Documentaries (Film and Television)
The peace movement
Soldiers of Peace (2008)
Narrated by Michael Douglas. This important film challenges the basic assumption that war is normal and natural to humanity, and that it will be with us forever. Globally, this attitude is changing. Soldiers of Peace documents the ways in which businesses, governments and ordinary people across the world are promoting the message that war is a destructive habit that has to be stopped.
The Day After Peace (2004)
Charts the remarkable 10-year journey of award-winning filmmaker Jeremy Gilley to establish an annual Peace Day on 21 September. The camera follows Gilley as he galvanises the countries of the world to recognise an official day of ceasefire and non-violence. (United Kingdom; Filmmaker: Jeremy Gilley)
Fighting for Peace (1984)
Documentary about the Australian Women’s Peace Movement past and present, from 84-year-old Irene Greenwood of Perth, Western Australia, whose peace activist memories go back beyond WWI, to the songs and anti-war images from Pine Gap and Greenham Common. (Australia; Filmmaker: Irina Dunn)
Anti-nuclear themes
Blowin in the Wind (2006)Deeply disturbing film about the use and effects of DU munitions in wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and how this danger is now coming to our backyard. (Australia; Filmmaker: DAvid Bradbury)
A Hard Rain (2004)
Traversing five countries China, France, UK, Japan and Australia, A Hard Rain exposes the hidden agendas behind the latest push for Australia to go nuclear and presents a compelling and frightening argument against allowing this to happen. (Australia; Filmmaker: David Bradbury)
Helen’s War (2004)
Set against the volatile backdrop of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, Helen's War tracks anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott's roller-coaster tour as she vies with spin-savvy neo-conservatives for airtime, courts celebrity backers for her DC think-tank and battles to stop the bombing of Baghdad. (Australia; Filmmaker: Anna Broinowski)
The War Game (1962)
Fictional, worst-case-scenario docu-drama about nuclear war and its aftermath in and around a typical English city. Although it won an Oscar for Best Documentary, it is fiction. It was intended as an hour-long program to air on BBC 1, but it was deemed too intense and violent to broadcast. It went to theatrical distribution as a feature film instead. Low-budget and shot on location, it strives for and achieves convincing and unflinching realism. (United KIngdom; Filmmaker: Peter Watkins)
Freedom and human rights struggles
The First Australians: The untold story of Australia (2008)First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world’s greatest empire. (Australia; SBS Television)
The War on Democracy (2007)
Award-winning documentary film focusing on the political state of Latin America with special attention given to Venezuela. The film condemns both the United States' intervention in foreign countries' domestic politics and its war on terror. (United Kingdom; Filmmakers: Christopher Martin and John Pilger)
911 and the war on terror
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
Acadmeny-award-winning film that focuses on the murder in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base. (Australia; Fimmaker: Eva Orner)
Against war and militarism
Sir, No Sir (2005)
Feature-length documentary focusing on the efforts by troops in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to oppose the war effort by peaceful demonstration and subversion. It speaks mainly to veterans, but serves as a ready reminder to civilians that soldiers may oppose war as stridently as any civilian, and at greater personal peril. (United States; Written by: Steve Fenwick)
War (1982)
Classic 7-part TV series on the nature of war, devoid of sentimentality or homage to the military mystique. (Canada; Co-writer, presenter: Gwynne Dyer)
Why we fight (2005)
Documentary film about the United States's relationship with war as a business. The title refers to the World War II-era eponymous newsreels commissioned by the U.S. Government to justify their decision to enter the war against the Axis Powers. (United States; Director: Eugene Jarecki)
Filmmakers on peace and social justice themes
David Bradbury has won countless national and international film festival prizes and received two Academy Award nominations (Frontline, which profiled war cameraman Neil Davis, and Chile: Hasta Cuando?, on the brutal military dictatorship of General Pinochet). His more recent work has heavily concentrated on anti-nuclear themes (Blowin in the Wind, A Hard Rain).
Tom Zubrycki makes mostly narrative-based, strongly character-driven films on a range of topics from the musical Bran Nue Dae (about the life of Broome Aboriginal playwright Jimmy Chi) to Amongst Equals (about the history of trade unionism in Australia) to The Diplomat (about Jose Ramos-Horta,the exiled East Timorese freedom-fighter, who went on to become the President of East Timor and a Nobel Peace Prize winner).