Can He Ever Be a Better Man?

This week we got in a really interesting documentary called A Better Man (DVD 14907) directed by a domestic abuse counselor who was herself a victim, Attiya Khan. It's not Home Use, but I'm still really curious about it because the way it was made sounds so interesting.

In the film, Khan and her abuser, who is identified as Steve, meet to discuss and come to terms with the two years of abuse Khan suffered while dating Steve twenty years prior. They sometimes have a facilitator, and also revisit their high school. It's a little hard to explain the background, so just read the Wikipedia article.

The project itself is asking a question about justice. Typically this type of engagement is thought of as a form of restorative justice, which has been explored in a variety of types of offences, and reduces relapses to crime. It's usually claimed that both the victim and perpetrator come away feeling better about the process and results than when the offender is merely fined or sent to prison. It's worth reading a bit about the history of this type of justice, as many people have never considered an alternative to what is called retributive justice (basically, our prison system).

Here's the trailer:




At one point in the trailer, Khan talks about running from the house screaming and no one on her street coming to help her. There's a lot of isolation and terror involved in abuse like this. One of the reasons I'm curious about this documentary is that in some form or another, forgiveness is an ongoing negotiation in domestic abuse even as it occurs. Society forgives the abuser by un-seeing victims. Victims forgive their abusers by going back.

In the current #metoo movement, one of the most depressing things is the amount of un-seeing uncovered by these incidents that basically everyone knew about. (I mean, jesus, conductors??) Part of the reason domestic violence is so heartbreaking is that the victim and the victim's social environment often becomes collaborators in concealing the crime. And, it's kind of problematic to talk about restorative justice here: in many ways, abusers are intermittently "better men." They feel shame, even as they cause grievous injury, but that shame is often somehow divided from their "true self." The process of restitution is shallowly engaged every time a promise or an apology is made. Even victims of horrible abuse are capable of believing that their partners can and will be "better men." People who live outside abusive relationships sometimes imagine them to be constant, epic battles waged behind closed doors. Often, they are relatively normal relationships with an element of violence that has simply become normalized, be it daily, weekly, or even much more infrequently.

I'm curious what the takeaway presented actually is. You can celebrate the conversation here, but when this type of abuse is current and not an issue twenty years in the past, what is the relationship between the resolution in the film and the resolution needed for current abuse?

I don't know! Gotta watch the movie.

The Last Command and The Act of Killing

We've gotten a lot of new movies already in 2018, but one of my favorites so far is a set of three silent films by Josef Von Sternberg. While these films are campus use only (DVD 14852 - 14854), they are truly worth watching and can be viewed by students in our screening room.

One of the films, The Last Command, has an interesting connection to a 2012 documentary, The Act of Killing. In The Last Command, an exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra lands a role playing a version of his former czarist self, bringing about his emotional downfall. Most of the film covers his acts during the Russian Revolution, including a love affair with a revolutionist. In the film's stunning conclusion, he encounters shadows from his past as he reenacts them, and is transported by them.

In The Act of Killing (HU DVD 12262), the filmmakers examine a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love. Again, film making becomes a kind of question, and a way of interrogating the cruelties and injustices of the past.

These two films are both interesting examples of a very different kind of self-witnessing through performance. In a way, they echo community-based theater, including the focus on process in addition to final product. The act of creating is powerful: these films address the power of acting on an actor, even when acknowledged as an act. Both are highly recommended, especially for students of film and theater.

#BlackLivesMatter documentary now available streaming

Films on Demand is a useful database for finding documentaries on a range of subjects, from the environment to teaching math. Now you can add timely social issues to that list as well: you can now stream #BlackLivesMatter, one of the first feature-length documentaries produced about the ongoing protests of racial inequality and police violence.

This is (at least as far as I know) the first documentary in our collection about the Black Lives Matter protests. Although there have been countless critical essays and videos on the topic, this succinct, powerful documentary captures snapshots of the protests around the country and and contextualizes them with history and stories from protestors.

We recommend previewing this film if you're teaching, learning, or just curious about the movement. Video can chronicle social change better than any words, and a well-produced documentary like #BlackLivesMatter is an especially great example.

Kanopy Highlights: Social justice documentaries

Still from Concerning Violence

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We're happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection.

This week, we're focusing on powerful documentaries for social justice.

You can click the link on any of these films to watch them instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

5 Broken Cameras – "5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005."

Body Typed series – "Body Typed is series of award-winning short films that uses humor to raise serious questions about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection."

Concerning Violence – "From the director of The Black Power Mixtape comes a bold and fresh visual narrative on Africa, based on newly discovered archive material covering the struggle for liberation from colonial rule in the late ’60s and ’70s, accompanied by text from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth."

In Whose Honor? – "What’s wrong with American Indian sports mascots? This moving, award-winning film is the first of its kind to address that subject. In Whose Honor? takes a critical look at the long-running practice of "honoring" American Indians as mascots and nicknames in sports."

Screaming Queens – "Screaming Queens tells the little-known story of the first known act of collective, violent resistance to the social oppression of queer people in the United States - a 1966 riot in San Francisco’s impoverished Tenderloin neighborhood, three years before the famous gay riot at New York’s Stonewall Inn."

Watch HBO documentaries for free through Films On Demand

from Citizen U.S.A.

You probably know HBO for Game of Thrones and their other hit shows, but they're also known as a powerhouse of prestigious documentaries, like the Academy Award-winning Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1.

Films On Demand just signed a deal with HBO to stream their collection of documentary films, and as part of the AU community, you can watch them for free! Follow this link to the HBO section of the Films On Demand website to see what all they have. Notable titles include the veterans stories of Alive Day Memories, Arab Spring documentary In Tahrir Square, citizenship road trip Citizen U.S.A., and a look at the life of a single mother in Paycheck to Paycheck. (And don't forget When the Levees Broke!)

These are great film – not just to watch for your own enjoyment, but for coursework and scholarship. HBO documentaries have great educational value, and using one is a fun, productive way to mix up a presentation or research.

Checking your perspective on making a documentary

SOC's great film program often has AU students creating their own documentaries and heading out into the local community to capture a slice of life (take the Community Documentary class!). We love that AU students get to collaborate with DC to tell their stories, but there's a potentially fraught dynamic with having college students marching into town to film a struggling neighborhood for class project.

Filmmaker Edward Martinez addresses this in a new article, "Navigating the River: The Hidden Colonialism of Documentary." Martinez found himself falling into the usual traps of making a socially unconscious, potentially exploitative documentary – specifically, reducing its subjects to just standing in for their achievements rather than being actual human beings. This was never their intention, but the tropes of documentaries can encourage filmmakers to create that sort of accidentally condescending film that reinforces power imbalances. To make the problem clearer, Martinez asks "Have you ever seen a documentary about rich white people made by poor black people?"

These are problems that clearly don't only affect student films, but out friends in SOC would do well to learn from Martinez's example of a time his crew attempted to film without permission. What started a confrontation (and borderline assault) with a member of the public eventually turned into an opportunity to have a genuine conversation. Don't be the person using someone else's community to set up their tripod.

AFI Docs begins tonight with a Werner Herzog treat on Friday

AFI Docs has arrived! For one week every summer, the American Film Institute takes over DC, hosting five days of screenings for new documentaries and documentary shorts. AFI Docs attracts top talent from around the world – including, this year, a special event with Werner Herzog and his new film Lo and Behold.

Tickets for Herzogpalooza are already sold out, but there are plenty of other documentaries to watch this week in downtown DC and Silver Spring. Highlights include...

• The Man Who Saw Too Much, about a photojournalist who covered crime and tragedy in Mexico City for five decades.
• Toucan Nation, which looks at toucan rehabilitation programs and animal welfare laws.
• Sonita, the story of an aspiring rapper living in Iran, where women are not allowed perform music.
• Obit, a behind-the-scenes look at the New York Times's obituary department.

The festival kicks off tonight with a screening of Zero Days, a new documentary from Alex Gibney (director of HBO's Going Clear) about American Stuxnet virus reporetedly designed to attack Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Tickets cost around $12 each, the usual price for a high-end movie screening. See the AFI Docs website for a full list of what's playing this week. Or you can get the official app!

Documentarians name their 50 favorite documentaries

We're suckers for any good, contentious list of best films. Whenever a publication puts together their top 300 films or the best horror movies, it inevitably has a few holes, which is an opportunity to talk about what makes art great. (It also give us justification to argue about movies.)

The latest "best of" roundup comes from The Guardian, which asked top documentary filmmakers, including the directors of Waste Land and Man on Wire, to name their favorite documentaries. The usual suspects make the list – Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Thin Blue Line makes appearances – as well as a few odder names. (We're pleased to see the inclusion of The Five Obstructions, a Lars von Trier experiment about the process of producing a film under increasingly absurd limitations.)

The list reflects a wide variety of styles, from Holocaust documentary Night and Fog to the strange meta-story of Sherman's March. The Guardian's fifty films are an excellent sampling of the genre. And since the contributors point out that their selections are only reflective of their own tastes, not the whole state of documentary filmmaking, it's hard to quibble with the choices.

Most if every film on this list is available to watch at Media Services in the AU Library. We've also put together our own list of the 500 most essential documentaries in our collection. Both lists are great starting points if you've wanted to watch more documentaries but aren't sure where to begin.

Watch these great new documentaries from Docuseek2

From Big Dream

Our media librarian Chris Lewis once called streaming video website Docuseek2 "an embarrassment of riches" for fans of documentaries. We're not gonna disagree: Docuseek2 lets you stream some incredibly high-quality documentary films, and this week, their collection got even larger.

43 new titles are now available via Docuseek2, including the comedic short Drones in My Backyard, women-in-STEM documentary Big Dream, and I Am Become Death: They Made the Bomb, a collection of interviews with participants in the Manhattan Project. Docuseek2 picks their films well, so even without seeing them, we can reasonably recommend everything they've added this month.

We added a full list of Docuseek2's newest additions to the end of this list. If you want to browse the rest of their other 700+ films, you can always browse our full catalog list of Docuseek2 titles.

A Fragile Trust
After Winter, Spring
Arresting Power
Banking Nature
Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery
Big Dream
Black Dawn
Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
Cheat Neutral
Code Black
Cuba: The Accidental Revolution - Pt. 2
Diamond Road
Divide In Concord
Drones In My Backyard
Game Over: Conservation in Kenya
Gore Vidal
GTFO
I Am Become Death: They Made the Bomb
Independent Intervention
Inside Burma
Japan's Peace Constitution
Kabul Transit
Madam Phung's Last Journey
Monumental
Oil and Water
Racing To Zero
Salvador Allende
School of Babel
Shift Change
Soldiers of Conscience
South Africa Belongs to Us
Split Estate (short version)
The Hand That Feeds
The Homestretch
The Motherhood Manifesto
The Mystery of the Lost Red Paint People
The Storytelling Class
The Tree that Remembers
The Trouble with Bread
They Are We
Toast
Where Am I? 
Without Shepherds

Take the Media Services Challenge: watch these 100 great documentaries

Congratulations on, presumably, passing mid-terms! Your workload will likely be in a bit of a downswing before we head into final project season, so you might be ready to spend some time chipping away at things you've been meaning to watch. If you're the type that has always wanted to see more documentaries but never knew where to start, we have 100 films for your list.

This summer, we all put our brains together and made a list of the 100 best documentaries available in our collection through streaming. There are a few classics including The Battle of Chile and King Corn, as well as odder ones like The Yes Men Save the World. All of these documentaries are free to watch via your web browser if you sign into your library account, and they're among the best in our collection.

If you're feeling really driven, we're challenging anyone with a hunger for documentaries to watch all 100 on the list before they graduate. No one has yet completed the Media Services Challenge, but if you do, we will enshrine you in a place of glory that we have yet to determine, probably on the wall next to your desk. It's like a Man vs. Food challenge, but with fewer ribs and more social theory.

Four years ago, Scottish environmentalists took on Trump

With all the hot air swirling about Donald Trump in the past week, now because of his debate performance, we often forget that he was a blowhard in business before he was a blowhard in politics. He's received flak for some of his higher-profile real-estate projects, many of which involve taking over historic spaces like his purchase of Old Post Office Pavilion downtown. But once in a while when takes on the little guy, the little guy fights backs.

In the 2012 documentary You've Been Trumped, Trump pressures the Scottish government into loosening environmental regulations so he can construct a golf course on the coastline. Activists didn't take kindly to this, and the film documents their protracted fight to preserve the Scottish coast, as well as looks at the general environmental damage caused by over-development. Trump famously tried to prohibit the release of this documentary and later called it "boring," which to us reads as a glowing endorsement.

AU students, staff, and faculty can watch You've Been Trumped for free as part of our collection from Docuseek2. Log in via the catalog to stream the documentary from your device of choice. We understand if you're sick of the Donald, but this is an excellently made film and a timely opportunity to continue with the pillorying.

AFIDOCS is underway!

Time for a quick PSA: the annual AFIDOCS documentary film festival kicked off yesterday! AFIDOCS is a terrific, half-week-long, city-spanning event that showcases new documentary features and shorts from around the world.

Visit the AFIDOCS website for a list of where and when everything will be playing. Many of these documentaries will screen at the AFI's flagship theater in Silver Spring, but other theaters throughout the city are participating if you don't feel like making the trek on the Red Line.

If we have to play favorites with this year's assemblage, we would pick The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer's follow-up to The Act of Killing) and Code: Debugging the Gender Gap, which examines the history of women in computer programming.

Buy your tickets in advance if you can. These screenings will sell out!

Head back to dino-school before seeing Jurassic World

 What will blow up the box office this summer? Dino might.

...okay, fine, we're sorry. The point is that Jurassic World, the fourth movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, is going to be monstrously successful this weekend. Nearly every child of a certain age became obsessed with dinosaurs at the same time because of Jurassic Park. In fact, we're certain you can still name your favorite dinosaur.

We want to stoke that excitement again. So in addition to promoting our Jurassic Park movie collection (specifically the bonus disc that came with the trilogy box set, DVD 4904), we want to talk about our educational dinosaur videos. A catalog search turns up over fifty dinosaur-related items in our collection; here are a few highlights to get your dino-juices flowing.

(All these videos are available to watch streaming via the library catalog.)

• Dino Death Trap: Take a close look at a Pompeii-type graveyard of dinosaur species trapped in lava – and well-preserved!
• Dino Revolution: This video from 2000 sheds light on then-recent discoveries linking dinosaurs to birds
• How to Build a Dinosaur: Watch up-close as scientists piece together dinosaur skeletons and reveal how they work on these reconstructions.
• Reconstructing T-Rex: A 2009 documentary about recent discoveries about everyone's favorite giant terrifying apex predator.
• Dino Math: So this one isn't really about dinosaurs, but it has kids solving math problems with dinosaur manipulatives. We figured this would bring back some good memories.

Early reviews indicate that Jurassic World is exciting but not quite as inspiring as the original. We hope this doesn't prevent a new generation of kids from having their own overly-excited-about-dinosaurs phase. Luckily, we have educational dinosaur content like the videos above the carry the torch.

With Letterman's departure, walk back through the old guard of late night

David Letterman ends his late night talk show career tonight. Although he has certainly settled into a curmudgeonly pattern in the last decade or so – and is probably indistinguishable from Jay Leno for many younger viewers – Letterman's earlier years behind the desk remain some of the stranger and riskier network television ever produced.  He pioneered the use of absurdism and sarcasm in the traditional talk show model, like in an episode where the screen rotated throughout the evening. He's certainly an institution now, but for many years, Letterman broadcast on the edge of what producers would allow.

Letterman is the last remaining network talk show host who started before the year 2000, and his retirement arguably symbolizes the end of the old guard of late night television. This got us thinking about the history of late night and the older figureheads who defined the genre for earlier generations.

If you want to learn a little about the history of late night talk shows, we found a great documentary, Pioneers of Television, that covers the first twenty years of the format. We're sure everyone is sick of hearing about Johnny Carson's borderline canonization, but there's great bits in there, like the story of host Jack Paar's sudden disappearance mid-program. This is a streaming video, so you can access it off-campus and watch it at any time.

The talk show has certainly evolved beyond those older shows, with Jimmy Fallon's energy or Eric Andre's aggressive surrealism marking the new goal posts for future hosts. But it's worth a trip back to remember why Letterman's weirdness mattered in the television landscape.

See these 100 streaming documentaries before you graduate

AU students get access to our streaming video collection, which includes thousands of hours of great documentaries. We realize that there's quite a bit to sort through, so finding the best of them (or even knowing to look for them) might be a challenge.

To help you navigate the highlights of our collection, we've assembled a list of the 100 Streaming Documentaries to See Before You Graduate. Everyone on the full-time Media Services staff helped put this list together, and we think it represents the best of the best online video content that you can get through American University.

You might recognize a few big names like the Ken Burns Prohibition series and environmental classic King Corn, but we found something for most every subject and interest. Literature students might be interested in an hour-long Bill Moyers interview with George Lucas about creating the mythology of Star Wars. And for political science majors, you can't miss Street Fight, an unprecedented look at the ground game for now-Senator Cory Booker's campaign for mayor.

Take advantage of these resources and watch these documentaries while you can! For those of you graduating in May, you've got a little over a month to binge all of them.

Caught up with The Jinx? Watch these investigative crime documentaries

HBO's true-crime documentary series The Jinx ended in shock this week when the show's subject, real estate magnate Robert Durst, confessed to multiple murders over an open microphone and was subsequently arrested. No spoiler warning on this one: Durst's arrest made international headlines. After all, how often does a documentary change the course of the legal system?

As it turns out, The Jinx is only the latest documentary that resulted in arrests, appeals, and settlements. The true-crime genre is having its moment with the success of podcasts like Serial, but filmmakers have long been fascinated by controversial legal battles to the point of essentially intervening in the cases. If you enjoyed The Jinx – or if you just find the Durst story compelling – consider watching these four documentaries in our collection that famously jumpstarted the legal process.

• The Central Park Five – Streaming video

Ken Burns investigated the story of a racially polarized rape case from 1989 in which five black and Hispanic minors were convicted on various assault-related charges despite a lack of evidence. Burns towards a damning eye towards the racist testimony and media coverage that propelled the case, as well as the accused party's struggle to find closure after their convictions were overturned. Shortly after the release of this documentary, the city of New York awarded $41 million to the Central Park Five for emotional distress.

• Paradise Lost (series) – HU DVD 4771, 4772, 4773

In 1994, three teenagers in Arkansas were convicted for the murder of three children in a supposedly Satanic ritualistic murder. The filmmakers of Paradise Lost were not satisfied with the trial, which used no physical evidence, and spent nearly twenty years investigating the murders and lobbying for the West Memphis Three's innocence. Arkansas courts took notice, re-examined the case, and released the three convicted men after DNA evidence proved inconclusive.

• The Staircase – HU DVD 10358

Was the death of North Carolina woman Kathleen Peterson a stair-related accident or murder? This eight-part documentary series looks into the ongoing murder trial of Kathleen's husband Michael and tries to find the answer. The filmmakers were given "unusual access" to the Peterson family and lawyers to produce this documentary. Michael Peterson remains in legal limbo, and this documentary is responsible for the increased scrutiny afforded to the case.

• The Thin Blue Line – HU DVD 2219

Randall Dale Adams was wrongly sentenced to death for the murder of a Texas police officer in 1976. Now-legendary documentarian Errol Morris poked holes through Adams's trial in The Thin Blue Line, using a combination of reenactments and interviews to build the case for his defense. Within a year of the film's 1988 release, Adams was a free man.

Dig into net neutrality in Barbershop Punk

Only a few hours ago, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler announced his proposal to reclassify Internet services as "common carriers," a major victory for net neutrality and the prospects of an open Internet. We'll come right out and say that this is fantastic news. The American Library Association has made it clear that open and unfettered Internet access is a public good, and we strongly agree with this sentiment. This won't be settled until the FCC approves these changes, of course, but it's still a great development.

The road to net neutrality has been rocky, but as a relatively new issue, it has also been extensively documented. If you want a first-hand look at the labyrinthine legislation and rules that originally governed Internet regulation, look no further than Barbershop Punk, a documentary available streaming through our catalog. Barbershop Punk uses the story of the filmmaker's attempts to distribute his rare barbershop quarter music collection as a microcosm for the larger net neutrality debate. Interviewees include politicians, musicians, and other notable figures with a stake in digital free expression.

Barbershop Punk is highly recommended viewing if you're trying to get a handle on the net neutrality issue. And hopefully soon it's one we can put behind us.

See Fredrick Wiseman's newest documentary with a director Q&A!

If you don't know documentarian Fredrick Wiseman, you should. Wiseman has an absurdly prolific career, having directed dozens of documentaries since 1967. His first, Titicut Follies, is a incisive look at the American mental health system and the state of asylums in the 60s (we frequently recommend this one to faculty). His next film, National Gallery, a documentary about the British art museum of the same name, has already been hailed as a masterpiece. This is the director's thirty-ninth film, and for this special occasion, Wiseman is coming to DC to show it off.

National Gallery, which runs for a staggering three hours, will play at the AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring for one week starting this Friday, November 14th. And at two showings on the 14th and 15th, Fredrick Wiseman will stop by for a Q&A. This is a rare chance to meet and to speak with a titan of documentaries.

Given the high-profile guest, you'll likely need to secure tickets in advance for this one. Head over to AFI Silver's website to purchase them early.

Get to know Docuseek2, now with new films!

Have you visited Docuseek2 lately? Do you know about Docuseek2? They've put up a whole slew of new content, so now is a good chance to introduce (or reintroduce) you to one of our most exciting streaming video partners. Docuseek2 streams films produced by Icarus Films and Bullfrog Films, two major distributors with a reputation for high-quality documentaries.

We recognize that large streaming video databases can be a little hit-or-miss sometimes, but Docuseek2 is special. Every film is worth watching. We certainly consider many of the films in Docuseek2 – including The Age of Stupid, King Corn, Detropia, and Goodbye Mubarak! – to be among the best in our collection. All of this is free to access if you are American University student, staff, or faculty. We always encourage you to explore our streaming video resources, but consider Docuseek2 a first stop for video in your research and instruction.

Docuseek2 is continuously adding new titles, and American University just gained access to a whole slew of them, like Nanjing, Code Gray, and How Putin Came to Power. You can see highlights from their newest acquisitions on their New Releases page (though several of these may not yet be available via American University's subscription).

This is definitely one of the best video resources accessible through the AU Library. We're very proud of our physical collection, but we also can't wait to see where Docuseek2 grows from here. Seriously consider looking into the new items in their streaming archives; we're certainly excited!

Top 8: Documentary Sequels

We're proud of the variety and depth of the Media Services collection. In the interest of bringing you some highlights and deep cuts from our shelves, we'll be posting unusual and interesting Top 10 lists of some of our favorite DVDs.

You may often hear self-identified film snobs talk about their love for documentaries as an antidote to Hollywood sequels. That's a pretty silly idea, in part because documentaries have sequels too. While most documentary films are standalone affairs, sometimes their subjects change enough to warrant a follow-up.

This happens infrequently, so we weren't able to round up a full list of ten documentary sequels. But the ones we found are quite good. We present the Top 8 Documentary Sequels.

• Best Man (HU DVD 2772) – sequel to Best Boy (HU DVD 2772)

Best Boy follows a handicapped 52-year-old man, Philly Wohl, who prepares for independence as his elderly parental caretakers reach the end of their lives. The film ends before we see how Philly manages on his own; a sequel, Best Man, picks up Philly's story twenty years later.

• Big Boys Gone Bananas!* (HU DVD 11449)  – sequel to Bananas!* (HU DVD 10950)

The Dole Food Company came under fire in Bananas!* for allegedly using pesticides that sterilized their workers. Dole considered this an act of defamation and retaliated by suing the filmmakers, distributors, and sponsors. Big Boys Gone Bananas!* follows this lawsuit and examines the legal consequences of free speech.

• Big River (Streaming video)  – sequel to King Corn (DVD 4214)

The filmmakers of King Corn put their venture into farming front-and-center while discussing the broader impact of commercialized agriculture. They bring their personal, gonzo touch to follow-up, Big River, which examines the ecological fallout from their farm experiment.

• Gasland Part II (HU DVD 11113)  – sequel to Gasland (DVD 7968)

Gasland caused a huge stir with its infamous shot of a Colorado resident able to ignite their tap water as a result of natural gas fracking. The sequel broadens the scope of the original and takes aim at fracking practices around the globe.

• Paradise Lost series (HU DVD 4771 - 4773)

In 1993, three teenagers in West Memphis, Arkansas were arrested for the murders of three children. Though all three were incarcerated, many independent parties asserted their innocence. The three Paradise Lost films follow the lives of the accused from their initial trial to their eventual release.

• Sound and Fury: Six Years Later (Streaming video)  – sequel to Sound and Fury (HU DVD 681)

Cochlear implants still capture the public's enthusiasm, if YouTube clips of people hearing for the first time are any indication. But the transition from deaf to hearing can be difficult and disrupt deaf communities. The Sound and Fury series looks at how cochlear implants changed their recipients lives in the short- and long-term.

• Up Series (DVD 5271 - 5276, HU DVD 716)

By far the reigning champion of serialized documentary filmmaking, the Up series follows a group of children as the grow from 7 years old to, in the latest installment, 56. The intention of the series was to create a grand defining statement about destiny and growing up, but it works even better as a character study.

• Return of the War Room (DVD 1013)  – sequel to The War Room (DVD 1013)

The War Room stands tall as one of the best political documentaries, with its ground-level view of a presidential campaign painting a vivid and realistic portrait of political work. In 2008, the directors filmed a follow-up reunion with key figures from the film to reflect on the campaign.