Art and Activism

This is a documentary that chronicles artist and activist Ai Weiwei as he prepares for a series of exhibitions and gets into an increasing number of clashes with the Chinese government. Follows Ai "from the close of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (for which he helped design the acclaimed 'Bird's Nest' stadium) to his arrest and 81-day detention in 2011" (container).
AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY is the inside story of a dissident for the digital age who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics. First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to Ai while working as a journalist in China. Her detailed portrait provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary China and one of its most compelling public figures. - from Film website.

Ai Weiwei is on the most prolific and influential artist of our time. He is also one of the most controversial, as the Chinese government attempted to censor and disgrace Ai with a brutal 81-day stint in solitary comfinement and a trumped-up tax-evasion lawsuit known as 'The Fake Case'. Along the way, Ai became something of a folk hero, as he refused to buckle to authoritaian oppression.

"The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is the first feature length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails. Master documentarian Stanley Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it. Featuring Kathleen Cleaver, Elaine Brown, Emory Douglas, Jamal Joseph, and many others, it s an essential history and a vibrant chronicle of this pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America."--Container.

A divorced Moroccan woman works as a wedding photographer. This gets her in trouble with her family because she spends most of her time at glamorous weddings and is becoming a source of gossip in her neighborhood.

"Maybe the New Wave's most anarchic entry, Vera Chytilova's absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two brash young women. Believing the world to be spoiled, they embark on a series of pranks in which nothing- food, clothes, men, war- is taken seariously. Daisies is an aesthetically and politically adventurous film that's widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema.: --from container.

"In the hot and deadly summer of 1964, the nation could not turn away from Mississippi. Over 10 memorable weeks known as Freedom Summer, more than 700 student volunteers joined with organizers and local African Americans in a historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in one of the nation's most segregated states ... even in the face of intimidation, physical violence, and death"--Container.

Guerilla Girls are artist activists who have dedicated themselves to informing the public of the gender and racial inequalities that persists in the world. Dressed in gorilla masks, they discuss their postering activities and their collaborative projects.

"Guerrillas in our midst presents a savvy exploration of the machinations of the commercial art-world during its boom in the 1980s, and brings the Guerrilla Girls to the screen. This anonymous group of art terrorists has succeeded in putting racism and sexism on the agenda in the art-world since 1985, and their witty and creative tactics have changed the face of political and cultural activism. Interviews with key figures in the Manhattan art scene, record-breaking auction sales, exhibition openings and interviews with the Guerrillas Girls themselves combine to highlight how the myth of the heroic male painter is perpetuated"--Women Make Movies web site.

On May 17, 1968, nine Catholic activists entered a Selective Service office in suburban Catonsville, Maryland, dragged stacks of Draft Board records out into the parking lot, and set them on fire with homemade napalm. They then prayed, and waited to be arrested. In doing so, they kindled a wave of similar protests against the Vietnam War across the country that swept up dozens of participants and inspired thousands, and then millions. HIT & STAY, a new documentary film by Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk tells the story of the Nine and those who joined them in protesting the war. The Catonsville Nine action had been preceded by a quartet of activists--including Catonsville Nine participant, Father Philip Berrigan--splashing blood on draft files in nearby Baltimore. But it was Catonsville that galvanized the nonviolent antiwar resistance away from protest marches and toward direct actions by ordinary citizens against draft boards. This new form of protest quickly spread to similar actions in Washington, D.C., New York, Milwaukee, and all across the country, drawing the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as the increasingly antiwar American public. Through interviews with many of the participants (as well as observers ranging from linguist political critic Noam Chomsky to historian Howard Zinn), HIT & STAY explores the early actions, the activists going to prison or going underground, the FBI's pushback against the movement, the escalating scale and stakes, and the ultimate victory of the protesters in the trial of the Camden 28.

"Archival footage and in-depth interviews with former members of organizations including Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Black Panther Party reveal how black women mobilized, fought for recognition, and raised awareness of how sexism and class issues affected women of color within and outside The Black Power Movement and mainstream feminism."--WMM website.

In the early '70s, the radically enraged, bomb-planting fringe group called the Weathermen had the distinction of being as alienated from the anti-war counterculture as the counterculture movement was from the rest of America. The group planned to blow up an empty building, but on March 6, 1970, an explosive accidentally went off in the New York Greenwich Village area, killing three of its own members and turning the rest of its members into outlaws on the run.

With poker-faced impersonation as their weapon, and World Trade Organization officials as their target, the Yes Men pull off one bold prank after another in an effort to raise political consciousness. And when their outrageous stunts are actually swallowed--hook, line and sinker--the Yes Men must up the satirical ante and push the art of public spectacle to hilarious new heights.

The Yes Men again pull off one bold prank after another in an effort to raise political consciousness. Posing as top executives of giant corporations, they lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks. When they engineer an announcement that Dow will clean up the site of the largest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe, Dow's stock value plunges. People want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can't. The Yes Men delve into the question of why we have given the market more power than any other instititution to determine our direction as a society.