Videos

Audiovisual materials are great to use as educational tools, to organize information nights or use in your events. They are categorized by the name of the group that produced them. Check them out, and remember to order you must email me at info@kersplebedeb.com Wholesale discounts of 40% available to stores and activist groups.

3 Black Panthers & the Last Slave Plantation, narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal. This DVD tells the story of three members of the Black Panther Party known collectively as the Angola Three, who were politicized through contact with members of the Black Panther Party while inside prison, and in 1971 formed one of the only recognized prison Panther chapters. Under conditions of segregation, racism, and repression, they organized other prisoners to build a movement for their rights; an astonishing feat given Angola Prison’s history of repression. The focus of 3 Black Panthers and the L. S. P. is on the hidden facts and cover-ups that have surrounded and clouded their cases since the 1970s. In addition, the movie explores the political climate of the 1960s and 70s that produced political prisoners in America, situating the Angola 3 within the political unrest of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements that emerged within prison walls in America. Having just watched this DVD last night, i can tell you that what most impressed me was the way that the producers were able to deconstruct the way in which these three men were framed – not an easy thing to do when dealing with a “crime” allegedly committed behind prison walls. Not to mention the kind of vertigo one gets when seeing so many interviews with so many revolutionaries who paid such heavy prices for their commitment to the struggle… definitely worth watching and showing to your friends!

Anarchism in America

Two fascinating documentaries, both the work of Emmy and Guggenheim Award-winning filmmakers, Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher. In the first, Anarchism in America, the two take a road trip to map anarchism as a distinctly American tradition, interviewing a diverse cast of characters: from “ordinary” truckers and farmers to famous anarchists like Kenneth Rexroth, Ursula LeGuin, and Murray Bookchin. The second, Free Voice of Labor, traces the history of the Yiddish anarchist newspaper of that name — publishing its final issue after 87 years — as told by its now elderly, but decidedly unbowed staff. Also included is first hand accounts of the labor organizing, propaganda, educational experiments, and monumental contributions from these cherished, if largely unsung, heroes of the American anarchist movement.

Behind the Mask: The Story of People Who Risk Everything to Save Animals (DVD)Steven Best (Contributor), Ingrid Newkirk (Contributor), Shannon Keith (Director), Ramy Hassan (Producer), Sandra Mohr (Editor), and Rod Coronado (Contributor)The Animal Liberation Front, comprised of clandestine animal rights activists, is now labeled the number one domestic terrorist threat by the FBI. Director Shannon Keith goes Behind the Mask and captures the hearts and souls of men and women who unveil their individual struggles for Animal Liberation. Who are these “animal liberationists” and why do they believe that breaking the law is the best way to help animals? What inspires them to challenge the status quo, fight against all odds, and endure public reproach?

Behind the Mask exposes never-before-seen footage that reveals the extent to which these individuals will go to save the lives of animals. People of all ages and backgrounds, from all over the globe, tell their tales of liberation, incarceration, sacrifice and determination, while exclusive underground footage reveals heart-thumping action sure to leave you wondering, who are these people…?

Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas

What is democracy? Freedom, equality, participation? Everyone has his or her own definition. Across the world, 120 countries now have at least the minimum trappings of democracy—the freedom to vote for all citizens. But for many, this is just the beginning not the end. Following decades of US-backed dictatorships, civil wars and devastating structural adjustment policies in the South, and corporate control, electoral corruption, and fraud in the North, representative politics in the Americas is in crisis. Citizens are now choosing to redefine democracy under their own terms: local, direct, and participatory.

In 1989, the Brazilian Worker’s Party altered the concept of local government when they installed participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, allowing residents to participate directly in the allocation of city funds. Ten years later, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was swept into power with the promise of granting direct participation to the Venezuelan people; who have now formed tens of thousands of self-organized communal councils. In the Southern Cone, cooperative and recuperated factory numbers have grown, and across the Americas social movements and constitutional assemblies are taking authority away from the ruling elites and putting power into the hands of their members and citizens.

Featuring interviews with: Eduardo Galeano, Amy Goodman, Emir Sader, Martha Harnecker, Ward Churchill, and Leonardo Avritzer as well as cooperative and community members, elected representatives, academics, and activists from Brazil, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina, United States, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, and more.

Beyond Elections is a journey that takes us across the Americas to attempt to answer one of the most important questions of our time: What is Democracy?

Extras include video, audio, and resource materials on participatory democracy.

Black and Gold: The Story of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation. In 1994, the Latin Kings — the largest and most powerful street gang in New York — became the Latin King and Queen Nation. They claimed to have abandoned their criminal past and to be following in the footsteps of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords. In 1997 Big Noise Films became the only media group ever given unrestricted access to the Nation. For two years they ran with the Kings and Queens in New York City, filming on the front lines of their everyday struggle for survival. This film is the result, a mix of interviews with members, touching on questions of anti-Puerto Rican racism, police brutality. gender dymamics amongst the Kings and Queens. From the outside, this is an informative if somewhat uncritical look at a very interesting Puerto Rican NYC street organization in the 1990s. DVD 80 minutes – Big Noise Films $19.95

Born in Flames

Set in America ten years after the Second American Revolution, Born in Flames is a sci-fi fantasy of armed female rebellion. As much as anything else this is an artefact of the 1980s, when anarcha-feminist director Lizzie Borden shot the film, giving a glimpse of what people were thinking of, and also of what they weren’t thinking.  More than twenty years later, parts of Borden’s fantasy are still worth dreaming about…You can read a 1987 interview with Lizzie Borden about this film, anarchism, feminism, and her other work – from the Toronto anarchist newspaper Kick It Over and now on my site here.

Charisse Shumate: Fight For Our Lives. Charisse Shumate was a life term prisoner incarcerated for 16 years at the Central California Women’s Facility for defending herself against an abusive partner. A co-founder of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, she championed the cause of battered women when no one else was rallying to their support, and later stepped forward to be the lead plaintiff and prisoner spokesperson in the class action lawsuit challenging the medical neglect and abuse of women prisoners (aptly named Shumate v. Wilson). She died of complications from sickle cell anemia, cancer and hepatitis C in 2001. This 37-minute video was created in collaboration with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and focuses on Shumate’s life and the lives of women in California State prisons. It includes amazing prison interviews as well as materials from State Senate hearings on conditions for women in the California State Prison System and historical video footage of Charisse and her family.

Deserter. The journey of Ryan and Jen Johnson — a deserting soldier and his young wife — as they flee across the country to seek refugee status over the Canadian border. As they move from safe house to safe house, we get to know Ryan and Jen — two, shy, small-town kids from the Central Valley who joined the military because there were no jobs, and find they must make a heroic stand in order to escape an illegal and immoral war. Deserter  is a political road movie with one of the few happy endings that this war has given us.

Engendering Colonialism: The Effect of 100 Years of U.S. Colonialism on Women in Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines. An educational history created by the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. We live in a world where both old and new forms of U.S. colonialism co-exist, and both depend on the exploitation of women. Locating the origins of U.S. colonialism abroad in the thefy of Native American lands by European settlrs and the conquest of northern Mexico in 1848, it goes on to examine the effect on U.S. expansionism on women, and how women ae resisting the effects of colonialism.

G-Sprout, by Mark Karbusicky and Mirha-Soleil Ross. A cyberspace encounter turns into a trans-polysexus-vegan-docu-porno featuring urban veggie-lovers speaking out on dating, intimacy and sex in a meat-centered culture.

Grito Subterraneo El Video: 19 Bandas en escena y la Realidad de los 80’s en el Peru

Spanish language without subtitles, this DVD documents the underground music scene in Peru (mainly but not only punk) in the mid-1980s. This was a time when both Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA were engaged in increasingly heavy confrontations with the State, which responded by unleashing greater and greater levels of repression on the oppressed.The music of that era was intense, fierce, political, and highly original. GRITO gathers concert footage of legendary acts like VOZ PROPIA, NARCOSIS, MARIA TETA, as well as lesser known but equally outstanding groups like SINKURA, FLEMA, and LUXURIA. Included is news footage documenting the mainstream response to the growing counter-cultural “antics” happening in bars, parks and concert halls all over Lima.

The Jena 6: Narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal. In a small town in Louisiana, six families are fighting for their sons’ lives. Two nooses are left as a warning to Black students trying to integrate their playground, fights break out across town, a white man pulls a shotgun on black students, someone burns down most of the school, the DA puts six black students on trial for attempted murder, and the quiet town of Jena becomes the site of the largest civil rights demonstration in the South since the 1960s. The Jena 6 is the story of hidden racial inequality and violence becoming visible. It is a powerful symbol for, and example of, how racial justice works in America — where the lynching noose has been replaced by the DA’s pen.

Legacy of Torture: The War Against the Black Liberation Movement. In 2005 several former members of the Black Panther Party were held in contempt and jailed for refusing to testify before a San Francisco Grand Jury investigating a police shooting that took place in 1971. The government alleged that Black radical groups were involved in the 34-year old case in which two men armed with shotguns attacked the Ingleside Police Station resulting in the death of a police sergeant and the injuring of a civilian clerk. In 1973, thirteen alleged “Black militants” were arrested in New Orleans, purportedly in connection with the San Francisco events. Some of them were tortured for several days by law enforcement authorities, in striking similarity to the horrors visited upon detainees in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. In 1975, a Federal Court in San Francisco threw out all of the evidence obtained in New Orleans. The two lead San Francisco Police Department investigators from over 30 years ago, along with FBI agents, have re-opened the case. Rather than submit to proceedings they felt were abusive of the law and the Constitution, five men chose to stand in contempt of court and were sent to jail. They were released when the Grand Jury term expired, but have been told by prosecutors that “it isn’t over yet.” This is the story to date: of history, repression, and resistance.BREAKING NEWS: On January 21st 2007 eight former Panthers – including the men efatured in this film – were arrested and charged with in 1971 killing. People across the continent are organizing to protest this vindictive repression – for more information visit CDHRsupport.org and download this PDF pamphlet.

Mirha-Soleil Ross’ Gut-Busting Ass-Erupting and Immoderately Whorish Compilation Tape. Includes excerpts from her most illustrious transsexual prostitute and sex-related performance and video work; nicluding Chroniques (1993), An Adventure in Tucking (1993), Dysfunctional (1997), The Sexual Healing Power of the Popcorn Goddess (1998), Tales from the Derriere (1999), Auntie Janou (2000), Bridge It Taylor: RRReal Feminist! (2001), G-SPrOuT! (2002).

Rod Coronado – A Voice for Liberation. By Mark Karbusicky. The fur industryès brutal exploitation of animals is exposed and linked to the genocide perpetrated against indigenous people in this short video featuring indigenous traditionalist and Animal Liberation Front activist Rod Coronado. This is an excerpt from a much longer interview; to read a transcript of the complete interview please click here.

Self Respect – Self-Defense & Self-Determination, featuring in conversation Mabel Williams and Kathleen Cleaver, introduced by Angela Davis. Mabel Williams, with her late husband Robert F Williams (author of Negroes With Guns), met with Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara and Mao Tse Tung to help internationalize support for the Black Liberation Movement. Kathleen Cleaver was Communications Secretary and the first woman Central Committee member of the Black Panther Party, also lived in exile, gathering worldwide support for the BBP. These two inspiring women of the sixties Black liberation struggle share their personal experiences – resisting the KKK and police repression, forced exile and their international experiences in Third World nations – And how their history relates to the struggle today. Moderated by Rachel Herzing of Critical Resistance, and introduced by Angela Davis.

Struggle for the Land: Interviews with Participants at the Six Nations Reclamation (April-May 2006).  This 90 minute DVD consists of a series of interviews with First Nations activists occupying the site and video of the protests and counter protests concerning the reclamation of the Douglas Creek Estates. In what ranks as one of the most significant indigenous confrontations with the Canadian State since the 1990 Oka crisis, participants speak in their own words about what is at stake in their struggle. Includes videos with reclamation site spokesperson Jacqueline House, Six Nations resident Robin Williams, supporter Mike Desroches, a member of the Mohawk Warrior Society, kitchen organizers Gene and Ruby,  footage of the racist anti-native protests and a variety of interviews with Caledonia residents. All footage filmed and produced by Tom Keefer. Proceeds of the sales of this video will go to supporting the Six Nations struggle at Douglas Creek Estates.

Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out. By longtime Latin American solidarity activist Clifton Ross, this documentary is a look at the people at the base of the social upheaval in Venezuela, known to many as the “Bolivarian Revolution”. Ross travels the country, visiting schools, rural lending banks and cooperatives, showing the strengths and weaknesses, the warp and wood, of the “Socialism of the 21st Century”.

Voices of Three Political Prisoners, This DVD includes:

• Call Me Nuh, based on an interview conducted with Nuh Washington in 1988, and Nuh’s Last Statement recorded shortly before he passed away. Albert Nuh Washington, a former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, was imprisoned in 1971 as a result of the U.S. government’s war against the Black Liberation Movement and subsequently spent 29 years as a political prisoner (one of the New York Three). He died alone of cancer in the U.S. prison system on April 28, 2000.
• Voice of Liberation, Jalil Muntaqim in a prisoner of war, and one of the two surviving New York Three. This section was produced and edited by Eve Goldberg and Claude Marks in November 2002, based on an interview done in August 2000 by John O’Reilly and Nina Dibner. (click here for more about Jalil)
• A Lifetime of Struggle, a thirty minute documentary based on an interview conducted in 1998 with David Gilbert, one of the longest held anti-imperialist political prisoners in the world. A leader of the 1968 Columbia University student strike and within students for a Democratic societry, in the 1970s David joined the Weather Underground Organization and worked within the clandestine struggle throughout the decade. Along with others, he was convicted on a conspiracy charge for his participation in a Brinks truck hold-up aiming to raise funds for the Black Liberation Army in 1981. He is currentkly serving a seventy five year sentence without possibility of parole. This interview took place in July, 1998 at Great Meadows Prison, Comstock, New York. It is part of the oral history of the radical movements of the 1960s and 70s, and is useful for starting discussions in classes and study groups. (click here for more information about David)

Previously each of these documentaries have been available separately in VHS format – they are now for the first time all available together on one DVD.

The War of 33: Letters from Beirut. An intimate, personal and powerful telling of the story of the 2006 war in Lebanon. A series of letters written by Hanady Salman — a mother living through the war in Beirut — carve a narrative arc through the intense and haunting images of conflict. She tells the stories of her family and the people she lives the war with — the refugees, the wounded, and the everyday Lebanese, struggling to maintain their sanity and their humanity during a time of war.

What We Want – What We Believe: The Black Panther Library

For the first time on DVD, AK Press is proud to present three acclaimed Newsreel Films on the Black Panther Party: Off the Pig; Mayday; and Repression. Accompanying the Newsreel films is a massive quantity of rare and exclusive materials culled from Roz Payne’s extensive collection of FBI documents, correspondence, and interviews with Black Panthers and their supporters. It’s all here, the government-sponsored repression, the trials, exile, triumph, and reunion. This is not a straight-forward documentary — the additional materials are like Roz Payne’s home movies — but more like a tapestry woven from fragments of cloth. As a whole, these fragments present a rich and provocative history, straight from the mouths of Panthers, their supporters, and even the agents charged with neutralizing them. A portion of the proceeds from this project will go to support Black Panther Prisoners through Books Behind Bars, the Jericho Movement, and the Human Rights Research Fund. We urge you to seek out these groups and donate time and resources to their ongoing work.

Yapping out Loud. On May 1st 2002 transsexual sex worker and performance artist Mirha-Soleil Ross delivered a series of blows in monologue form at anti-prostitution discourses and campaigns, detailing the way they impact, often tragically, on prostitutes’ working conditions and lives. This is a video recording of the event that took place at the 519 Community Centre in Toronto. To read an interview with Ms. Ross about this video (amongst other things!) please click here .

Like all the rest of my merchandise, the best way to order any of these is to email me !

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