Freedom Riders

As a student of nonviolence and an (often disheartened) activist, I love stories of social movements getting it right.  With FREEDOM RIDERS, award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson recounts the powerful story of a group of more than 400 white and black American students who deliberately violated segregation laws over six months in 1961 by traveling together on commercial buses through the deep South.

Watch it on a day when you find yourself wondering whether social justice movements ought to compromise to get things done.  Or why the Free Gaza Flotilla (or any number of current “nonviolent” actions) didn’t seem to work.  Or whether nonviolence is just an antiquated strategy, ineffective without another MLK or Gandhi at the helm.  Watch it when your faith in idealism wanes.  You’ll reawaken to the very basic, awesome power that emerges when ordinary people come together and stand for what is good and true in the world.  C’mon.  It just feels right, don’t it?

-Kim Borba

The Oath

Incredibly, this amazing 2010 film by Laura Poitras is already available on DVD! The perfect gift for that lovable curmudgeon in your life who prefers to find a documentary about terrorists instead of “It’s A Wonderful Life” in their stocking. Also ideal for your favorite documentary-lover who would like to own one of the best films of the year. Provocative and riveting, Poitras’ film takes the viewer on a journey via Yemen and Guantánamo into the hearts and minds of the young men of Al Qaeda. She managed to achieve one of the things that great documentaries do best: she takes something that the newspapers never fully explained and puts in into vivid human depth and color.

-Katy Chevigny

The Edge of Dreaming

Filmmaker Amy Hardie takes us on an impressionistic journey through a death-defying year, only she’s not cheating death in the usual ways. The year begins with a portentous dream about her horse dying and ends with a shamanic ritual meant to understand her dreams and a way out of them. Hardie’s film is beautiful and potent; she weaves her own personal story with explorations of science, the subconscious and the mystical. The Edge of Dreaming is riveting. Give it to the most introspective person on your list and she won’t be disappointed.

-Jolene Pinder

D-TOUR

D-TOUR is an award-winning feature-length rock ‘n roll film about life, death and bodily functions.  I like this film because it creatively uses the doc film medium to show the impact that organ donors can have on people’s lives. D-TOUR is media that matters.

-Philip Lane

It Might Get Loud

If you know me, you’d be a bit incredulous as to why I’d highlight Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud for this year’s Shortlist. I have little interest in rock music centered on the electric guitar—this is true. Still, I found bits of this doc fascinating, as when U2’s The Edge explains how “Where The Streets Have No Name” is a waltz piece (hint: it’s in the timing). More important for this list, however, is to pair it as a double feature with one of my favorite films from the last few years.

-Felix Endara

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

It depicts avant-garde cellist and disco master Russell, a sweet gay boy from Iowa who came to New York and became the musical director of performance art venue The Kitchen. With a face pockmarked by acne scars, Russell was a shy, talented, and prolific composer. His range was wide, arranging pieces to be presented at The Kitchen, while also releasing best-selling, influential disco music under the pseudonym Loose Joints (“Is It All Over My Face” is a complex and irresistible track). The documentary is beautiful—Wolf’s use of abstract imagery to make up for the limited archival material fits perfectly with the spirit of Russell’s work and life. Russell left this world too early from complications with AIDS in 1992. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to one of the many amazing artists taken from us by this devastating illness, than to play this film and turn it up really loud.

-Felix Endara

The Last Train Home

I was mesmerized by this film.  The cinematrography is incredible and director Lixin Fan was able to capture China in a way I have never seen before.  I was impressed by his ability to shoot from angles that made me feel like a bird - watching a great migration from up above.  The film presents the masses of Chinese peasants as they travel enormous distances to reunite with their families for New Year.  It also shows the rapid change that is happening across China as it becomes the next world super power.  The film is very moving and makes the viewer contemplate the conflicting emotions that face a nation’s people as they struggle to make a living and hang on to their families and traditions.

-Steve Mendelsohn

The Bridge

When I was a student in San Francisco, one of my Cinematography teachers told us the story of when he worked on documentary about the Golden Gate Bridge. They would get to the bridge before sunrise and spend the whole day there looking for “suspicious” people with their super long lenses on one hand and a cell phone with the number “911” already dialed on the other.

A few months ago, I watched The Bridge. I can’t exactly say I liked it, but I can say it shocked me like nothing had shocked me in a very long time.

What leads a person to the point where there’s no other choice than ending their life? The mystery of what goes on in their minds is what The Bridge tries to uncover.

The film is raw, controversial, dark and powerful.

- Tanyluz Sciortino

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Normally I don’t like Spike Lee’s work as his mixture of visuals and music often doesn’t make sense to me, however I had WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE in my Netflix queue and when it arrived I was more interested in the subject matter than the director anyway. ‘Levees’ is a documentary covering the events of Hurricane Katrina in the American city of New Orleans in August 2005. The focus is on the poor response time, awful mismanagement and general lack of interest from the US government to this tragedy, leading to unnecessary deaths and the mistreatment of the poor and underprivileged. I must say I truly enjoyed this Doc which is nicely broken up into ‘Acts’ that covers everything from the people who were there to the President himself (George Bush at the time). Although there are parts which suggest racism - preposterous as there are white people who lived there as well - its still an awful story that I really didn’t want to end.

-David Wright

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