheds light on the severity of the predicament facing decision makers: energy generation versus the environment. Alternative solutions are blowing in the wind, but can we access them? Who pays the ultimate price for our convenient electricity? Who holds the power and can a critical mass shift the paradigm?

Buried in Earthskin subtly demonstrates how energy and political power go hand in hand and gives a voice to marginalized peoples who pay the ultimate price for decisions made (about where we get our electric power) for the sake of political and financial power.

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Dangerous Living: Coming out in the developing world

Director: John Scagliotti
60 minutes
2003

Dangerous Living: Coming out in the developing world, directed by John Scagliotti and produced by Dan Hunt and Janet Baus, is the first documentary to deeply explore the lives of gay and lesbian people in non-western cultures. Traveling to five different continents, we hear the heartbreaking and triumphant stories of gays and lesbians from Egypt, Honduras, Kenya, Thailand and elsewhere, where most occurrences of oppression receive no media coverage at all.

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Emma Goldman – An exceedingly dangerous woman

90 minutes
2004

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/

On a cold December morning in 1919, just after midnight, Emma Goldman, her comrade Alexander Berkman, and more than 200 other foreign-born radicals were roused from their Ellis Island dormitory beds to begin their journey out of the United States for good. Convicted of obstructing the draft during World War I, Goldman’s expatriation came 34 years after she had first set foot in America, a young, brilliant, Russian immigrant. For more than three decades, she taunted mainstream America with her outspoken attacks on government, big business and war. Goldman’s passionate espousal of radical causes made her the target of persecution. Her sympathy for Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, brought down upon her the hatred of the authorities and the public at large. Feared as a sponsor of anarchy and revolution, she was vilified in the press as “Red Emma,” “Queen of the Anarchists,” and “the most dangerous woman in America.”

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Fahrenheit 2010

Director: Craig Tanner
52 minutes
2009

For four action-packed weeks in June and July 2010, the largest international television audience to ever follow a single event will be watching the football World Cup in South Africa. As the clock ticks down, and the nations of the world anticipate the beautiful game’s showpiece, questions are being asked about what will happen after the trophy is lifted, the caravans move on, and the dogs stop barking… Fahrenheit 2010 cuts through the hype, with an uncompromising examination of what the World Cup means for South Africans themselves – in particular, who actually stands to benefit from the diversion of millions of dollars to build 21st century sports arenas in a country in which, 15 years after throwing off apartheid’s yoke, millions live in shacks and have no access to water – a South Africa where life expectancy has plummeted beneath that in Ethiopia. International heavyweights like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, construction workers, FIFA’s Communications Director, street traders, politicians, and sports celebrities, wade into the debate. National pride, corruption and even murder feature in this astonishingly candid film which peels back the glossy media veneer to expose the real concerns of ordinary South Africans: hopes about jobs, the eviction of school children to make way for construction company offices, the removal of an inconvenient community, and what traditional medicine and the influence of the ancestors might mean for the fortunes of the local team…

Fahrenheit 2010 takes the temperature of the Rainbow Nation as it prepares to roll out the Greatest Show on Earth.

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Garbage! The revolution starts at home

Director: Andrew Nisker
76 minutes
2008

http://www.garbagerevolution.com/

Garbage! The revolution starts at home is a feature documentary about how the family household has become one of the most ferocious environmental predators of our time. Concerned for the future of his new baby boy Sebastian, writer and director Andrew Nisker takes an average urban family, the McDonalds, and asks them to keep every scrap of garbage that they create for three months. He then takes them on a journey to find out where it all goes and what it’s doing to the world. From organic waste to the stuff they flush down the potty, the plastic bags they use to the water they drink out of bottles, the air pollution they create when transporting the kids around, to using lights at Christmas, the McDonalds discover that for every action there is a reaction that affects them and the entire planet.  Everyday life under a microscope has never been so revealing. By the end of this trashy odyssey, you are truly inspired to revolutionaize your lifestyle for the sake of future generations.

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Gitmo – The new rules of war

Directors: Erik Gandini & Tarik Saleh
80 minutes
2006

A documentary about Guantanamo Bay.

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Houses of Straw

A documentary about straw bale buildings.

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In Debt We Trust – America before the bubble bursts

Director: Danny Schechter
98 minutes
2007
www.indebtwetrust.org

In America’s earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. In Debt We Trust is the latest film from Danny Schechter, “The News Dissector,” director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media’s role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer’s new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls “Financialization”–the “powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex.” While many Americans may be “maxing out” on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands…..with frightening consequences.

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Kilowatt Ours: A plan to re-energize America

Director: Jeff Barrie
56 minutes
2005
www.kilowattours.org

The award-winning film Kilowatt Ours: A plan to re-energize America is a timely, solutions-oriented look at one of America’s most pressing environmental challenges: energy. Filmmaker Jeff Barrie offers hope as he turns the camera on himself and asks, “How can I make a difference?” In his journey Barrie explores the source of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global warming. Along the way he encounters individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities who are leading the way, using energy conservation, efficiency and renewable, green power all while saving money and the environment. This often amusing and always inspiring story shows, “You can easily make a difference and here’s how!”

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Maxed Out

87 minutes
2006

http://www.maxedoutmovie.com/

Maxed Out takes viewers on a journey deep inside the American style of debt, where things seem fine as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. With coverage that spans from small American towns all the way to the White House, the film shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of “preferred customer” and tells us why the poor are getting poorer while the rich keep getting richer. Hilarious, shocking and incisive, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us.

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Noam Chomsky – Rebel without a pause

Director: Will Pascoe
75 minutes
2005

Linguist, intellectual and activist, Noam Chomsky discusses and reflects on the state of world events including the War in Iraq, September 11th, the War on Terror, Media Manipulation and Control, Social Activism, Fear, and American Foreign Policy in both large forums and in small interactive discussions with other intellectuals, activists, fans, students and critics. Interwoven, is Dr. Carol Chomsky, Noam’s wife and manager who reflects on what drives Noam and what life is like with him. Other candid reflections about Noam Chomsky and his thoughts, work and influence are offered by others throughout the film.

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Oil on Ice

50 minutes

http://www.oilonice.org/

Oil on Ice is a vivid, compelling and comprehensive documentary connecting the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to decisions America makes about energy policy, transportation choices, and other seemingly unrelated matters. Caught in the balance are the culture and livelihood of the Gwich’in people and the migratory wildlife in this fragile ecosystem.

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Orwell Rolls in His Grave

Director: Robert Kane Pappas
2003

Orwell Rolls in His Grave examines the current and past relationships between the media, the US government and corporations, analyzing the possible consequences of the concentration of media ownership. Making references to George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the film argues that reality has met and in some ways exceeded Orwell’s expectations about a society dominated by thought control, which is made possible by the media. According to the film, the mass media no longer report news, but manage it, deciding what makes the headlines and what is conveniently ignored, thus ultimately defining the framework upon which most other issues are discussed by the society. As an example, it is claimed that since the late 1980s there’s been an agenda pursued by the major media corporations regarding the deregulation of the media market, by which news reports sell all its benefits while neglecting its disastrous results.

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Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism

Director: Robert Greenwald
77 minutes
www.outfoxed.org

Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, have been running a “race to the bottom” in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public’s right to know. The film explores Murdoch’s burgeoning kingdom and the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person. This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it’s like to work for Fox News.  These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a “right-wing” point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said “There’s no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can’t be crossed.”

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Poison on the Platter

Director: Ajay Kanchan
29 minutes

Poison on the Platter is an eye-opening film, made by Mahesh Bhatt and Ajay Kanchan, illustrating how all of our lives are going to be adversely affected by genetically modified foods. It is no more a farmer’s issue alone, it’s a matter of the consumers’ right to food safety. You and I wouldn’t even be able to separate/choose a normal Brinjal from/over a GM one, if Bt Brinjal – a GM crop produced by the mighty multinational Monsanto – is let through by our corrupt regulatory body. Let’s put up strong resistance, demanding a ban on GM food/crops for 5 years, until they are proven safe for human consumption by independent, long-term studies.

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Religulous

Director: Larry Charles
101 minutes
2008

http://www.lionsgate.com/religulous/

In Religulous, comedian Bill Maher interviews some of religion’s oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers’ Chapel. He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic. With quotes from major figureheads like Thomas Jefferson, George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden, Bill Maher, with a Jewish-Catholic background, sets out to prove that having faith and seeking directions from God is basically ridiculous and may be due to a neurotic disorder. Interviewing Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, scientists, gays, and atheists, he cites that the number of non-believers is increasing in North America. He attempts to prove his point by citing inconsistencies in the Bible, the controversial birth of Lord Jesus, the inability of religious heads to account for His absence for over 18 years, as well as the absence of any concrete evidence that disproves the theory of evolution.

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Salud!

Director: Connie Field
93 minutes
2006

http://www.saludthefilm.ne

Find out what puts Cuba on the map in the quest for global health … A timely examination of human values and the health issues that affect us all, Salud! looks at the curious case of Cuba, a cash-strapped country with what the BBC calls ‘one of the world’s best health systems.’  From the shores of Africa to the Americas, Salud! hits the road with some of the 28,000 Cuban health professionals serving in 68 countries, and explores the hearts and minds of international medical students in Cuba – now numbering 30,000, including nearly 100 from the USA.  Their stories plus testimony from experts around the world bring home the competing agendas that mark the battle for global health—and the complex realities confronting the movement to make healthcare everyone’s birth right. Salud! questions what propels Cuban doctors to serve where most others won’t, and grapples with the tensions their presence sometimes provokes.

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Stealing a Nation

Directors: John Pilger & Sean Crotty
54 minutes
2004

Stealing a Nation tells a story literally ‘hidden from history’. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments, conspiring with American officials, tricked into leaving, then expelled the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base. Indeed, from Diego Garcia US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The story is told by islanders who were dumped in the slums of Mauritius and in the words of the British officials who left a ‘paper trail’ of what the International Criminal Court now describes as ‘a crime against humanity’

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Surplus – Terrorised into being consumers

Director: Erik Gandini
52 minutes
2003

Surplus looks at the arguments for capitalism and technology, such as greater efficiency, more time and less work and argues that these are not being fulfilled, and they never will be. The film leans towards anarcho-primitivist ideology and argues for ‘a simple and fulfilling life’.

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The Cove

Director: Louie Psihoyos
96 minutes
2009

http://www.thecovemovie.com/

Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary of 2009, The Cove follows an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers as they embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, shining a light on a dark and deadly secret. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery, adding up to an unforgettable story that has inspired audiences worldwide to action.

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The End of Suburbia – Oil depletion and the collapse of the American Dream

Director: Gregory Greene
78 minutes
2004
www.endofsuburbia.com

With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today’s suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia?

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The Future of Food

Director: Deborah Koons Garcia
2004

http://www.thefutureoffood.com/

The Future of Food, a groundbreaking documentary released in 2004, distills the complex technology and key regulatory, legal, ethical, environmental and consumer issues surrounding the troubling changes happening in the food system today – genetically engineered foods, patenting, and the corporatization of food – into terms the average person can easily understand. It empowers consumers to understand the consequences of their food choices on our future.

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The God Who Wasn’t There

Director: Brian Flemming
62 minutes
2005

http://www.thegodmovie.com/

Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture. Super Size Me did it to fast food.

Now The God Who Wasn’t There does it to religion. A taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says “irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed.”

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The Price of Pleasure – Pornography, sexuality & relationships

Directors: Chyng Sun & Miguel Picker
56 minutes

http://thepriceofpleasure.com

Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has become one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the cultural industries in the United States. It is estimated that the pornography industry’s annual revenue has reached $13 billion. At the same time, the content of pornography has become more aggressive, more overtly sexist and racist. The film features the voices of consumers, critics, and pornography producers and performers. It is particularly revealing when male pornographers openly discuss their views about women and how men should relate to them, and when male and female porn users candidly discuss the role pornography has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships. The film paints both a nuanced and complex portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, and liberty and responsibility are intertwined in the most intimate aspects of human relations.

At the same time, the film examines the unprecedented role that commercial pornography now occupies in U.S. popular culture. Going beyond the debate of liberal versus conservative so common in the culture, The Price of Pleasure provides a holistic understanding of pornography as it debunks common myths about the genre.

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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Directors: Kim Bartley & Donnacha Ó Briain
74 minutes
2003

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a 2003 documentary focusing on events in Venezuela leading up to and during the April 2002 coup d’état attempt, which saw President Hugo Chávez removed from office for several days. With particular emphasis on the role played by Venezuela’s private media, the film examines several key incidents: the protest march and subsequent violence that provided the impetus for Chávez’s ousting, the opposition’s formation of an interim government headed by business leader Pedro Carmona, and the Carmona administration’s collapse, which paved the way for Chávez’s return. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was directed by Irish filmmakers Kim Bartley and Donnacha Ó Briain. Intending to make a fly on the wall biography of Chávez, the pair spent seven months following the president and his staff and conducting interviews with residents. Shifting focus as the coup unfolded, Bartley and Ó Briain filmed the violence on the streets and political upheavals at the presidential palace.

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Torturing Democracy

90 minutes
2008

http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/

A documentary that tells the inside story of how the US government adopted torture as official policy in the aftermath of 9/11.

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Uncounted – The new math of American elections

Director: David Earnhardt
80 minutes
2007
www.uncountedthemovie.com

Uncounted is an explosive new documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 – and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. This controversial feature length film by Emmy award-winning director David Earnhardt examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof.

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Uranium Road

Director: Jenny Hunter
53 minutes

Uranium Road explores one of the most important and emotive questions facing South Africa: is nuclear power the answer to our uncertain energy future? When it was shown on MNet’s Carte Blanche recently Uranium Road caused an outcry from supporters of atomic energy and a flurry of letters to newspapers and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. Based on the book by Dr David Fig, this brand-new, locally produced documentary looks behind the veil of secrecy surrounding South Africa’s nuclear programme. Strongly opposed to nuclear energy, Uranium Road investigates the country’s billion rand atomic industry, claiming that it relies on technology the safety and economy of which have yet to be proven, is controlled by powerful cliques and fundamentally undermines the principles of our young democracy. Providing rare insights into the history of the country’s secretive nuclear industry, this documentary chronicles how Apartheid-era South Africa developed a nuclear program and built several atomic weapons. South Africa’s current plans to revitalize its nuclear industry are judged against the background of an international nuclear industry that has not been able to solve basic problems of excessive cost, the threat to human health and safety, and long-term environmental contamination.

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Vivir la Utopia (Living Utopia)

Director: Juan Gamero
95 minutes
1997
Spanish with English subtitles

Living Utopia - Anarchism in Spain (Vivir la utopía. El anarquismo en espana) is a documentary-film by Juan Gamero that consists of 30 interviews with survivors of the 1936-1939 Spanish Revolution, and is in our view one of the best documentaries dealing with the theme. The testimony of the anarchist militants are very moving indeed, and are showing the constructive work of the social revolution in Spain. This “Anarchy in Action” meant: on the land around 7 million peasants form collectives, in the city 3000 workplaces collectivised, 150 000 join the anarchist militias to fight fascism, as well as cultural activities and the movement of the Mujeres Libres to free the women from patriarchy.

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Venezuela: Revolution from the inside out

Director: Clifton Ross
85 minutes
2008

Venezuela: Revolution from the inside out is a voyage into Latin America’s most exciting experiment of the new millennium, exploring the history and projects of the Bolivarian Revolution through interviews with a range of its participants, from academics to farm workers and those living in the margins of Caracas. This introduction to the revolucion bonita (pretty revolution) offers in-depth interviews, unforgettable images and a lively soundtrack that will open new vistas onto this hopeful human project.

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Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price

Director: Robert Greenwald
97 minutes
2005
www.walmartmovie.com

Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price is a feature length documentary that uncovers a retail giant’s assault on families and American values. The film dives into the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to fight a goliath. A working mother is forced to turn to public assistance to provide healthcare for her two small children. A Missouri family loses its business after Wal-Mart is given over $2 million to open its doors down the road. A mayor struggles to equip his first responders after Wal-Mart pulls out and relocates just outside the city limits. A community in California unites, takes on the giant, and wins!

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War Made Easy – How presidents & pundits keep spinning us to death

Directors: Loretta Alper & Jeremy Earp
73 minutes
www.warmadeeasythemovie.org

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations. War Made Easy gives special attention to parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq. Guided by media critic Norman Solomon’s meticulous research and tough-minded analysis, the film presents disturbing examples of propaganda and media complicity from the present alongside rare footage of political leaders and leading journalists from the past, including Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, dissident Senator Wayne Morse, and news correspondents Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer. Norman Solomon’s work has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as “brutally persuasive” and essential “for those who would like greater context with their bitter morning coffee.” This film now offers a chance to see that context on the screen.

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What Would Jesus Buy?

Director: Rob VanAlkemade
90 minutes
2007

http://wwjbmovie.com/

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt! From producer Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and director Rob VanAlkemade comes a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas.  Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer’s jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands. Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a  journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland. Will we be led like Sheeple to the Christmas slaughter, or will we find a new way to give a gift this Christmas?  What Would Jesus Buy? may just be the divine intervention we’ve all been searching for.

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When the War Is Over

Director: Francois Verster
52 minutes
2002

The battle has been won…but what now? When the War Is Over deals with the after-effects of the South African struggle against apartheid, as experienced by survivors from the Bonteheuwel Military Wing (BMW), a militant teenage self-defense unit from the mid-1980s. The film focuses on two ex-activists, and reveals the scars left among what has become South Africa’s lost generation. When the War is Over tells a story of Gori and Marlon. Their friend has been killed by security police after having been sold out by a police spy within the group. They have won freedom but now they have to make a living in a society which is still haunted by violence, betrayals from the past and poverty. Gori has joined the South African Army, Marlon has become a gangster. While each of them tries to make sense of his life after the struggle, they manage to maintain a friendship despite the different realities their different “career” choices put them in.

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WMD – Weapons of Mass Deception

Director: Danny Schechter
100 minutes
2004
www.wmdthefilm.com

There were two wars going on in Iraq – one was fought with armies of soldiers, bombs and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs – Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs, Weapons of Mass Deception. The TV networks in America considered their non-stop coverage their finest hour, pointing to the use of embedded journalists and new technologies that permitted viewers to see a war up close for the first time. But different countries saw different wars. Why? For those of us watching the coverage, war was more of a spectacle, an around the clock global media marathon, pitting media outlets against each other in ways that distorted truth and raised as many questions about the methods of TV news, as it did the armed intervention it was covering-and it some cases-promoting. WMD, a 100 minute non-fiction film, explores this story with the findings of a gutsy, media insider-turned-outsider, former network journalist, Danny Schechter, who is one of America’s most prolific media critics. Schechter says he “self-embedded” himself in his living room to monitor media coverage, by fastidiously tracking the TV coverage on a daily basis.

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