POLITICS / GOVERNMENT
The following films from the multiple Media That Matters Film Festival collections explore the issue of politics/government. For even more films on this issue, visit MediaRights.org.
All That I Can Be
William, like many young Americans, feels that joining the military is his only way out of a dead-end job and a rough life.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Battleground Minnesota
Hip-hop activist Shakademic proves that if Walter Mondale can learn how to scratch, young voters can get schooled in election politics.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Bush for Peace
It’s Dubya as you’ve never heard him before in a re-mix of U.S. foreign policy.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
By-Standing: The Beginning of an American Lifetime
Kelly Tsai speaks truth to power as she raises her voice against war and complacency.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
CopWatch
Fed up with police brutality, the organization “Copwatch” decided to keep an eye on big brother. This short film shows how peaceful observation of police behavior can change the way a neighborhood and a police force deal with one another.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Day of Remembrance
Sixty years have passed between Pearl Harbor and September 11th, but have things really changed for Arab and Muslim Americans?
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Face to Face: Stories from the Aftermath of Infamy
Sixty years have passed between Pearl Harbor and September 11th, but have things really changed? An interactive online documentary explores what it means to be an American with the face of the enemy.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Holla Back Dubai!
In this touching video letter exchange, kids from the United Arab Emirates “holla back” to a class of sixth-graders in Washington Heights, New York and show that a stereotype is no match for a smile.
Official selection of the third annual festival
How Wal-Mart Came to Haslett
Michigan youth investigate the dubious circumstances under which a Wal-Mart appeared on a wetland in their small town.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
Massacre at Murambi
Does the way we respond to the genocide in Rwanda predict our response to Darfur?
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Neglected Sky
In this fast-paced animation, youth producer John Cooney shows us that a little effort can go a long way in reversing global warming.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Night Visions
Individuals enlist in the U.S. military for different reasons, but they all return from war, changed.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
No Child
Minneapolis hip-hoppers Shakademic and Glenn Scott get the inside scoop on military recruiting tactics.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
No Escape, Prison Rape
When Rodney Hulin set fire to a trashcan, he never imagined he would end up in adult prison, serially raped and brutally beaten.
Official selection of the third annual festival
Pizza Surveillance Feature
Want some privacy infringement with that? If the Patriot Act continues to grow in scope, you may get more than mushrooms with your next pizza order.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Power Up
“Bomber Man” strikes again! Who will stop him this time?
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Rapping at Fear
In Andrés Tabares’ barrio in Colombia, “social cleansing” groups wage war. When this thirteen-year-old raps against violence, people listen.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border
What happens when people cross the line? Vigilantes take the law into their own hands on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Sovereign Nation / Sovereign Neighbor
The Narragansett tribe defends its sovereignty only to encounter violent resistance and entrenched misunderstanding from their home state of Rhode Island.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
Spring in Awe
The overpowering displays of Times Square put a spell on the world in a disturbing lullaby of global capitalism.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
Still Standing
Ms. Gertrude returns to what remains of her New Orleans home and fights to rebuild what she can in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
System Failure
Physical abuse, sexual harassment, inadequate education for incarcerated youth – if a society can be graded by how it treats its prisoners, then the state of California gets an “F.”
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
The Apollos
Meet the trailblazing students who, over twenty years ago, fought to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
The Children of Birmingham
Baltimore youth tell the story of their 1960s counterparts who fought for civil rights.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival
The Final Frontier: Explorers or Warriors?
Two teens from Chicago ask senators, scientists and science fiction fans: Could space be the new battleground?
Official selection of the seventh annual festival
The Luckiest Nut In The World
A singing peanut and his gang of shelled friends explain that sometimes free trade is just nuts.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival
Water Warriors
When water costs soar, residents of Highland Park, Michigan demand to know who will foot the bill.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival
We Were Humans
This multimedia animation asks what would happen if the billions of dollars of yearly military spending were directed towards education and world hunger.
Official selection of the third annual festival
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