Active Measures

Forget the pie charts, color-coded maps and hyperventilating pundits. What's the street-level experience of voters in today's America? In a triumph of documentary storytelling, ELECTION DAY combines eleven stories--all shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight--into one. Factory workers, ex-felons, harried moms, Native American activists and diligent poll watchers, from South Dakota to Florida, take the process of democracy into their own hands. The result: an entertaining, inspiring and sometimes unsettling tapestry of citizens determined on one fateful day to make their votes count.

Looking back at the history of the struggle for true equality, we follow the daughters and sons of immigrant workers who have been nominated as candidates representing "diversity" in various election campaigns since the 2007 presidential election. On the ground, through meetings, debates, and more "intimate" encounters with candidates and actors from past struggles, a great diversity of thought emerges. But they all have the same goal: not to be just "candidates for Beurs." With many activists from working-class neighborhoods, from Clichy-sous-Bois to Marseille, via Roubaix, and candidates Mouloud Aounit, Kamel Hamza, Faouzi Lamdaoui, Halima Boumedienne, Omar Slaouti, Samia Ghali, Karim Zeribi, Rama Yade, and others... Will these "new faces" of the Republic be in the picture when the votes are counted, or will they simply be "candidates for the Beurs"?

Kazuo Hara follows Ayumi Yasutomi, a transgender candidate, who is also a Tokyo University professor, as she embarks on a national campaign for a seat in Japan's Upper House.

Fueled by a raging libido, Wild Turkey, and superhuman doses of drugs, Thompson was a true "free lance, " goring sacred cows with impunity, hilarity, and a steel-eyed conviction for writing wrongs. Focusing on the good doctor's heyday, 1965 to 1975, the film includes clips of never-before-seen (nor heard) home movies, audiotapes, and passages from unpublished manuscripts.

November 5, 2024 is election day and the USA is facing a momentous decision linked to the questions: Will Kamala Harris succeed in becoming the first woman President of the USA? Or will Donald Trump return to the White House? What consequences would a Trump victory have for the USA, the world and especially for Germany? Ingo Zamperoni, together with filmmaker Birgit Wärnke, embarks on a multifaceted journey through a country that seems more irreconcilable and polarized than ever before. The well-known Tagesthemen anchorman discusses the election-deciding issues such as inflation, migration, abortion and the Ukraine war during visits to members of his partly American family and their acquaintances, but also with celebrities such as pop star and Trump friend Kid Rock, football legend Jürgen Klinsmann, who lives in California, and the former commander of the US Army in Europe, Ben Hodges.

After tasteless tweets about the Trump assassination, Sebastian "El Hotzo" Hotz was the butt of everyone's jokes. Now he has the chance to make amends: he is to travel to the USA and apologize to the Americans in person.

Michael Moore visits colleges in swing states during the 2004 election with a goal to encourage 18–29 year olds to vote.

This observational documentary follows the men behind the Super-PACs that persuaded Dr Ben Carson to run for President. Believing Carson can save the Republican Party, they successfully draft him to run, raise millions of dollars and catapult him to the top of the polls. However, as Carson's political inexperience begins to show, his constant media gaffes make fundraising increasingly difficult. Donors and voters abandon Carson's campaign as wallets close, hearts open and faith is tested. As Trump inexplicably rises, the campaign descends into chaos and the PACmen begin to wonder - did they pick the wrong savior?

German national election campaign 2002: Henryk Wichmann from the conservative party is fighting a lost battle in the Uckermark.

Let's look back at the 18th presidential vote. The 13,500 ballot boxes were taken to 251 ballot count locations and were sorted by 1,300 automatic ballot openers. The chairman announced the sorted data and soon it was announced to the public. But something strange happened. The 251 ballot count locations found 'a number' that have the same pattern. Scientists, mathematicians, statistician and hackers from all over the country start looking into the secret of 'this number'. The result is tremendously shocking...

A cultural portrait of the American dream at a critical time in the nation’s history. Set against the 2016 American election, The King takes a musical road trip across the country in Elvis Presley's 1963 Rolls Royce.

Fayçal Hammoum recounts the 2014 presidential election through non-voting inhabitants of Algiers who, like him, are in their thirties. Be it Bilel, a grocer by default exposed to his customers’ political babbling, or the more politically-charged comments of Younes, a militant FM radio journalist opposed to President Bouteflika’s fourth term, the variety of conversational scenes in no way changes the determination not to vote for an old man who has been invisible for almost two years. The rappers Omar and Brahim are as bereft of hope and voter’s cards as the Tellek webradio DJ, since “the match is fixed”. Moving away from his focus on this subject to film their daily life, the filmmaker draws the portrait of a generation who, as Bilal says with poignant simplicity, “just wants to live

Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.

Lars Jessen accompanies Robert Habeck during the 2025 federal election campaign and talks to companions from all phases of Habeck's life. He examines the question of how politics functions in the current era and in the context of the eruption of democratic systems.

In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.

Fourty years ago, in May 1981, with François Mitterrand's election, some people were letting themselves dream about a better life while others were predicting the coming of soviet tanks upon the Champs-Élysées. If we gladly remember the turning point of austerity in 83, there were also the wage rises, the fifth week of paid leave, the abolition of death penalty, the decriminalisation of homosexuality, or the advent of independent radio stations. Rare archives and accounts by those who were at the heart of this story give an overview of it and shed light on lesser-known aspects.

A look at the swelling wave of efforts to disenfranchise voters across the U.S. using the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp as a case study for understanding America's restrictive measures in 2024. Through personal stories of voters in battleground states, this film is a rallying call against the calculated, unconstitutional, and racist attacks intended to destroy democracy in the United States.

A documentary that examines the cultural stereotype of the people of Appalachia and how that has affected America's relationship with its rural communities.

Moscow, January 1996. Boris Yeltsin gets ready to run for a second mandate of the presidency of the young Russian Federation. Polls are in the single digits. A painful economic transition, war in Chechnya, and the rise of criminal groups have left the majority of Russians dissatisfied with Yeltsin… and willing to vote for the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. Yet six months later, Yeltsin won the election with nearly 54% of the vote. How did that happen?

In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of modernity. One of his first decisions was to break up the ORTF with the creation of three new television channels: TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3. Three new public channels but autonomous and competing. It is a race for the audience which is engaged then, and from now on the channels will make the war! This competition will give birth to a real golden age for television programs, with variety shows in the forefront. The stars of the song are going to invade the living rooms of the French for their biggest pleasure. This unedited documentary tells the story of the metamorphosis of this television of the early 1970s, between freedom of tone, scandals, political intrigues and programs that have become mythical.