What are your favorite documentaries on current events/ politics/ international situations?

Cafe Society
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You know, phrasing the title of this post was a little more difficult than anticipated. Especially that interntiaonal part. Oh well, let me explain!

I’m a high school debate coach (I know, I know! You’re probably impressed with my exceptional coolness. It’s understandable :D.) and I feel like one of my primary objectives is to expose the kids to the happenings of the world around them. After all, nobody really talks to teenagers about politics (then we wonder why they don’t vote when they turn 18), except for one semester of government their senior year. It’s difficult for even savvy adults to get good, solid information about global political situations, so a teenager who doesn’t even understand the basic history of various global crises is going to have zero interest in whatever it is, assuming they can even find info.

And that’s why I like to teach the kids about all kinds of random “current event” things. Whether it’s explaining our tax system to them or the Israeli Palestinian conflict, I want the kids to have a nice foundation to be good citizens some day. I know, that’s silly; but hey, it’s true.

My new idea is to do “movie night” every two weeks, where we get together, watch a documentary, discuss it (I may bring in supplementary materials), and eat lots of snacks (hey, it’s teenagers, after all). Now, I’m a big documentary fan: I know I’ve found myself utterly stunned by the information and images in certain films. Heck, my favorite thing about HBO on Demand is watching interesting documentaries all day.

That said, I’d love some suggestions as far as what some of your favorite, most compelling documentaries are. The documentaries can be about domestic or foreign stuff. They can be about political issues or social. Supreme Court cases or daily life somewhere.

Last night I watched Love Crimes of Kabul, which was a really interesting look at women in Afghani prisons for crimes like premarital sex. I found it really interesting, but I’m not sure it’ll appeal to my debaters. It may though. I know that last year, I mentioned to some of the kids (and their parents who were there, no worries :)) that the Vice Guide to N Korea was really interesting and they all ended up going home and loving it. A few watched the Liberia one, which I warned their parents ahead of time was way, way messed up.

Some cursing is fine so long as it’s necessary cursing (;)), I’d prefer if there wasn’t really nudity, and no overt sex.

Oh man, this OP is much longer than anticipated. :eek:

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CBC’s “Doc Zone” is my favourite documentary show on tv (I usually watch the episodes online, though).

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Who Killed the Electric Car. Might be some things to debate there.

Starsuckers, about celebrity culture and the media, hypothesising the origins thereof in evolutionary psychology.

The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan. About the practice of warlords in Afghanistan and their underage boy sex slaves.

The Shock Doctrine. About disaster-capitalism, Naomi Klein.

Inside Deep Throat. Might not be suitable, but an interesting exploration of the porn industry and its relationship to organised crime and sexual coercion.

Power of Nightmares. About the use of terrorism to promote repressive government, and the similarities between Straussian neo-conservatives and Islamism.

Requiem for Detroit. Very interesting look at the development of post-industrial society.

Taxi to the Dark Side. On the subject of extraordinary rendition, torture, and other burning issues of the day.

War You Don’t See. A John Pilger documentary about the propensity of the media to obscure the more unpleasant aspects of war in favour of the more heroic perceptions.

Taking Liberties. From the maker of Starsuckers, about the removal of civil liberties in response to the supposed terror threat.

Client 9. About “The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer”.

Human Resources. About involuntary human experimentation.

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Many documentaries are such that they can be be reasonably termed as “biased”, but I think there’s still a lot of good information in them. I’d just caution against seeming to be too slanted one way in which ones you present to the kids, so as not to find yourself having to listen to complaints from parents too often; I highly suggest you screen them yourself before you show them to the students.

That said, here’s a list of some from my collection, broken down into subject areas, and with more likely debatable content marked with a *:

War

Why We Fight*
The Fog Of War*
The Ground Truth

Crime

Brother’s Keeper*
Capturing The Friedmans*
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.*

Art

Rize
In The Realms Of The Unreal*
Jandek On Corwood*
Get Thrashed: The Story Of Thrash Metal
Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey
Modulations*
Better Living Through Circuitry*
Style Wars*
Rock School*
The Filth And The Fury
We Jam Econo
The Confessions of Robert Crumb

Random Social Documentaries

49 Up
Who Killed The Electric Car?*
What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Sex, Drugs & Democracy*

I won’t list them because they’re too easy to find on your own, but Michael Moore’s films have great debatable content, and you might find that An Inconvenient Truth still elicits much to talk about.

I also watch a lot of things on Vice. The whole site is basically nothing but awesome documentaries that would only appeal to a niche audience. The ones about going to North Korea and to Liberia were what hooked me into their site, but there seems to be no end of interesting things to watch there.

ETA: You might also want to look over this old thread about documentaries.