A compilation of three feature-length anarchist documentaries: Pickaxe (an eclectic mix of activists take a stand to protect an old growth forest from logging at the Willamette National Forest of Oregon), Breaking the Spell (an hour-long look at the 1999 Seattle WTO protests and the anarchists who traveled there to set a new precedent for militant confrontation), and The Miami Model (Indymedia activists shot hundreds of hours documenting the 2003 FTAA protests in Miami and shaped it into a documentary that cuts through the mass media blackout to reveal the brutal repression and assault on civil liberties that took place), and five short films: Safetybike, How to turn a bicycle into a record player, Auto re-vision, Join the resistance: fall in love and Why I love shoplifting from big corporations.

A video report on the protests that occurred in connection with the Democrat and Republican National Conventions, Ground Noise & Static is a manifesto. “We went to Denver and St. Paul to take the pulse of the movement. Corporate media would cover the platitudes and posturing of the politicians; we were interested in something else, a story hidden in plain sight, captured in the now-classic street chant, 'This is what democracy looks like'”.

In Grass, Mann chronicles America's rocky relationship with marijuana and the perilous road this little weed has travelled in the land of “stars and stripes”. Grass is narrated by pro-hemp campaigner, the actor Woody Harrelson (The People Vs Larry Flynt, Natural Born Killers), who himself went to jail when protesting his right to plant industrial hemp on his farming property in Texas. Thrown into its mix is a pure blend of hilarious archival footage, disturbing information and a healthy pinch of government double standard. But as always Mann's skill with alternative arguments, facts and figures, allow it to transcend the fate of mere “agit-prop”. Just say yes to Grass.

Grands Soirs / Petits Matins

http://www.designboom.com/portrait/klein_bio.html

http://www.designboom.com/portrait/klein_bio.html

In the United States the ownership of fire arms is a question of personal choice. In this city, it is the law. In Goreville, Illinois, it is compulsory for each head of household to have a gun and ammunition. This documentary examines opinions about the right to self-defence against impending danger, phantoms of liberty and national values hidden beneath the weight of fear, and people's militias, through the eyes of Goreville. 6th Independent Vídeo & Interactive Phenomena Show

“The following is a true fact about American feminism: Courtney Love’s mother was Katherine Power’s therapist. GOOD SISTER/BAD SISTER is about fugitivism. Therapy. Rock and roll. FBI harassment of lesbians. The legacy and memory of radical feminism. Lipstick. Violence. Surrender. Bank-robbing. Generational politics. History. Through documentary technique, such as talking-head interviews and dramatic re-creations, Johnson connects notorious baby-doll grunge rocker Courtney Love with Katherine Power, a sixties activist and fugitive of the FBI for 23 years. Through the link of Linda Carroll, who is coincidentally both Love’s estranged mother and Power’s therapist, Johnson creates a multi-layered dialogue between the women that exemplifies and comments on female transgression within the public arena. When feminism is still the dirty F word of the Nineties, how do women fight American disorder without just being bad girls in a male-defined world' [...] Just because the sixties was a mind fuck, does it mean that we can never ask Utopian questions again?” – Berlin Film Festival 1997

Today we take a close look at companies known as "vulture funds." Vulture fund companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. For an in-depth look at this issue, we turn to a BBC Newsnight documentary by investigative reporter Greg Palast. Greg Palast's BBC report on vulture funds. Today a high court judge in London ruled on the case that a vulture fund can extract more than $20 million from Zambia for a debt which it bought for just $4 million.