Awesome Stuff: Documentary Day

from the true-storytelling dept

For this week's awesome stuff, we've got a few informative film projects doing the rounds on Kickstarter.

Arresting Power

With the ever-present issue of police abuse and racial profiling currently coming to a head across America, the time is right for the release of a documentary like Arresting Power, which tracks the history of these and related problems in Portland, Oregon, going all the way back to civil rights actions in the 60s. But it didn't catch my eye just because it's topical — there's also an interesting reason the filmmakers need cash. Apparently they gained access to the Oregon Historical Society's film archives, where they got film of meetings and marches dating back over fifty years — but the society wants $6 per second for the rights to use the footage.

The Penalty

Closely tied up with the debate about law enforcement is the debate about the death penalty, so our second documentary this week is The Penalty, which follows the stories of three different people whose lives are tangled up with capital punishment in different ways, including an exonerated inmate who spent 15 years on death row.

RealAnimalsFakePaws

Okay, I'm cheating a bit here, since this one isn't exactly a documentary. But we all remember a couple of months ago when John Oliver created footage of dogs dressed as Supreme Court justices and challenged the internet to create videos of all the major cases, right? Well, one person at least is aiming to do exactly that, with the ambitious plan of doing every recorded Supreme Court case one mini-Kickstarter at a time. There's only a day left to help him hit his modest $250 goal, and I for one think he deserves a shot to show everyone what he can do!

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, documentary