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  • 2011 Oscar Nominees Include Docs on Iraq Veteran, Earth Liberation Front and West Memphis 3

    January 24, 2012 | Blog Post

    Click to watch Democracy Now!’s interviews with directors and people featured in three documentaries just nominated for the 84nd annual Academy Awards.

  • Moore_book

    "Here Comes Trouble": Michael Moore Tells the Formative Tales Behind His Filmmaking, Rabble-Rousing

    September 28, 2011 | Story

    For more than two decades, Michael Moore has been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. We talk to Moore about his new memoir, "Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life," which comprises 20 biographic vignettes that capture how his political and sociological viewpoints developed. He also discusses the numerous attacks and death threats he received after speaking out against former President George W. Bush, after winning a 2003 Academy Award for his film Bowling for Columbine. He first discussed these fears and necessity to hire a security team on Democracy Now! last year, which ultimately encouraged him to write publicly about these incidents in his memoir. [includes rush transcript]

  • Play_fox

    Natural Gas Industry Attacks Oscar-Nominated Film “Gasland” for Chronicling Devastating Impact of Hydraulic Fracking

    March 04, 2011 | Story

    The environmental contamination and human health risk associated with the extraction of natural gas using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” was little known across the United States for years, until a documentary film brought the issue to the national stage. Josh Fox directed the film Gasland, which chronicles the devastation affecting communities where fracking is taking place and the influence of the natural gas industry over regulation of the techniques and chemicals used in the process. The industry aggressively attacked the film, especially when it was nominated for an Academy Award this year. [includes rush transcript]

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    The Fear of Sicko: CIGNA Whistleblower Wendell Potter Apologizes to Michael Moore for PR Smear Campaign; Moore Says Industry Was Afraid Film Would Cause a "Tipping Point" for Healthcare Reform

    November 23, 2010 | Story

    We host a joint interview with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore and Wendell Potter, who was the head of corporate communications for the health insurance giant CIGNA when Moore’s film Sicko was released in 2007. Potter left the company in 2008 and has since become the industry’s most prominent whistleblower. In the interview, Potter apologizes for his role in the industry’s attack on Moore and the film.
     
    Moore accepted his apology but acknowledged to Potter that “I think we both know this is much larger than what was done to me or in the movie.” Moore said that the industry was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to “stop a movie” because they were afraid it “could trigger a populist uprising against” what he called a “sick system that will allow companies to profit off of us when we fall ill.” [includes rush transcript]

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    Michael Moore on His Life, His Films and His Activism

    September 06, 2010 | Story

    In a Democracy Now! special broadcast, we spend the hour with one of the most famous independent filmmakers in the world: Michael Moore. For the past twenty years, Michael has been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. His films include Roger & me; Fahrenheit 9/11; Bowling for Columbine, for which he won the Academy Award; and his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story.[includes rush transcript]

  • The-cove

    Filmmakers, Activists Try to Save Dolphins from Slaughter in Oscar-Winning Doc The Cove

    August 16, 2010 | Story

    The Academy Award-winning film The Cove opened last month in Japan after months of protests by right-wing activists who had pressured some cinemas into canceling screenings. The film documents how a group of activists and filmmakers used hidden cameras to expose the annual slaughter of over 20,000 dolphins in the small Japanese fishing village of Taiji, 200 miles southeast of Tokyo. We speak with the film’s director, Louie Psihoyos, and dolphin activist Ric O’Barry. [includes rush transcript]

  • Monique-oscar

    During Oscar Acceptance Speech, Mo’Nique Cites Hattie McDaniel, First African American Academy Award Winner

    March 08, 2010 | Story

    Sunday was an historic day in Hollywood. Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman in history to win the best director award at the Oscars. Bigelow’s film The Hurt Locker won a total of six Oscars, including best picture and best screenplay. And Geoffrey Fletcher became the first African American to win an Oscar for best writing. He won best adapted screenplay for the film Precious. Meanwhile, Mo’Nique won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role as Mary Jones in Precious. Mo’Nique is only the fifth black woman to win an acting Oscar. In her acceptance speech, she cited Hattie McDaniel, who won the same honor for Gone with the Wind seventy years ago. Hattie McDaniel was the first Academy Award ever given to a black performer. [includes rush transcript]

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    "In the Loop": Oscar-Nominated Comedy Satirizes Lead-Up to US-UK Invasion of Iraq

    February 17, 2010 | Story

    In the Loop takes the view that the US-UK effort to attack Iraq was so absurd that it’s perfect fodder for a comedy. The Oscar-nominated film is a satire of the Anglo-American diplomatic wrangling in the lead-up to the war. We speak to In the Loop director and co-writer Armando Iannucci. [includes rush transcript]

  • China-earthquake

    "China’s Unnatural Disaster": Oscar-Nominated Doc on Sichuan Earthquake Brings World Attention to Chinese Crackdown on Dissidents

    February 12, 2010 | Story

    Chinese courts are cracking down on dissident activists. Liu Xiaobo lost his appeal Thursday and now faces eleven years in prison for advocating political reform. Earlier this week, another prominent writer and activist, Tan Zuoren, was sentenced to five years in prison. Zuoren had been campaigning on behalf of thousands of parents whose children were killed when shabbily built schools collapsed in the massive Sichuan earthquake two years ago. To discuss China’s crackdown, we’re joined by two guests behind an Oscar-nominated film on the earthquake, China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province: co-director and DCTV founder Jon Alpert, and co-producer and Hunter College professor Peter Kwong. [includes rush transcript]

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    Michael Pollan on "Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual"

    February 08, 2010 | Story

    Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, discusses the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the “nutritional-industrial complex,” the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating. "The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid," says Michael Pollan. "So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket." Today we air an excerpt of the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. and then spend the rest of the show with Michael Pollan. [includes rush transcript]