The Newburyport Documentary Film Festival starts tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming movie-filled weekend. There are quite a few films playing that have piqued my interest from their short synopses:
In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts: ‘Do you, like many Americans, seem to have less money than ever before? Are you relying more and more on credit cards? In Debt We Trust, the latest hard-hitting documentary from Danny Schechter (director of the acclaimed WMD, Weapons of Mass Deception, NFF 2004), investigates why we as a nation are being strangled by debt. We are facing 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 much deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands…with frightening consequences.’ (Official site)
The War Tapes: ‘In March 2004, just as the insurgent movement strengthened, several members of one National Guard unit arrived in Iraq, carrying digital video cameras. THE WAR TAPES is the movie they made with Director Deborah Scranton and a team of award-winning filmmakers. It’s the first war movie filmed by soldiers themselves on the front lines in Iraq.’ (Official site)
Black Gold: ‘Black Gold is a timely documentary about our national obsession with coffee and the consequences this demand has on coffee farmers. 100 million Americans drink an estimated 400 million cups of coffee a day, but in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, women work eight-hour days for fifty cents a day. As the profits of multinational companies continue to rise, the price paid to coffee farmers has fallen to an all-time low.’ (Official site)
Jungle Remedy: ‘A Belizean bush doctor has an herbal treatment for HIV/AIDS, but with no scientific evidence to back it up it could likely stay a secret. In a country with a severe stigma towards the disease and a lack of belief in the healthcare system, only a very few are willing to brave the camera to tell their stories.’ (Official site)
Walking to Werner: In winter of 1974, German director Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man) walked from Munich to Paris to see his dying friend, film critic Lotte Eisner, hoping that by making the journey on foot he would somehow keep her alive. In summer 2005, hoping simply to meet the man who had inspired him to make movies, filmmaker Linas Phillips made his own pilgrimage, walking 1,200 miles from Seattle to Herzog’s Los Angeles home. Braving freeway traffic, weather, the California Highway Patrol and his own self-doubt, Linas fulfills a dream that parallels the filmic dreams accomplished by his hero.
Really though, they are look quite appealing and this should be an exiciting weekend for some great documentary watching… Yeeea.
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