Prometheus 6

Docs Populi
Raging against the Republican machine
May 11th, 2004 9:30 AM

Richard Clark, Jon Stewart, and Air America are about to get some company in the media assault on George W. Bush. From Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, an incendiary attack on U.S. foreign policy and the Bush-bin Laden connection (premiering in Cannes this week and, as of press time, blocked for release by Disney), to the moveon.org-co-produced Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (opening during the Republican National Convention), politically charged documentaries are showing up in theaters and on television over the next several months. Along with anti-corporate works such as The Corporation, Super Size Me, The Yes Men, and Go Further, an unprecedented surge of activist documentaries is poised to join the election-year debate.

"There seems to be a groundswell of activists who are willing to challenge the information we've been force-fed," says Eamonn Bowles, a New York-based distributor (Magnolia Films) who launches the documentary invasion next week with Jehane Noujaim's Control Room, an inquiry into the media coverage of the current Iraq war as related by Al Jazeera journalists. "Not too long ago, it seemed obvious to me that Bush would get re-elected easily," continues Bowles, "but there really has been this incredible mobilization of the dissatisfied exercising their voice."