Newsreel

This documentary provides an in-depth examination of protest activities surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It documents draft resistance, the growth of G.I. coffee houses, the development of alternative media and the early days of Newsreel itself. It is particularly useful in its exploration of the problems the movement faced in using mainstream media to broadcast its message. It is also a document of the philosophies, tactics, and problems of the student movement in the crucial year of 1968. It is most useful when background information can also be provided.

Shot in Vietnam in the summer of 1969, this documentary creates a vivid portrait of the countryside and ways of life during the war.

As a young couple make out in a car, we hear the woman’s stream of consciousness thoughts. She worries about her reputation and whether he’ll try to “go all the way.”

A compelling document of the Black Panther Party leadership in 1967. This film contains a prison interview with Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton as well as an interview with Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, footage of the aftermath of the police assault against the Los Angeles Chapter headquarters, demonstrations to free Huey at Hutton Memorial Park and the Alameda County Court House and a recitation of the party's Ten-Point Platform by co-founder Bobby Seale. Newsreel's 19th, and one of their most widely distributed films, it was originally released as "Off the Pig," but has since seen release under the name Black Panther. This short film features drawings from activist artist Emory Douglas.

The Newsreel collective’s JANIE’S JANIE breaks with the group’s usual format for a more personal approach, following a woman’s journey to self-determination after years of mental and physical abuse; or, as Janie says, “First I was my father’s Janie, then I was my Charlie’s Janie, now I’m Janie’s Janie."

In April 1968, black and white students rebelled against the university administration, occupying five buildings, including the president's office in one of the first campus revolts of the Civil Rights/Vietnam War era. The revolt began as a protest against university expansion into neighboring communities and its role as a slum lord. After five days of student control, the administrators and trustees ordered the police to clear the buildings. What resulted was an unprecedented display of brutality and repression. Narrated by one of the student rebels, the detailed eyewitness account of this event galvanized other campus revolts around the country.

Against the background of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, AMERICA documents the development of the anti-war movement on the home front. Conversations with Vietnam veterans, young teenagers, and African American militants contextualizes footage that graphically depicts the heightened incidents of mass protest and police repression.

"Here she comes…" At the 1968 Miss America pageant, demonstrators introduced a sheep as the appropriate winner. This entertaining short film shows how Women's Liberation activists used guerrilla theater to raise awareness of what Miss America really represents. The film was widely screened by the second wave women's movement and is a vivid document of the movement's activists in action.

Break and Enter documents Operation Move In and the New York squatter’s movement in the 1970s. In 1970, several hundred Puerto Rican and Dominican families reclaimed housing left vacant by the city. They pulled the boards off the doors, cleaned and repaired the buildings and moved in.

When a city-run health clinic in the South Bronx fails to meet the needs of the city, local residents and health workers force a strike and then run the clinic themselves.

In the late '60s, conditions for Puerto Ricans in the US reached the boiling point. Faced with racial discrimination, deficient community services, and poor education and job opportunities, Puerto Rican communities began to address these injustices by using direct action. This film focuses on the community of East Harlem, capturing the compassion and militancy of the Young Lords as they implemented their own health, educational, and public assistance programs and fought back against social injustice. An excellent portrayal of inner city organizing in the late 60s.

The San Francisco Haight community fights in the streets to defend their culture against brutal police oppression.

This film documents one of the most important struggles for education in the sixties. In 1968, under intensive community pressure from Black and Latino communities, the State of New York chose three New York City school districts to become part of an experiment in community-run education. In Ocean Hill-Brownsville, the community board requested the reassignment of several teachers perceived as racists. The request brought the wrath of the United Federation of Teachers, city and state bureaucracies, and ultimately a citywide teacher's strike.

In the late 1960s the University of California at Berkeley began buying up and destroying a nearby area populated by hippies, the poor, and other members of the "counter culture". In retaliation, the community laid claim to a barren block being used as a parking lot to create a People's Park. The National Guard was called in to occupy Berkeley and a young man was killed. This film documents the infamous struggle resulting in the destruction of the park.

This film is about the oppression of the Third World community in the Mission district of San Francisco, specifically seven Latino youths who were recruiting street kids into a college Brown Studies Program. Accused of killing a plainclothesman, they became victims of a press and police campaign to "clean-up" the Mission. Their defense became the foundation of a revolutionary community organization called Los Siete.

"Here she comes…" At the 1968 Miss America pageant, demonstrators introduced a sheep as the appropriate winner. This entertaining short film shows how Women's Liberation activists used guerrilla theater to raise awareness of what Miss America really represents. The film was widely screened by the second wave women's movement and is a vivid document of the movement's activists in action.

Filmed in Baltimore during the support demonstrations for the nine catholics who were on trial for napalming the 1-A Draft files in Catonsville, Maryland. The film examines some relationships between radical catholicism and the Movement.

A visual presentation of some of the weapons that the police were using in uprisings around the country in the late 60s.

Newsreel's short film shows two days of demonstrations in Berkeley over the issue of "the streets belong to the people" and the decision of the City Council to close off Telegraph Avenue for the 4th of July, 1968. This film features scenes of members of the Young Socialist Alliance, including Peter Camejo, demonstrating their support for the French student movement of May 1968.

This film gives a general outline of the kinds of work being done in The Boston-Cambridge area by National Resist and the New England Resistance.