The Devil and the Death Penalty

The Big One

September 1997 •English

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

Processo per stupro

March 1979 •Italian

The first rape trial aired on the italian television.

I Don't Like Mondays

January 2006 •English

A documentary about the killing spree of Brenda Spencer, the 16-year-old schoolgirl who opened fire on a school playground in January 1979, killing two men and injuring eight children. Her only explanation of her actions was "I don't like Mondays". This incident was the first ever school shooting of its kind, and inspired the Boomtown Rats' number one hit song I Don't Like Mondays

Interview With A Murderer

June 2016 •English

A famed criminologist reexamines the evidence in this powerful interview with murderer Bert Spencer, suspected in the killing a paperboy in 1978.

Night and Fog

April 1959 •French

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Shooting the Mafia

November 2019 •English

Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia began a long battle against the ruthless Cosa Nostra when she first photographed the sinister scene of a brutal murder. Documenting the barbaric rule of the Italian Mafia, she was an unwavering witness to its crimes. Her art and courage helped end the horrific and bloody reign of the Corleonesi clan.

Le Procès du viol

September 2013 •French

The Hanbok on the Court

September 2020 •Korean

Por Favor, Socorro

June 2021 •Portuguese

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

April 2005 •German

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

Drive-by Shooting

February 1994 •English

With a movie camera mounted in the passenger seat of his car, Andy Anderson drove around filming his local neighbourhood of Fort Worth, Texas. The procession of sunny lawns and quiet houses has a day-dreamy innocence, however on the soundtrack, a narrator recites from the police records of over 600 crimes committed in the area. Domestic violence, petty theft, drug related assault; the list of vicious and hapless actions unfolds randomly, "a woman said her husband punched her in the face when he asked her for ten dollars and she didn't have the money. theft; two lawnmowers.." In a powerful counterpoint of sound and image Drive By Shooting creates a two hour-long surveillance film that misses all the action, yet evokes a sense of vulnerability on the streets and violence behind closed doors.

Defending Our Lives

March 1994 •English

Documentary about the magnitude and severity of domestic violence. This film features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies. It won an Oscar at the 66th Academy Awards in 1994 for Documentary Short Subject.

Amanda Knox

September 2016 •English

This gripping, atmospheric documentary recounts the infamous trial, conviction and eventual acquittal of Seattle native Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of a British exchange student in Italy.

Do You Remember Revolution?

October 1997 •Italian

In Italy, in the mid-seventies, Adriana, Barbara, Nadia and Susanna were 20 years old when they decided to join the armed struggle and leave behind their social life and their families in order to make the revolution the center and the aim of their existence. Today they have returned after many years in prison, and they try, each one of them, to recount their own experiences. They speak about the political reasons which initially sustained them, the conflicts, the doubts, and the moments of being torn apart which market out their lives as women caught up in the vortex of war. A course of events which ended in the condemnation of the armed struggle and the pain of the lives that were destroyed – their victims’ lives and their own.

Free Chol Soo Lee

August 2022 •English

On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.

Standard Operating Procedure

February 2008 •English

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

City of Photographers

November 2006 •Spanish

A film about the fearless photographers and photojournalists who documented strikes, demonstrations, protests etc during the Chilean military regime of Augusto Pinochet, sometimes risking their very lives.

Pimps Up, Ho's Down

December 2000 •English

Brent Owens directs this documentary that follows the life of several "professional gentlemen of leisure." Originally aired on HBO America Undercover and was released on DVD with extended footage.

13th

October 2016 •English

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Seven Winters in Tehran

March 2023 •Persian

After seven years in prison, a female student in Tehran is hanged for murder. She had acted in self-defence against a rapist. For a pardon, she would have had to retract her testimony. This moving film reopens the case.