Y Must Watch Documentaries
What They Won't Show You On Television
Year Zero - The Silent Death of Cambodia
Directed by John Pilger
"President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger unleashed 100,000 tons of bombs, the equivalent of 5 Hiroshimas. The bombing was their personal decision; they legally and secretly, they bombed Cambodia, a neutral country, back to the Stone Age. And I mean Stone Age in its literal sense."
John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot / Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia while neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country. (Excerpt from video.google.com)
Please visit the official website for more information:
http://www.johnpilger.com
The Yes Men
Directed by Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, & Chris Smith
"These things that are not really presenting themselves honestly or that hide something about their nature that's really scary. We want to bring that out. We want to show that. We want to demonstrate that. And so for like the WTO, we think that the WTO is doing all these terrible things that are hurting people and they're saying the exact opposite. And so, we're interested in correcting their identity in the same way that an identify thief steals somebody's identity in order to just basically engage in criminal practices. We target people we see as criminals and we steal their identity to try to make them honest, or to try to present a more honest face."
The Yes Men are a group of culture jamming activists who practice what they call "identity correction" by pretending to be powerful people and spokespersons for prominent organizations. They create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows. Their newfound, self-proclaimed authority to express the idea that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public has met both positively and negatively with political overtones. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the ruse, as shown in their 2003 DVD release The Yes Men.
The Yes Men have posed as spokespeople for The World Trade Organization, McDonald's, Dow Chemical, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The two leading members of The Yes Men are known by a number of aliases, most recently, and in film, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. Their real names are Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, respectively. Servin is an author of experimental fiction, and was known for being the man who inserted images of men kissing in the computer game SimCopter. Vamos is an assistant professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. They are assisted by numerous people across the globe. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
Please visit the official website for more information:
http://www.theyesmen.org
Dispatches: Young, Nazi, and Proud
Directed by David Modell
"Blacks, drug abusers, and gays all have it. So really I've got no problem with AIDS. In fact I would call it a friendly disease."
Dispatches reporter David Modell films a remarkable six months spent in the questionable company of Mark Collett, leader of the youth wing of the British National Party, and reveals the true nature of a party trying to reinvent itself and broaden its appeal.
A rising star of the party, Collet reveals to Modell his deeply held Nazi sympathies. This despite the party's claim it no longer has any association with Nazism.
It's clear why the BNP want intelligent young men like Mark, a university graduate. BNP leader Nick Griffin tells Dispatches that Collett is a potential leader of the party.
But Modell is interested in trying to determine what motivates a bright young man to throw in his lot with a party which will make him reviled in public.
Modell has little in common with his subject and finds himself taking an exception to some of Collett's interests and occupations - which range through rabid anti-Semitism ('Jews aren't white') to explaining how he likes to "break" people, in particular his ex girlfriend. (Excerpt from main website)
Please visit the official website for more information:
http://www.channel4.com