About Films For Action
Film offers us a powerful tool to raise awareness of important issues not covered by the corporate news. Our goal is to provide citizens of the world with the information and perspectives essential to creating a more just, sustainable, and democratic society.
Our website has cataloged over 3000 of the best documentaries, short films and videos that can be watched free online, sorted into 40 subjects related to changing the world. And, since there's still so much to learn about that isn't featured in a film, we've also cataloged a fair amount of articles, too.
New to the site?
There are a few great ways to dive in. You can start with our Wall of Films, which is a fun way to browse the 500 best documentaries on the site, with the most viewed at the top.
Our list of top 100 activist documentaries, rated by our site members, is also super quality. We also made a list of the "top 100 documentaries we can use to change the world" in 2015.
Looking to be inspired and see more beauty in the world? Check out this visionary list of 90 films.
Since our site acts as an online library, you can sort content by most viewed, top rated, or newest first.
You can also filter content by topics such as food, sustainability, economics, solutions or big ideas. Check out the Explore menu for other filtering options, like language and country.
Join Team Transition
Create an account on Films For Action and join our growing community of people who want to change the world!
Add videos, articles and more. Rate member content. Our library is powered by you.
35,000+ Site Members | 880,000+ Facebook Friends | 14,000 Twitter Friends
As a member of Films For Action, you can:
1. Add Videos (Using a link from sites like Youtube or Vimeo)
2. Add Articles (Republished from another website or written by you)
3. Create Lists (such as top 10 lists featuring content from our site)
Click "Add+" at the top of the site to get started, or use the links above.
4. Rate member submissions
We encourage rating content based on its shareability. So... rate something:
5 stars if you will share it multiple times over time
4 stars if you will definitely share it once
3 stars if you might not share it
2 stars if you wouldn't share it
1 star if it isn't right for the site and should be hidden
5. Share links from any site, post status updates, and upload image memes or photos to our community stream.
Questions? Feel free to contact us.
Does Films For Action have bias?
A Statement about neutrality and our values
It's hard to believe Films For Action has been around now for 10 years. From our early years focusing on local film screenings in Lawrence, Kansas to our more recent years, focusing on raising awareness globally via our website and social media, our mission has been to provide a DIY alternative to the corporate mass media, which censors, sanitizes, attacks and ignores the diverse voices of humanity in favor of a narrow spectrum of elite, faux left-right consensus that favors the status quo and puts the interests of profit over people and planet.
The mass media claims to be neutral and strives to be objective, but it has always been anything but. This problem has been extensively documented. Chris Hedges called it "The Disease of Objectivity." Noam Chomsky is famous for outlining "the propaganda model of news." Meanwhile, FOX News is famous for claiming they're "fair and balanced" - a line of propaganda so transparent it's been mocked for years. But the deeper truth is that all media has some form of bias. The major news networks and newspapers of the old media - ABC, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, the Washington Post and the New York Times, to name a few, all mask their bias for elite perspectives (both corporate and state) behind a guise of "objectivity." To present oneself as unbiased, while having bias is, of course, one of the hallmarks of any good, persuasive propaganda.
But the old media is lying to itself for another reason. As one of our heroes, Howard Zinn once famously said, "You can't be neutral on a moving train." Neutrality in the face of injustice, in the face of racism, environmental destruction, corruption, colonialism, empire and plutocracy, cannot and will never be neutral.
Media cannot be neutral on this moving train. Too much is at stake when we are quite literally facing a planetary emergency that is reaching its major turning point. We must pick a side.
Does this mean Films For Action has bias? Yes it does. But it is bias rooted in the desire for justice. Our bias is rooted in our love for Pachamama, our Mother Earth, and all living beings. Our bias is rooted in our desire for a society that's just, egalitarian, peaceful, healing and truly participatory in ways that the present system will never offer.
To put it simply, our bias is rooted in our values, which we share openly and honestly. That is the big difference between the old media and the new media. Whereas the old media feigns neutrality and objectivity while promoting a spectrum of thought that benefits their bottom line, the new media is transparent about its values and who it stands for.
The problem with the media isn't bias itself - it's the values, interests, and funding sources that shape and inform that bias.
Accuracy, however, is another story. Accuracy is of the utmost importance and something we treat with the greatest responsibility, as all journalists and media outlets should. With the rise of "fake news," discussion over which media outlets we can trust has become a central concern. While profit-driven alternative media exploded during the 2016 US election, and a vast array of sketchy sites sprung up to take advantage of heightened political concern, we haven't forgotten that the corporate mass media has been responsible for some of the most dangerous and consequential "fake news" stories of our time, including most notably the false story of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which successfully helped take the US to war at a time when alternative media was critical of these "facts" and knew them to be false. Fake news by the "credible, respectable" mainstream press, which often originates by simply repeating government claims uncritically, has been far more disastrous for the planet overall than anything that unethical bloggers have managed to accomplish.
That said, inaccurate and false information is harmful regardless of whether it comes from corporate or alternative sources, and there is plenty of bad information coming from the entire spectrum of media, from the far left to the far right, and from corporate outlets to the smallest indie operations.
While our values and the diversity of perspectives we share naturally put us on the spectrum from center-left to far left, we're committed to always putting accuracy first, and holding ourselves accountable to the 5 principles of journalism.
Vision Statement
We're here to support all of the global movements working to create a more just, sustainable, vibrant and egalitarian future. We believe many hands make light work, and we need all of us helping our 'movement of movements' in whatever way feels right for each other. We need both a diversity of tactics and a diversity of efforts, so the more we can support each other and see how our efforts complement each other, the stronger we'll be.
We're loving for a world that's just, democratic, egalitarian, and ecologically healing in ways that the present system cannot offer. Our fire burns for a vision of a global paradigm based on trust and cooperation rather than fear and competition. So long as there is suffering in the world, our work is not done.
We support the Defend the Sacred manifesto. We support the 10 principles of Radical Ecological Democracy. We support the Earth Charter, the philosophy behind permaculture, and many more like-minded expressions of what we believe represents a common-shared vision of the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
This idea that "I am because you are" - that your happiness is my happiness - this is the guiding principle of love, of ubuntu that is what keeps our feet moving and our hearts in action. We are all one human family in relationship with each other and the rest of the community of life on Earth. We seek power with, not power over.
We celebrate the diversity of peaceful cultures that exist across the globe while recognizing our underlying unity. We stand against the homogenization of the world in all it's various forms - this toxic belief in the 'one right way' which has been responsible for all of the colonialization and conquest and subjugation we have seen in the past.
We believe that the old way should not be replaced with a new best way (which would be a repeat of the old way) - but rather 10,000 new and ancient ways of living. There is no one solution to the world's problems. There are 10,000 solutions, 10,000 ways of life - and we need them all.
We are everyone who dreams of a more beautiful world and is finding ways to put their values into action.
We aren't here to fix the old media. We're here to be the new media - a diverse and decentralized network of tens of thousands of indy media efforts working towards our common dreams.
As more and more of us become the new media, sharing, broadcasting and mircocasting media across the internet, we will eventually dwarf the impact of the old media. Eventually, our alternative models will make the old media obsolete.
Films For Action is one contribution to this network among thousands. But it's going to take all of us to hit the tipping point.
Join us! filmsforaction.org/join/