Cultures of Resistance

Besides the feature length documentary, Culture of Resistance has used footage from over 25 countries to produce numerous short films and video clips. Below is a handful of these. Please check back regularly for new videos and join our mailing list to stay updated on the latest developments.

In late May, CoR director Iara Lee boarded the Gaza Freedom Flotilla's vessel the Mavi Marmara in an act of civil disobedience to break the siege of Gaza. In the pre-dawn hours of Monday, May 31, the vessel was boarded by Israeli naval commandos, nine passengers were killed, and dozens more were injured. Below is the unedited footage from the moments leading up to and during the assault. You can also download this footage by clicking here.

Below is a 15-minute version that has been edited from the video above. It can also be viewed on our Vimeo.com page.

On December 27, 2008, the Israeli military launched a wave of air strikes against the Gaza Strip. They followed this with an invasion of ground troops one week later. The offensive caused horrific damage to the civilian population and the infrastructure that supports it. Norman Finkelstein, a world-renowned scholar of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, has published a new book entitled This Time We Went Too Far and went on tour to promote his message. In an effort to expose the truth about Gaza, he teamed up with rap musicians Lowkey and Shadia Mansour, as well as activist Jody McIntyre, to tell the world what really happened. Check out our trailer below, featuring footage from their stop in Chicago.

Below is our short film "The Battle for the Xingu". The film is about indigenous Kayapó opposition to the Brazilian government’s proposed Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in the Amazon. The dam would have a disastrous impact on the Kayapó homeland. The film features footage from the 2008 Altamira summit, a key moment of the burgeoning Kayapó movement, when 1,000 Indians joined national and international supporters in the city of Altamira, Para to protest the Belo Monte Dam project plans. It was the largest indigenous gathering in the Brazilian Amazon in nearly twenty years.

Cluster bombs, which have been widely used for the past 40 years and are still manufactured today, disperse submunitions that can potentially kill anyone within 50 meters. Beyond their initial destruction, those explosives that do not detonate on impact essentially become landmines that cam remain a threat for decades to follow. Earlier this year the Convention on Cluster Munitions reached the 30 national ratifications necessary to impose a ban on their production or deployment. However, many countries, including the United States, Russia, China, and Israel, have not signed or ratified the treaty. Below you can watch our short film about the devastating consequences of these weapons, the landmark Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the work that remains to be done.

Although permitted by international law to fish within 20 miles of the Gaza coast, Gaza's fishermen, who number roughly 3,000, are currently restricted to 3 miles by the Israeli navy and as a direct result many have fallen into poverty. In addition, the fishermen report being frequently harassed by the Israeli navy and threatened to turn back to shore. Watch this film in which Cultures of Resistance investigated the situation.