World Documentaries

Over three million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli military authority since 1967. Israeli director Yoav Shamir documents the impact of the enforced boundaries known as “checkpoints” on the Israeli border guards drafted to monitor them and the Palestinian citizens who must pass through them daily. Read more...

In spring 2003, filmmaker James Miller and reporter Saira Shah, following the success of their Peabody-winning films “Unholy War” and “Beneath the Veil,” set out to take a first-hand look at the culture of hate that permeates the Middle East. They captured the lives of three Palestinian children growing up in the bullet-riddled streets of Gaza, indoctrinated in the creed of Jihad, and had... Read more...

Hidden from Parliament and the U.S. Congress, the deal was this: the Americans wanted the island, in their words, “swept and sanitized.” An entire population was declared expendable; all of them were to be deported. Stealing a Nation (John Pilger, 2004) is an extraordinary film about the plight of people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean – secretly and brutally expelled from their... Read more...

Palestinian civilians live under the threat of Israeli Defence Force attacks that do not discriminate between militants and children. Israeli settlers live in fear of suicide attacks. But it is not only Palestinians and Israelis who are dying. Since the Gulf war, three Westerners have come under Israeli army attack. Read more...

As Tibetan protesters take to the streets in the biggest and most bloody challenge to Chinese rule in nearly 20 years, Dispatches reports on the hidden reality of life under Chinese occupation after spending three months undercover, deep inside the region. Dozens are feared dead after the recent clashes and crackdown by Chinese troops, but with reporting so rigidly controlled from the region... Read more...

Almost all the people in Nicaragua rose up against a tyrant called Somoza, whose family had been in power for more than 40 years, put there by the United States marines. That uprising costs 50,000 lives, almost as many as died for America in Vietnam, but out of a population of less than 3 million people. Read more...

From that day these words became the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel. Settlements were used from the beginning to create a Zionist foothold in Palestine. After 1967 and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the aim of the settlement movement became clear – create facts on the ground and make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible.... Read more...

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Islamic fundamentalism has, in the minds of many, taken the place once held by communism as the leading threat to the safety and security of the industrialized West. Filmmakers Wayne Kopping and Raphael Shore explore what they regard as the most dangerous force since the rise of Nazism in this documentary. Read more...

This is a huge bluff of the Israeli establishment, that every criticism of its’ policy is anti-semitism. In 1977, the award-winning journalist and film-maker, John Pilger, made a documentary called Palestine Is Still The Issue (1977). He told how almost a million Palestinians had been forced off their land in 1948, and again in 1967. In this in-depth documentary, he has returned to the West... Read more...

When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing… You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying someone else’s land. That’s not defense. Call it what you like, it’s not defense. Peace, Propaganda & the... Read more...

Which country in the Middle East has undeclared Nuclear weapons? Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities? Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections? Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years? Vanunu told the world that Israel had developed between one hundred and two hundred atomic bombs and had gone on to develop... Read more...

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance… it is the illusion of knowledge. A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict – Occupation 101 presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and... Read more...

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup) is a 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland’s Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they... Read more...

Behind the bold policies of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is a revolutionary mass movement that is saying NO to capitalism, and attempting to change the course of Latin American history. Journey deep into the barrios, out to the factories and into the heart of the revolution to find out why there is a movement to transform society. Meet the people who are fighting for power in their... Read more...

After many years of apathy in the country, the insurrection exploded. The spontaneous revolt of “faceless” people meant saucepans were being banged in every neighborhood, all the way to the city’s vital centers. What happened to Argentina? How was it possible that in so rich a country so many people were hungry? The country had been ransacked by a new form of aggression, committed in time... Read more...

I’ve been here for about a month and half now and this is definitely the most difficult situation that I have ever seen. In the time that I have been here, children have been shot and killed. On the 30th of January, the Israeli military bulldozed the two largest water wells, destroying over half of Rafah’s water supply. Ever few days, if not everyday, houses are demolished here.. so I feel... Read more...