Maine Peace Action Committee's Spring Film Series

Winner of the 1974 Academy Award for Best Documentary, Peter Davis' film shows the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on American soldiers returning from the war and on the people of Vietnam. Through combat footage, newsreels, and interviews with such figures as William Westmoreland and Daniel Ellsberg, Hearts and Minds chronicles the evolution of the war in Vietnam, as well as its opposition.

The War on Democracy documents the history of U.S. attempts to subvert democratic movements in Latin America. The film sheds light on U.S. actions such as the use of the ‘School of the Americas', a defense department facility used to train people who eventually took part in the dismantling of democratic movements in places such as El Salvador and Chile, through the use of torture, murder and intimidation.

Darwin's Nightmare is a story of the interconnections between violence and economic exploitation filmed against the background of the destruction of the native species of Lake Victoria by an invasive fish called the Nile Perch. As the Perch are flown by cargo plane from Tanzania to Europe for consumption while children starve near by, the same cargo planes return with arms and munitions that support wars across the African Continent.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is filmmaker Byron Hurt's examination of gender, violence and hyper-masculinity in hip-hop music. Hurt's love for hip-hop music was challenged by what he saw was the sexism, homophobia, violence and false masculinity that was portrayed. In his investigation, Hurt interviews industry executives, rap artists such as Mos Def and Chuck D, hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons, and intellectuals such as Michael Eric Dyson, to understand the cultural and economic forces which are contributing to the violence, sexism and homophobia in the hip-hop industry.