OVID.tv offers timely films on Democracy ahead of US Presidential Election

by OVID Staff

Can a small scrappy streaming service engage creatively with the times we live in? We think that we can. 

Today OVID.tv is adding several new films to its line-up as it launches a collection of twenty-one films – most only on OVID – that address the notion and nature of democracy (and democracies) from ancient Greece up until the current day, as well as aspects of America’s political system and politics, as we approach election day. 

What is the “will of the people?” How might it be established, threatened, undermined, expressed, and hopefully secured? These questions and more are explored in OVID’s collection DEMOCRACY AND ITS DISCONTENTS. 

In many ways Chris Marker’s The Owl’s Legacy: Democracy, or City of Dreams lays the groundwork for this entire theme with a discussion of Athenian democracy, and key ways it differs from modern states using the word.

The collection features stories from America in such films as Anne de Mare’s Capturing the Flag, a deeply personal, often surprising perspective on the 2016 presidential election. And Shola Lynch’s Peabody Award-winning Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed is an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to run for president. In a different vein, Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway’s Feed: A Comedy About Running for President uses intercepted satellite feeds and footage of unsuspecting candidates shot during the 1992 presidential primaries, to revealing effect.

And from overseas, OVID presents Lucas Belvaux’ feature film This Is Our Land, a fictionalized story (set against the backdrop of the French election of Emmanuel Macron) of a working-class single mother who naively agrees to run for mayor representing a right-wing party; from Japan two observational documentaries by Kazuhiro Soda, Campaign (Observational Film #1) and Campaign 2 (Observational Film #5) follow the election campaigns of underdog candidates; and from Chile comes the classic, epic documentary, on the tragic end of a vibrant, progressive democracy, Patricio Guzman’s The Battle of Chile.  

But the above highlights just a few of the diverse collection assembled and now presented by OVID.tv — details on all the films in this new collection are below.

Ada For Mayor

Directed by Pau Faus • Documentary • With Ada Colau • 2016 • 86 minutes

ADA FOR MAYOR follows Ada Colau for one year, from her time spent organizing the anti-eviction fight in Barcelona to the day she is sworn-in as its mayor. The intimate chronicle—featuring Colau’s own video diary—and privileged access to the inner-workings of a new citizen platform reveal an extraordinary journey in which two prevalent themes are united: a historic victory illustrative of the political changes taking place in southern Europe, and the inner struggle of someone who fears becoming what she has so often questioned.

American Socialist: Eugene Debs

Directed by Yale Strom • Documentary • With Eugene Victor Debs, Amy Madigan, Richard Wolff, Dr. Frances Fox Piven, Dr. Nick Salvatore • 2018 • 97 minutes

Bernie Sanders inspired a generation – but who inspired him? Yale Strom’s documentary traces the history of American populism by exploring the life and times of Eugene Victor Debs, the man whose progressive ideas fueled generations to come – from FDR’s New Deal to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Here is an objective but passionate history of the movement as founded and championed by Debs, a movement that continues to have an impact on our lives today.

The Battle of Chile

Directed by Patricio Guzman • Documentary • 1976 • 320 minutes

On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende’s democratically-elected Chilean government was overthrown in a bloody coup by General Augusto Pinochet’s army.

Patricio Guzman and five colleagues had been filming the political developments in Chile throughout the nine months leading up to that day. The bombing of the Presidential Palace, during which Allende died, would now become the ending for Guzman’s seminal documentary THE BATTLE OF CHILE, an epic chronicle of that country’s open and peaceful socialist revolution, and of the violent counter-revolution against it.

The Campaign

Directed by Tom Cohen • Documentary • 1982 • 90 minutes

Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.

Focusing on a mayoral race in Muncie, Indiana, THE CAMPAIGN follows closely the personalities, strategies, and pressures of an American political contest. In particular, it examines the sharply contrasting styles and backgrounds of the Democratic and Republican candidates.

Campaign (Observational Film #1)

Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Seiko Hashimoto, Nobuteru Ishihara, Yoriko Kawaguchi • 2007 • 120 minutes

Can a candidate with no political experience and no charisma win an election if he is backed by the political giant Prime Minister Koizumi and his Liberal Democratic Party? This observational documentary closely follows a heated election campaign in Kawasaki, Japan, revealing the true nature of “democracy.”

– Peabody Award, 2008

Campaign 2 (Observational Film #5)

Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Kazuhiko Yamauchi, Sayuri Yamauchi, Yuki Yamauchi • 2013 • 145 minutes

In response to the Fukushima disaster, Yama-san is running an election campaign with an anti-nuclear message. But unlike last time, he has no money, no machine, no nothing. Does he even stand a chance?

Capturing the Flag

Directed by Anne de Mare • Documentary • 2018 • 76 minutes

A tight-knit group of friends travel to Cumberland County, North Carolina—the 2016 ‘posterchild’ for voter suppression—intent on proving that the big idea of American democracy can be defended by small acts of individual citizens. What they find at the polls serves as both a warning and a call to action for anyone interested in protecting the “One Man, One Vote” fundamental of our democracy.

Dealing with themes that are constantly sensationalized and manipulated by the media—Left vs. Right, North vs. South, Black vs. White—CAPTURING THE FLAG offers instead deeply personal, often surprising perspectives on the 2016 Presidential Election and its aftermath.

Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed

Directed by Shola Lynch • Documentary • With Shirley Chisholm, Amiri Baraka, Octavia Butler, Bobby Seale • 2004 • 77 minutes

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this compelling documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land. Following Chisholm from her own announcement of her candidacy through her historic speech in Miami at the Democratic National Convention, the story is a fight for inclusion. Shunned by the political establishment and the media, this longtime champion of marginalized Americans asked for support from people of color, women, gays, and young people newly empowered to vote at the age of 18. Chisholm’s bid for an equal place on the presidential dais generated strong, even racist opposition. Yet her challenge to the status quo and her message about exercising the right to vote struck many as progressive and positive. Period footage and music, interviews with supporters, opponents, observers, and Chisholm’s own commentary all illuminate her groundbreaking initiative, as well as political and social currents still very much alive today.

The Corporate Coup d’État

Directed by Fred Peabody • Documentary • With Chris Hedges, Phillip Martin, Sarah Jaffe, Matt Taibbi, Lee Fang, John Ralston Saul • 2018 • 90 minutes

This investigative documentary exposes how corporations and billionaires have taken control of the American political process, and in doing so have brought economic hardship and ruin to vast swaths of the country. The film combines insights from political thinkers and journalists with the experiences of citizens in the “sacrifice zones” of Camden, NJ and Youngstown, OH, where factory closures and outsourcing have created a grim landscape of desolation and human suffering. Provocative and revealing, The Corporate Coup d’État shows how our democracy first began selling its soul to big corporations, which opened the door for lobbyists and business-friendly politicians to take control in Washington and undermine the will of the people.

Feed: A Comedy About Running for President

Directed by Kevin Rafferty & James Ridgeway • Documentary • 1992 • 76 minutes

Using intercepted satellite feeds and footage of unsuspecting candidates shot during the 1992 presidential primaries, Feed presents the wild, wacky world of American politics.

Watch Hillary Clinton navigate her first presidential campaign (i.e. her husband’s), Jerry Brown snort nose inhalers, Ross Perot talk dirty, Pat Buchanan get mad, and Bill Clinton sidestep Gennifer Flowers! Also featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Bush, Bob Kerry, Tom Harkin & Sam Donaldson.

From the filmmakers of The Atomic Cafe and Blood in the Face.

Frontrunners

Directed by Caroline Suh • Documentary • 2008 • 83 minutes

Frontrunners is a smart and funny political documentary that follows the student council presidential campaign at one of the country’s most prestigious public high schools: Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Follow four charming and idiosyncratic candidates as they navigate an electoral process that is said to be one of the most competitive at the high school level.

The Giant Is Falling

Directed by Rehad Desai and Jabulani Mzozo • Documentary • 2016 • 77 minutes

The loyalty people have for the party of liberation operates at a deep psychological level. But in recent years, the ANC’s popularity is at an all time low, not least amongst people who were once its most loyal supporters. The nation’s sense of unease is only made worse by the high profile corruption cases surrounding President Jacob Zuma and his friends, and compounded by patronage and the ANC’s unwillingness to cut him loose. Now that a new political party has entered the ring, the Economic Freedom Fighters, and the ANC finds itself challenged by the energetic young ‘Fighters’.

How Putin Came to Power

Directed by Tania Rakhmanova • Documentary • 2005 • 52 minutes

In August 1999, Vladimir V. Putin, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the KGB, was appointed Prime Minister. On December 31st of that year, Boris Yeltsin announced that Putin would succeed him as President of the Russian Federation. HOW PUTIN CAME TO POWER traces the stunningly rapid ascension of this political unknown to leadership of the Kremlin.

Now He’s Out in Public and Everyone Can See

Directed by Natalie Bookchin • Documentary • 2017 • 24 minutes 

A riveting polyphonic documentary, NOW HE’S OUT IN PUBLIC AND EVERYONE CAN SEE presents a fractured narrative about an unnamed man whose racial identity is continually redrawn and contested by clusters of impassioned narrators. This intricately-edited and deeply political essay film by artist Natalie Bookchin is composed of fragments of found online video diaries made in the early days of the Obama era, a period many believed would be ‘post-racial’ but instead ushered in a new era of racial discord.

‘An absolutely staggering work of art. I watched it four times over… Then I went back the following week and watched it again. …A stunning reflection of a society that is grappling with the notion of African American men as threats; that there might be places where they should and shouldn’t be.’ – Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times

The Owl’s Legacy: Democracy, or City of Dreams

Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1989 • 26 minutes

“Modern and ancient democracy have no genetic relationship” — Mihalis Sakellariou

An in-depth—but not overly dense—exploration of how Athenian democracy worked, and the key ways it differs from modern states using the word. Ancient Greek democracy emphasized the polis not as a city-state the way we understand it, but as a collection of individuals. Those able to participate (free men—a small minority of the total population) were passionate about politics and had access to numerous checks and balances. It was a world without parties, written policies, or an independent judiciary—one in which today’s decisions could constantly be revisited and refined tomorrow.

This episode paints a vivid picture of life in the first democracy. It also chronicles the unraveling of Athenian democracy when, as Cornelius Castoriadis puts it, “The Athenian Demos degenerated. There was an oligarchic revolution… What the Demos lost was the art of making decisions. Even language was being corrupted.”

Athenian and contemporary Western democracies may be vastly different, but they certainly do have parallels.

A Perfect Candidate

Directed by R.J. Cutler & David Van Taylor • Documentary • With Oliver North, Chuck Robb • 1996 • 105 minutes

Sometimes horrifying, often hilarious, A Perfect Candidate is a twisted journey into the underbelly of American politics. In 1994 former Marine Oliver North re-emerged from the Iran-Contra scandal to run for the U.S Senate. In the hotly contested race between North and incumbent Chuck Robb – who played Charlie Brown to Ollie’s Elvis – filmmakers R.J. Cutler and David Van Taylor were granted astonishing access to the back room games played by the candidates, their handlers, and the press. The result is a revealing, chilling and darkly funny look into the modern American political process.

Priceless

Directed by Steve Cowan • Documentary • 2011 • 58 minutes

PRICELESS examines the growing cost of federal elections, the impact of political campaign fundraising on members of Congress and on policymaking, and the citizen movement to limit the “undue influence” of large campaign donors.

Sleeping Souls

Directed by Alexander Abaturov • Documentary • 2013 • 50 minutes 

Atchinsk is a Siberian town 2500 miles away from Moscow where Soviet dissidents and, before them, the Tsar’s opponents were deported. It’s pre-election season, and the small, sleepy town is abuzz with the voices of regime supporters and paid activists working for Putin. Louri, a political hireling working for Putin’s party explains the inner mechanics of the system over glass of vodka. But it’s a cold winter and Atchinsk residents are not keen on talking politics, especially about the present campaign.

SLEEPING SOULS portrays rural Russia, affected by government propaganda. Somehow, democratic life in this town appears to be a theatre.

 Thinking Existenz – Ep 09 – Lula da Silva

Directed by Graça Castanheira • Documentary • With Lula da Silva • 2013 • 30 minutes

Ten personalities from diverse social and geographical backgrounds reflect on the world and its future. This episode Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil between 2003 and 2011 and founder of Brazilian Labour Party.

Lula da Silva was Brazil’s president for two terms. His popularity stems from his charisma but also from his life story: a workman that became the leader of one of the world’s strongest economies, one of the world’s most beautiful countries, and an unequal society that is undertaking a huge effort to create change. Lula talks about Europe and the current correlation of forces in the world, about ecology and sustainability, about the non-existence of Left thinking, about his successor Dilma and the importance of women in politics. Lula also reflects about the way his recent illness may have influenced his life, his way of viewing others and the way he now plans to act and live.

30 Second Democracy

Directed by David Vainola • Documentary • 1996 • 51 minutes

:30 Second Democracy explores the disturbing relationship between political parties and the advertising industry during election campaigns. Through television advertising, techniques perfected to sell commercial products are readily applied to political candidates, turning elections into marketing exercises and voting into another consumer choice.

:30 Second Democracy is unique among explorations of this theme, providing a comparative history of political television advertising in the U.S., Britain and Canada which looks at how each of these countries has taken widely differing approaches to regulating political advertising on television, with very different results.

This Is Our Land

Directed by Lucas Belvaux • Drama • With Émilie Dequenne, André Dussollier, Guillaume Gouix • 2018 • 114 minutes

Marine Le Pen was defeated in the French election that brought Emmanuel Macron to power, but her far right-wing party, with its nationalist, anti-immigrant platform, lives on to feed the fear and resentment that begot Donald Trump’s election. THIS IS OUR LAND is a fictionalized story of an attractive working-class single mother in the North of France who naively agrees to run for mayor, representing the Patriotic Bloc. Lucas Belvaux, who previously directed RAPT, a terrific thriller about a French politician’s kidnapping, deals with another type of kidnapping here: With the help of a charming André Dussollier as the town’s esteemed physician, the Populists’ rhetoric seizes control of the minds of the electorate. With Catherine Jacob as the blonde-bobbed leader who never met an angry crowd she couldn’t make angrier.

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[Editor’s note: Image from “Capturing the Flag” directed by Anne de Mare courtesy of Bullfrog Films.]

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