Inspire Action

Act Up!

Act Up! is a clearinghouse of resources made available for those wishing to take a deeper dive into ideas, issues, and other interests INSPIRED by watching Encircle Films documentaries and/or participating in the audience panel discussions following film screenings. Click on the movie headings below – they are linked to individual resource pages.
Looking to get involved, be proactive, take action locally or cast a wider net? Take a look at the listings linked to resources below. If there are additional resources you would like to recommend, please do so at info@encirclefilms.org

SEASON 10

2022 / 2023

Meltdown in Dixie Resource Link Here!

September 21, 2022

Emily Harrold

In the wake of the 2015 Charleston Massacre, a battle erupts in Orangeburg, South Carolina between the Sons of Confederate Veterans and an ice cream shop owner forced to fly the Confederate flag in his parking lot. The film explores the broader role of Confederate symbolism in the 21st century and the lingering racial oppression which these symbols help maintain.

November 2, 2022

Jerry Risius and Beth Levison

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Art Cullen and his family fight to unite and inform their rural Iowan farming community through their biweekly newspaper, The Storm Lake Times – even as the paper hangs on by a thread. Twice a week, they work as civic watchdogs to protect their hometown and the legacy of credible journalism, at large – come hell or pandemic.

December 7, 2022

Christi Cooper

How can we bring accountability over the climate crisis? This inspiring story documents 21 young people from across the country as they file a groundbreaking lawsuit against the United States. The case reveals evidence that the government has endangered their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property by acting over six decades to create the climate crisis.

“The people who are contributing the least amount of carbon emissions to the world are the ones being most affected by it.” – Vic Barrett, Juliana plaintiff.

Once Was Water Resource Link Here!

January 11, 2023

Christopher Beaver

Once Was Water is an upbeat, solutions-oriented documentary that tells the story of how the driest city in America, in the middle of the Mojave desert, leads the United States in sustainable water conservation. The efforts of Las Vegas, in its search for sustainability, have produced important solutions, technological, political, and financial that have on-going global importance.

Behind The Shield Resource Link Here!

February 8, 2023

Dave Zirin

In Behind the Shield, celebrated author and Nation magazine sports editor Dave Zirin tackles the myth that the NFL was somehow free of politics before Colin Kaepernick and other Black NFL players took a knee. Digging deep into the history of the league, and navigating a stunning excavation of decades of archival footage and news media, Zirin traces how the NFL, under the guise of “sticking to sports,” has promoted wars, militarism, and nationalism; glorified reactionary ideas about manhood and gender roles; normalized systemic racism, corporate greed, and crony capitalism; and helped vilify challenges to the dominant order as “unpatriotic” and inappropriately “political.”

The Boys Who Said NO! Resource Link Here!

March 8, 2023

Judith Ehrlich

THE BOYS WHO SAID NO! is the first documentary film to profile the young men and women who actively opposed the military draft in order to end the Vietnam War. The film shows how their personal and collective acts of nonviolent resistance, risking arrest and imprisonment for up to 5 years, were a critical part of the antiwar movement, intensifying opposition to the war and eventually forcing an end to both conscription and the war.

The American Dream and… Resource Link Here!

April 12, 2023

Abigail Disney

In this feature-length, personal essay documentary, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales filmmaker and philanthropist Abigail Disney grapples with America’s profound inequality crisis. The story begins in 2018, after Abigail encounters workers at the company that bears her name struggling to put food on the table. Could she, a descendant, with no role in the multinational conglomerate, use her famous last name to help pressure Disney and other American corporations to treat low-wage workers more humanely?

Theaters of War: How… Resource Link Here!

May 17, 2023

Roger Stahl

If you’ve seen Top Gun or Transformers, you may have wondered: Does all of that military machinery on screen come with strings attached? Does the military actually get a crack at the script? Theaters of War digs deep into a vast new trove of recently released internal government documents to bring the answers to these questions into sharp focus.