Showing a documentary on your campus is an excellent way to raise awareness and advance the campaign, initiative, or project you are organizing on your campus or in your community. AID has a large variety of documentaries, which we lend out for free. We think that this is a fantastic way to engage members of your community in important global issues.  You can show the film and then lead a discussion afterwards on a college campus, in a community institution such as a public library or church, or event at your apartment! 

We encourage you to screen a documentary as the launching point for a campus campaign or establishment of a campus chapter. Take the momentum gained from your film screening and use it to draw even more attention to urgent issues!

AID is currently offering movie kits, which include the DVD and discussion guide, a comprehensive organizing toolkit to secure a venue and attract large audiences, and $35 mini-grants to reimburse for copying flyers and buying light refreshments. AID is only sending out copies of the film that we have received from production companies with the express purpose of having public educational screenings.  You must not charge admission or issue tickets for your events. 

AID is only sending out copies of the film that we have received from production companies with the express purpose of having public educational screenings.  You must not charge admission or issue tickets for your events. 

Please click here to sign-up in order receive one of the following films. We will then email you with all the materials you will need to publicize your event! To access comprehensive organizing toolkits with pre-tailored templates to help you reserve room, recruit co-sponsors, invite professors and students, contact the press, and so much more, click on the topic area that most closely matches the theme of your selected documentary: development, environment, health, or peace and security. AID staff are happy to support you - just call 410-962-8770 or 8773!

Environmental Films

Addicted to Oil
Examines a wide variety of developments taking place across the energy spectrum, from hybrid car enthusiasts who are converting their autos into "plug-ins" and getting 300 miles to a gallon of gas, to the current state of the hydrogen fuel cell. Other areas explored include "flex-fuel" vehicles that can run on an assortment of biofuels such as ethanol, which emits virtually no greenhouse gases and can be made from almost any biomass — like sugar cane, corn and even certain types of grass. (For example, in Brazil, 40 percent of all fuel used by drivers is ethanol.) Solar and especially wind power have made great advances in practical technologies that are increasingly being used throughout the world. Global warming is no longer a matter of debate, but a proven problem of potentially catastrophic proportions. As Friedman discovers in the course of our program, there is much we could do immediately, with technology at hand, to break our addiction to oil — and developing technologies promise a future free of a sole dependence on fossil fuels, a truly post-oil era. It can be done, if we have the will and leadership to do it. 60 minutes.

Global Peace and Security Films

America's Funniest Muslim: A Townhall with Azhar Usman
Azhar Usman is a Muslim comedian whose purpose is to improve and promote cultural understanding of Islam and Muslim population. He was born in Chicago and received his bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois and his J.D. from University of Minnesota Law School. He started a career in comedy in 2001 and since then he has performed stand-up in many major American cities as well as abroad in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He most recently finished a comedy tour with fellow comedians Mohammed Amer and Preacher Moss entitled "Allah Made Me Funny."

Between Two Fires
This filim documents the results of two decades of armed conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government in the Northern Uganda, which has caused some nearly two million civilians to be displaced from their homes. While the LRA have been perpetrators of these crimes, the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), the national army, has also committed human rights violations against civilians that include extrajudicial killing and torture. Through the personal stories of torture survivors, Between Two Fires advocates for official acknowledgement of these abuses, redress for torture victims, as well as implementation of legislative measures to strengthen national mechanisms against the use of torture. 14 minutes.

Beyond Belief*
Susan Retik and Patti Quigley were widowed on September 11, 2001. Their husbands were both victims of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, leaving their wives alone with their children and families. Although grief stricken at first, these two widows channeled their grief into growth by learning more about the country and people of Afghanistan, the country where the terrorists who killed their husbands were trained. They realized that this was a country suffering from 23 years of war. While Susan and Patti were tragically impacted by the events of 9/11, there were thousands of women in Afghanistan who were impacted in a similar way by the years of war in the country. Susan and Patti wanted to connect with these women. Although they were almost half way around the world and from a completely different culture, Patti and Susan knew that since 9/11 they had a connection to these Afghani women, a bond that would last forever. And with this in mind, they embarked on their journey and mission to help the lives of these Afghani widows in any way they possibly could.

Cities of Light
This film takes viewers on an epic journey back into one of the most fascinating and important periods of world history. It tells a story of vital importance for our contemporary world about the triumphs and shortcomings, achievements and ultimate failures of a centuries-long period when Muslims, Christians and Jews inhabited the same far corner of Western Europe and built a society that lit the Dark Ages. Cities of Light shows how it was possible for Muslims, Christians and Jews to co-exist and thrive together—and yet how fragile that union can be when religious extremism begins to rise. The glories of Islamic Spain are beautifully rendered, but the film does not flinch when vividly portraying the violence and horror that ultimately engulfed it—violence that seems similar to what we witness today. The history of Islamic Spain demonstrates that when religious diversity is accommodated within a social and political system, problems and tensions may still exist, but society is able to successfully manage them, generally to the benefit of all. But when a power system or religious movement rejects complexity and insists on a single cultural and religiously-centered point of view, then society is likely to come to grief with everyone losing something. 116 minutes.

Great Decisions 2008 Edition*
Foreign Policy Association's "Great Decisions 2008 Edition" is a continuation of the highly coveted series of documentaries that highlight 8 pressing social issues of 2008. Each topic is comprehensively examined as how it relates to the future of the United States as well as the world. This years topics consist of: "Exiting Iraq: Deadline for Democracy," "The European Union at 50," "Dangerous Dialogue," "Reexamining Russia," "Waning War Machine? The State of the U.S. Military," "The Latin American Left," "Out of Balance: U.S.-China Trade," and finally "Philanthropy and the Rise of Global Giving."

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib*
The familiar and disturbing pictures of torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison raise many troubling questions: How did torture become an accepted practice at Abu Ghraib? Did U.S. government policies make it possible? How much damage has the aftermath of Abu Ghraib had on America's credibility as a defender of freedom and human rights around the world? Acclaimed filmmaker Rory Kennedy looks beyond the headlines to investigate the psychological and political context in which torture occurred in the powerful documentary GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB.

Hacking Democracy*
Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. The timely, cautionary documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system.

Heavy Metal In Baghdad*
Heavy Metal started out of an article about the band that Vice magazine ran in 2004. Unable to shake the idea of these four musicians struggling to make a go of the rock-and-roll life in the middle of a war zone, a pair of Vice journalist/filmmakers (Moretti and Alvi) went to Iraq a year later to find out what was going on with the band. What the rather raggedly produced film still manages to vividly put across is that, like many elements of Iraqi society, after the 2003 American invasion, things for the band members went from bad to worse. Under Saddam Hussein, Acrassicauda (a superbly metal name, it comes from the Latin for "black scorpion" and is regularly misspelled by the band members) were barely allowed to play, which was insult enough. But in Baghdad's post-invasion sectarian tumult, the English-speaking metalheads were seen as practically infidels. In a bitterly comic aside, one of them notes how some Islamists claimed that the long-haired headbangers were actually singing Jewish prayers and so deserved to die. Death threats and accusations of Satan worship were par for the course.

Invisible Children
This is a rough cut documentary made by several young Americans to document the war in Northern Uganda, in which children are being abducted by a rebel army and forced to fight as child soldiers.  AID organizers from across the country that have already seen the film say it is one of the most affecting documentaries they’ve ever watched; as Bethany Egan at Grove City College put it, “I can’t even express to you the impact that it had on my heart and mind.”  You can watch a trailer online here and also learn important information about the film and the movement that it has inspired by downloading the media kit. 55 minutes.

Iran (Is Not the Problem)*
IRAN (is not the problem) is a new feature length film responding to the failure of the American mass media to provide the public with relevant and accurate information about the standoff between the US and Iran, as happened before with the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. We have heard that Iran is a nuclear menace in defiance of the international community, bent on "wiping Israel off the map", supporting terrorism, and unwilling to negotiate. This documentary disputes these claims as they are presented to us and puts them in the context of present and historical US imperialism and hypocrisy with respect to Iran.

Last Best Chance
Thanks to the generous support of the Stanley Foundation, AID is offering Last Best Chance. Last Best Chance is a docudrama that shows the threat posed by vulnerable nuclear weapons and materials around the world and underscores what the stakes are.  In the movie, which was produced by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, al Qaeda operatives organize three separate operations aimed at getting nuclear weapons.  The material is then fabricated into three crude nuclear weapons by small groups of trained terrorists, who have recruited bomb-making experts to help them manufacture their weapons.  To learn more, you can read an article about the film that was in The New Yorker and this transcript from “Meet the Press”.  45 minutes.

Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet 
This film travels in the footsteps of the Prophet to the Arabian desert and the holy city of Mecca where much of Muhammad's story unfolded. But the film does not just stay in the past. Much of its story is told through the observations of contemporary American Muslims, including a fireman at the World Trade Center on September 11, a second generation Arab-American family building a community based on Islamic principles, a Congressional Chief of Staff working for justice, and a refugee fleeing religious persecution, whose experiences in some way echo Muhammad’s life.

With some of the world’s greatest scholars on Islam providing historical context and critical perspective, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet is history in the present tense. It tells of intrigue and faith, bitter persecution and the birth of a holy book, brutal war and brilliant diplomacy in a desert environment where tribal allegiance was often the only protection.  This 2 hour documentary film aired on PBS in December 2002 and has broadcast worldwide on numerous channels.

The Power of Good
On September 1, 1939, World War II broke out and the Nazi Army began it's attack and dominance over the European continent. But even before the war began, lives were in danger, especially in Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, where children and their families had been taken to refugee camps to await their uninviting fate under Nazi occupation. On a vacation trip to Prague in 1938, Nicholas Winton was shocked to see how many people's, especially children's, lives were at high risk with no way out. There was nobbody taking responsibility for the thousands of children that would be left to the hands of the Nazis, for most people believed that the oncoming war would never arrive. Nicholas Winton felt compelled to do something. Without any organization or money he began to write letters to foreign embassies, asking to admit these "stateless" children into their country. This is the story of Nicholas Winton and his heroic efforts to save hundreds of children from the horrors of Nazi occupation. Even without money, an organization, or a plan, he knew he had to do something to help. Little did he know he would help saves hundreds of lives and consquently be responsible for the lives and families of thousands of people today.

Our Voices Together
This is a short documentary film on the lives of a few families who have lost their loved ones during the tragic attacks of 9/11. From building schools in Afghanistan to providing cultural spaces of dialogue, these families show how their relative's spirit survives through their acts of compassion for others in the Muslim community. Their creation of the organization Our Voices Together encourages others to continue their call for a safer, more compassionate world. 13 minutes.

Outlawed
This film tells the stories of Khaled El-Masri and Binyam Mohamed, two men who have survived extraordinary rendition (a procedure in which a nation sidesteps its human rights commitments by sendingforeign suspects another country for interrogation under less humane conditions), secret detention, and torture by the U.S. government working with various other governments worldwide. Outlawed features relevant commentary from Louise Arbour, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.S. President George W. Bush, Michael Scheuer, the chief architect of the rendition program and former head of the Osama Bin Laden unit at the CIA, and Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State. 30 minutes.

A Son's Sacrifice  
This is a documentary film of 27 year old Imran who takes over a very different family business- a traditional Muslim slaughterhouse in New York City. But his father's demands and the community's doubts may prove too much for him. On the holiest day of the year, Imran must lead a sacrifice that will define him as a Muslim, as an American, and as a son. A Son's Sacrifice is the winner of the "Best Documentary Short" at the TriBeCa Film Festival. 27 minutes.

The Peacekeepers  
With unprecedented access to the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping, The Peacekeepers provides an intimate and dramatic portrait of the struggle to save "a failed state."The film follows the determined and often desperate manoeuvres to avert another Rwandan disaster, this time in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the DRC). Focusing on the UN mission, the film cuts back and forth between the United Nations headquarters in New York and events on the ground in the DRC. We are with the peacekeepers in the 'Crisis Room' as they balance the risk of loss of life on the ground with the enormous sums of money required from uncertain donor countries. We are with UN troops as the northeast Congo erupts and the future of the DRC, if not all of central Africa, hangs in the balance. 83 minutes.

Uganda Rising
This film tells the story of what has been called the world's "biggest hostage crisis", where more than 2 million Acholi living in northern Uganda have been held hostage and terrorized for the past 20 years by a group of rebels known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by their spiritual and military leader Joseph Kony. 82 minutes.

Global Development Films

Andre's Life
Between the months of August 2004 and January 2005, a University of Texas graduate student Joseph Carter, went to Brazil to study the effects of tourism on the favela regions of Rio de Janeiro. Although his studies were mainly on tourism, he found himself more and more interested in the daily life and struggles of those living in the favela regions. This led him to explore the Roupa Suja region in the favelas, in which most of the people survive by picking up trash on a daily basis. Joseph Carter follows the life of Andre, a Roupa Suja inhabitant who takes him on a tour of his daily life and the lives similar to his own, lives of poverty and strife.

Black Gold
This film explains how international commodities markets are rigged against the nations of the global South. The film traces the tangled trail from the two billion cups of coffee consumed each day back to the coffee farmers who produce the beans, and in the process, provides a compelling documentation of how developed countries like the U.S. subsidize agricultural products, flooding the market with low-priced goods, while demanding that poor countries remove tariff barriers and open their markets. It follows Tadesse Meskela as he tries to get a living wage for the 70,000 Ethiopian coffee farmers he represents. Meskela, the representative of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Southern Ethiopia, seeks to circumvent the global commodity exchanges by tirelessly traveling the world selling premium grade coffee directly to coffee roasters who will pay more for his high grade product and who support the idea of paying farmers a living wage. He returns the profits to the cooperative members who use the extra income to build the schools and infrastructure needed to develop their communities. In total, Black Gold provides the most in-depth study of any commodity on film today and offers a compelling introduction to the “fair trade” movement galvanizing consumers around the globe. 77 minutes.

The Day My God Died
This is a feature-length documentary that presents the stories of young girls whose lives have been shattered by the child sex trade. They describe the day they were abducted from their village and sold into sexual servitude as, “The Day My God Died.” The film provides actual footage from the brothels of Bombay, known even to tourists as “The Cages,” captured with “spy camera” technology. It weaves the stories of girls, and their stolen hopes and dreams, into an unforgettable examination of the growing plague of child sex slavery.

Debt of the Dictators
The film asks whether it is fair that poor and innocent people in the world today have to repay the debts of former dictators. The focus of this TV-documentary is the illegitimate debt in Argentina, South Africa, the Philippines, and DR Congo. The documentary looks behind local tourist attractions, and visits the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and the depressing township of Johannesburg, where, where poor youngsters desperately seek jobs. The Journey ends in the slums of Manila. Along the way, the viewer will meet the global debt movements rooted in local civil society: dynamic, popular movements eagerly campaigning for debt cancellation. 58 minutes.

Maquilapolis
Carmen Durán works the graveyard shift in one of Tijuana’s 800 maquiladoras; she is one of six million women around the world who labor for poverty wages in the factories of transnational corporations. After making television components all night, Carmen comes home to a dirt-floor shack she built out of cast-off garage doors from the U.S., in a neighborhood with no sewage lines or electricity. She suffers from on-the-job kidney damage and lead poisoning from her years of exposure to toxic chemicals. She earns six dollars a day on which she must support herself and her three children.

While Maquilapolis shows that globalization gives corporations the freedom to move around the world seeking cheaper labor and more lax environmental regulations, it also shows that organized workers can successfully demand that the laws be enforced. Thanks to her persistence in demanding severance pay, Carmen’s house now has concrete floors. And thanks to her new knowledge of labor rights, she has since taken another factory to the labor board for a violation similar to Sanyo’s; she hopes one day to go to school and become a labor lawyer. Globalization turns workers into a commodity which can be bought anywhere in the world for the lowest price.

MTV Exit: End Exploitation and Trafficking (European Edition)
Human trafficking is the second largest illegal trading network behind drugs in the world. Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of forced labor, sexual exploitation and as a source of income for their traffickers and abusers. The people being trafficked lose their freedom, their rights, their identity and are very often forced into potentially dangerous and/or unhealthy environments with little to no protection. Women are most often traded for forced prostitution and children are most often traded for slave labor. This documentary, hosted by Angelina Jolie, introduces the links of human trafficking by following the stories of girls in Europe, trafficked into sex slavery. In addition, the film investigates the men who pay for these workers and the organizations who try to help women at risk of being trafficked or who have already suffered from the abuse cope with the risks and effects, respectively.

Slum Survivors*
Worldwide, more than a billion people live in slums, with as many as one million in Kibera, Africa’s largest such settlement, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Slum Survivors, IRIN’s first full-length documentary, tells some of their stories. Meet Carol, a single mother of three, who walks miles each day in search of work washing other people’s clothes. It is a hand-to-mouth existence - sometimes she gets work and buys food, but most of the time she and her children go to bed hungry. Meet Dennis Onyango, he fell into poverty when his father left his mother for another woman. Forced out of school because of unpaid fees, he ended up in Mombasa where he found work as a DJ. Life was good until inter-ethnic fighting forced Dennis back to the safety of Nairobi. But poverty and desperation pushed him into a life of crime. Meet Patrick Mburu, he says he has lost many friends to crime and believes hard work is the only way out of poverty for him and his young family. His parents were both alcoholics and so he has had to fend for himself from a young age. Patrick empties latrines for a living. Most toilets in Kibera are privately owned and residents must pay to use them. There are so few toilets that on average each one is shared by more than a thousand people.

Global Health Films

Pills, Profits, and Protests: A Chronicle of the Global AIDS Movement
Pill Profits Protest is a documentary about AIDS treatment activism. It examines the national and international grass roots response to an epidemic that has already overshadowed the Black Death in terms of human lives lost. The demand for access to affordable treatment for 40 million people living with HIV, most of whom live in poor countries, represents one of the most successful political movements of contemporary history.

This documentary examines the battle for access to HIV treatment as the poorest and most marginalized individuals confront larger powers, including governments, corporate bodies and a multinational drug industry that is motivated by profit. This film allows viewers to examine HIV/AIDS issues through a lens of poverty, socioeconomic justice and human rights.

Confronting the Pandemic
The YouthAIDS Global Ambassador, Ashley Judd, is teaming up with her friend Salma Hayek on a one-hour documentary about Judd¹s work with YouthAIDS. On this trip through Central America, she takes Hayek on anunforgettable journey.  From the brothels of Guatemala City to the coast of Honduras, these women are on a mission to get the message out.  It's a message of hope, these young people can change their future by changing the behavior that puts them at risk of infection.

Health for Sale
Health for Sale asks: are the world's largest drug companies, paradoxically, major obstacles to making a healthier world? The film focuses on Big Pharma, the ten largest pharmaceutical makers, who account for 500 billion dollars of world health spending a year and whose 205 billion dollars in pre-tax profits were more than the combined profits of the 490 other Fortune 500 companies. Officials from all sides debate the impact of drug companies' patenting, "intellectual property," pricing and new product development strategies on global public health. These policies, according to Nobel Prize winning economist and former World Bank Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz "are condemning billions of the world's poorest citizens to death." 59 minutes.

India's Hidden Plague
This film documents the Youth AIDS Global Ambassador and Actress Ashley Judd on her trip to India where she explored the lives of many at risk for HIV or already infected men, women and children. She travels through the brothels of Mumbai, truck stops in Jaipur as well as affluent communities in Delhi to explore and reveal the immediate threat of the spread of HIV. The film was made to spread awareness as well as fundraise to support the efforts of Youth AIDS in their mission to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS in the world.

Malaria Fever Wars
This film highlights man's interminable fight against malaria, a disease which kills millions every year, and which is continuing to worsen. It delivers an up-to-date account of the global malaria situation from the perspectives of a few heroic individuals, each fighting their own very different battles against the disease. 120 minutes.

Silent Killers 
This is a powerful new documentary that tells us that there are still a billion hungry people in the world and that 15,000 children die each day of hunger.  Taking us to South Africa, Kenya and Brazil, the documentary provides the viewer with a message of optimism that innovative programs are showing us how global hunger can be eradicated. 57 minutes.

Tracking the Monster This VH1 News documentary chronicles two emotional journeys to Africa by Golden Globe nominee Ashley Judd and Grammy winner India.Arie. They travel to the front lines of the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Through their eyes and in their own words, Ashley and India.Arie tell the stories of lives forever changed by the pandemic and witness how the disease is decimating communities in Kenya and Madagascar.

Please email arya@aidemocracy.org with any questions or concerns regarding film requests.

* denotes a new addition to AID's media library