Participant believes in the power of media to create great social change. Their goal is to deliver compelling entertainment that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all. Videoblogger Karmagrrrl says, "With films like Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Murderball, and others, they really are taking a stand and letting it be known that a movie can be both good and raise public awareness about important issues in our society."

The Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers is a membership organization serving local and international film and videomakers — from documentarians and experimental artists to makers of narrative features. Books, workshops, screening events... based in NYC.

B.I.K.E. a film about rebels with a cause...

Fred King
fking@fountainhead.com
212-620-3092

Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor Film Festival, Screening Room
Saturday, March 25th @ 3:30pm
Sunday, March 26th @ 3:00pm

New York City
Bicycle Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives
Thursday, May 11, 2006, 7:00 PM / 9:00PM / 11:00PM
& After Party with Black Label Bike Club
Sunday, May 14, 2006, 3:00 PM

"'V for Vendetta' is a pro-revolutionary, action-adventure romp that makes other political films look like 'Little House on the Prairie.'" says Anthony Kaufman in Anarchism, Hollywood-Style posted in AlterNet. The conservative managers at Cinema 6 must have let this one slip by since it poses as sci-fi set in Britain...

Set in the year 2020, "V for Vendetta" takes place in a fascistic London, some time after "America's war grew worse and worse," as one character narrates, "when unfamiliar words like 'collateral' and 'rendition' became frightening." The government is a cross between a full-blown totalitarian state and the current administration's scare tactics: with constant surveillance, a citywide "yellow-coded curfew" that instills paranoia and restricts nighttime movement, and a menacing band of secret police called "Fingermen" who patrol the streets and harass the citizens.

Somehow all that seems just like yesterday.

WARNING... don't click that link above unless you want to more than you should about V before you see it.

The Battle for America... by Alrick A. Brown, a graduate student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts is a streaming short - not to be missed! A writer and teacher, he has found his calling directing and producing narrative films and documentaries on social issues affecting the world at large.

Road to Guantanamo

The Road to Guantanamo won the prestigious Silver Bear for Direction for Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross in competition at The 56th Berlin International Film Festival.

Brittain's Channel 4 interviewed him in preparation for a March 9, 2006 airing of the saga on how a group of friends set off to a wedding in Pakistan in September 2001 and somehow blunder into the war in Afghanistan. The film-makers tell the story using reconstructions with actors, newsreel footage and interviews. At the outset, we hear President Bush solemnly telling the world that the Guantánamo prisoners are "bad guys". Once we meet Ruhel, Asif, Shafiq and Monir, the irony becomes evident. The young Brits, who became know as the Tipron Three, that Bush seems to regard as the embodiment of evil are ordinary lads, neither especially political nor devoutly religious.

No stranger to making movies about controversial issues, Winterbottom won the Berlin International Film Festival's top prize in 2003 for "In this World," which portrayed people fleeing Afghanistan by using real refugees as actors, and combined drama and documentary.

You can rent for 48 hours or buy this film... either way online at: videoclub.tiscali.co.uk

If you intend to download a film to yur PC and then want to project it on a TV... here's a lesson on how to hook it all together:
http://videoclub.tiscali.co.uk/info/tv.html
UK police arrest stars of award-winning film "The Road to Guantanamo" under the Prevention of Terrorism Act