Newsreel Films
Title
Newsreel Films
Description
Roz Payne was involved in Newsreel Films from the group's inception in New York in 1967. Newsreel created a series of short films documenting various aspects of 1960s-era activism. The items in this collection provide links to each of the Newsreel Films that are currently available to view free on the web.
________
Roz Payne offered the following brief reflection on Newsreel Films in 2002:
"In 1967 a group of independent filmmakers, photographers, and media workers formed a collective to make politically relevant films sharing our resources, skills, and equipment. As individuals we had been covering many of the events that we considered news, demonstrations, acts of resistance, and countless inequities and abuses. Sometimes films were made and sometimes not. Most often they were made too late and did not go to the people who could use them best.
We met in a basement in the lower eastside of New York and later at the alternate U, then more basements until we got an office. The only news we saw was on TV and we knew who owned the stations. We decided to make films that would show another side to the news. It was clear to us that the established forms of media were not going to approach those subjects which threaten their very existence.
I was a school teacher in New Jersey who shot photos. My marriage with Arnold Payne, Mr. Muscle Beach Jr. had broken up, I left a little house on the Palisades, overlooking the boats on the Hudson River right over the Spry sign across from 96th Street. I would sit looking at the burning windows of the NYC skyline as the sun set. That fire and the fire from a GI's Zippo lighter on the straw of a Vietnamese hut helped ignite me. I moved to New York City.
Walking down Second Ave and 10th Street with my camera one afternoon Melvin Margolis , a wild looking hippie stopped me and said, ‘Hey, your a photographer and there's a meeting tonight of all the political film people. You have to go. It is very important. Make sure that you go. I'm not kidding.’ I showed up that night, to the first meeting of Newsreel.
About 30 people met weekly to talk about films, equipment, and politics. I think we were great because we came from various political backgrounds and had different interests. We never all agreed on a political line. We broke down into smaller groups to work on the films. The working groups included anti-Vietnam-war, anti-imperialist, high school, students, women, workers, Yippies, Third World, and the infamous sex, drugs and party committee.
We wanted to make two films a month and get 12 prints of each film out to groups across the country. We wanted to spark the creation of similar news-film groups in other major cities of the United States so that they would distribute our films and would cover and shoot the events in their area.
The first film I worked on was the 1968 student take-over of Columbia University. The students had taken over 5 buildings. We had a film team in each building. We were shooting from the inside while the rest of the press were outside. We participated in the political negotiations and discussions. Our cameras were used as weapons as well as recording the events. Melvin had a W.W.II cast iron steel Bell and Howell camera that could take the shock of breaking plate glass windows.
Newsreel worked to expand the awareness of events and situations relevant to shaping the movement. Our films tried to analyze, not just cover; they explored the realities that the media, as part of the system, always ignores.
In 1967 the FBI started the Counter-intelligence program to try to destroy African Americans, especially the Black Panther Party and the New Left. We worked with Third World groups. We produced various films that these groups could use to tell their stories and to use in organizing in their own communities and workplaces, hopefully serving as catalysts for social change.
Newsreel not only made films but we were among the first to distribute films made in Cuba, Vietnam, Africa, and the Middle East.
As Newsreel grew, we spread out, opened offices and distribution centers across the country. We had offices in San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, Kansas, Los Angeles, Vermont, and Atlanta. We made films and distributed our films in the hope that the audiences who saw them would respond to the issues they raised. We wanted people to work with our films as catalysts for political discussions about social change in America and to relate the questions in the films to issues in their own communities.
We had many struggles in Newsreel around class, women, political education, cultural and worker politics, the haves and have nots. It was hard to hold to the correct political line. Little by little the groups changed from film-maker control to worker control, to women control, to third world control. Today, Third World Newsreel is in New York, California Newsreel is in San Francisco, and there is a Vermont Newsreel Archives.
In 1972, myself and others moved to Vermont. We continue to distribute Newsreel films, shoot videos, use computer graphics, and maintain a film, photo, and document archive. With the easy accessibility of video cameras thousands of people are making their own documents to tell the stories of what is happening around them. I am shooting history of retired FBI agents that worked on COINTELPRO against Don Cox, an exiled Black Panther and the white women who helped him. I teach History of the Sixties, Civil Rights Movement, Women, and Mycology at Burlington College."
In 2019, another original Newsreel Film member, Marvin Fishman, remembered a slightly different version of some of the events Roz related above:
“Roz invariably reminded me that it was her chance encounter with me on 14th Street that led to her attending that meeting [rather than Melvin Margolis]. Melvin, Marvin . . . I always nodded in agreement with her when she reminded me of that, but honestly, my memory is vague on that street encounter, though I always accepted it as true because she seemed so certain. I leave open the possibility that she indeed met Melvin earlier in the day, and that our meeting on 14th Street happened later on, when she was searching for the meeting address. But I do remember bringing her upstairs to the Free School, the site of the meeting.”
Fishman went on, “Also omitted [from Roz’s narrative] is the earlier, actual very first meeting, which was held on December 22, 1967, in Jonas Mekas’ Filmmakers Cinematheque. This is the date and place of what I consider the beginning of the collaborative undertaking among filmmakers. More than 30 people attended. Coincidentally, if I remember correctly, this is the date that Universal Newsreel, a service of Hollywood’s Universal Pictures, closed down.
Perhaps more important for Newsreel’s history, is that the narrative on the website does not mention why the meetings at the Cinematheque and then at the Free School were held. That is, what brought all the filmmakers together to that meeting which led to the formation of Newsreel? In fact, the catalyst for that meeting was the Pentagon Demonstration. To omit this fact is to omit the precipitating event, the traumatic historic milestone which led a disparate bunch of filmmakers and others to unite.”
According to filmmaker and activist, Danny Schechter, “Working in decentralized film collectives in several cities, [Newsreel] produced many, many films, mostly shot on 16 mm. Most were in black and white, as gritty and realistic as the subjects they depicted. These were films of civil rights and civil wrongs, of uprisings in communities and on campuses, about the Vietnam War and the war at home against it. They are in some cases angry films, as alienated from the forms of traditional newscasts as anything that has been produced in our country. Some of the films were produced in the spirit of similar work underway in Cuba and Vietnam. Some were American originals - bringing the voices of change and changemakers to the social movements of the era. These films were revolutionary in spirit and commitment.
These are films that deserve to be seen and learned from. They are part of a dissenting tradition of American film-making. They are also a record of the emotions that made the 60's what they were. Some were agit-prop. Some captured important moments of history. Most were populist in spirit - while others were more intellectual but not in the sense of the ‘intellectual property’ everyone talks about today. These film makers did not seek individual credit or promote themselves as Hollywood wanabees - although some did end up making commercial films. They preferred anonymity and a democratic approach to film making that may seem naive in world where production is characterized by craft unions and a star system.”
The UCLA Film & Television Archive adds, “Shunning the professional polish of mainstream productions, Newsreel embraced the aesthetic of raw immediacy that was prevalent in the newly flourishing underground press, rock music, cinema verité and poster art. The student movement (Columbia Revolt), racism (Black Panther) and Vietnam (No Game; People's War) were among the subjects Newsreel addressed. Feminist consciousness-raising efforts were documented in films such as The Woman's Film, produced collectively by women, and Makeout. Films made in association with Newsreel were strongly influenced by the film style of Santiago Alvarez, who headed Cuban newsreel production units after the 1959 revolution. His films, such as L.B.J. and Now omitted narration in favor of collages of found materials, stills, newsreel footage and fragments from speeches.”
Among the items in this collection is also a 7-page journal article, "Newsreel: Film and Revolution," written by Bill Nichols for Cinéaste in 1973. The article provides a different introduction to Newsreel Films. Nichols also completed an M.A. Thesis by the same title at UCLA in Theater Arts in 1972. That thesis runs more than 300-pages and can be found online for those interested in a much more in-depth exploration of the history of Newsreel:
https://billnichols99.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/newsreel-film-and-revolution.pdf
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The following is a list of Newsreel films made and/or distributed by the group during the 1960s-era with a brief description after each one written by Roz Payne. It is reprinted from Roz Payne's website:
Amerika
Against the background of the November 1969 Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Washington DC., footage from all over the world.
1969 - 45 minutes
Army
US. imperialism needs massive military power capable of maintaining its markets overseas and quelling rebellions at home. This film records the training and indoctrination given to G.I.s to produce this force. The men themselves talk about who the army really serves, and the effect the indoctrination has on them, and the beginnings of resistance to the army and against the war.
Off the Pig (Black Panther)
This is one of the first films made about the Panthers. It contains interviews with Party leaders Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver describing why the Party was formed and what its goals are. It also includes footage of Panther recruitment, training and the Party's original 10 Point Program laid out by Chairman Bobby Seale.
1968 - 20 minutes
El Caso Contra Lincoln Center
La Renovacion Urban destruyo los hogares de 35,000 familias puertoriquenasde la ciudad de Nueva York para construir Lincoln Center, una vitrina cultural para las clase dominante de la ciudad. La pelicula explica la coneccion entre esta accion cotidiana y es imperlialismo corporativo norteamericano.
12 minutes
To keep the well-to-do from continuing to flee the city and depleting its tax base, city, state, and federal government, and the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Mellons finance the prestigious Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It was built in the middle of a Puerto Rican ghetto, displacing thousands of families and a lively street culture. Upper-income families moved into high-rise apartment houses and gourmandise the "humanities," financially inaccessible and culturally irrelevant to the lives of the former residents.
11 minutes
Columbia Revolt
In May 1968, the students of Columbia University went on strike after the administrators repeatedly ignored their demand for open discussion of the university's involvement in racist policies, exploitation of the surrounding community of Harlem. This is the story of our first major student revolt, told from inside the liberated buildings.
1968 - 50 minutes
The Earth Belongs to the People
An analysis of the ecology crisis, this film dispels the myths that big business and big government have been telling the people about the world-wide ecological crisis. Is there really over-population in the world, or is there an unequal distribution of wealth and food? Do people or large industries ruin the environment? Will the earth survive for the people or for corporate profit????
1971 - 10 minutes
Garbage
Bringing the revolution to the Ruling Class, the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers export garbage from their Lower East Side ghetto to the halls of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts-all the while, New York was in its longest bitterest sanitation workers strike.
1968 - 10 minutes
High School Rising
High school corridors patrolled by narcotics agents and police, distortion of the history of black, brown, and poor white people, provoked student attacks on the tracking system. Stills, live footage and rock music. (Note: This film is not technically excellent, but it is very useful in understanding the problems occurring in most high schools across the nation today,)
1969 - 15 minutes
Los Siete de la Raza
This film is about the oppression of the Third World community in the Mission district of San Francisco. It deals specifically with seven Latino youths who were recruiting street kids into a college Brown Studies Program. They are accused of killing a plainclothesman. While they become victims of a press and police campaign to "clean-up" the Mission, their defense becomes the foundation of a revolutionary community organization called Los Siete
1969 - 30 minutes.
Available in Spanish and English. Spanish soundtrack is poor quality.
Make Out
The oppressive experience of making-out in a car...from the woman's point of view. Short and sweet. It can be shown a second time with the sound off and the male can make up his own sound track.
1969 - 5 minutes
Up Against the Wall Miss America
A now historical film about the disruption of the Miss America pageant of 1968. With raps, guerrilla theater, and original songs . Women stress the (mis)use of their sisters, by the pageant, as mindless sexual objects. Footage includes Attorney /activist Flo Kennedy.
6 minutes
Richmond Oil Strike
In January, 1969 oil workers in NorthernCalifornia struck. The local police and the Standard Oil goon squads attacked the strikers and their families, killing one and injuring others. The striking students from San Francisco State were asked to join the struggle. For the first time workers and students fight together against their common enemy.
Footage includes speeches of Bob Avakian.
People's Park
In the spring of 1969 , the Berkeley street community initiated a project to transform a barren and unused university-owned Lot into a park for the whole community to enjoy-a People's Park. Because the park threatened the control of the university and presented a challenge to the concept of private property, the police and National Guard were used to brutalize the people and destroy the People's Park.
25 minutes
This film was made by SF Newsreel and was originally rejected as not being political enough. It was too hippie dippy so the beginning five minute rap by Frank Barneke, a Peoples Park politico was added on in the beginning .
Por Primeria Vez (For the First Time)
The Cuban Film Institute sends mobile film units into the rural provinces-young and old delight on seeing movies "for the first time." Modern Times with Charlie Chaplin is shown in a rural village. An enchanting short that leaves you happy and smiling.
10 minutes (Available in Spanish)
Peoples' War
In the summer of 1969, Newsreel went to North Vietnam. From that trip came PEOPLES' WAR. This film moves beyond the perception of the North Vietnamese as victims to a portrait of how the North Vietnamese society is organized. It shows the relationship of the people to their government-how local tasks of a village are coordinated and its needs met. It deals with the reality of a nation that has been at war for twenty-five years, that is not only resisting US aggression and keeping alive under bombing, but that is also struggling to raise its standard of living and to overcome the underdevelopment of centuries of colonial rule. Amid much publicity, the footage was confiscated upon its return to the US. Despite this attempt at suppression, PEOPLE'S WAR has become one of the most sought-after films on Vietnam. Blue ribbon at U.S.A. film festival in Houston, Texas. and the Golden Bear Award, Moscow, USSR
1969 - 40 minutes
R.O.T.C.
The issue of ROTC is uppermost on many college campuses and is a major focus of anti-war activity. In an interview with the head of Harvard ROTC, the University's ties to the military industrial complex and how ROTC serves this relationship is exposed.
1969 - 20 minutes
Seventy-Nine Springs of Ho Chi Minh
This film on the life and death of Ho Chi Minh is a skillfully interwoven blend of old still photographs and Newsreel footage of the DRV's (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) founder, a man whose life spans three revolutions, three continents and three wars. It portrays his life: from militant student to revolutionary lead of this country; and his life-long work dedication to the Vietnamese people and their struggle for liberation. This eulogy was made by Cuba's renowned filmmaker, Santiago Alvarez. Musical soundtrack, Spanish titles. (Note: Understanding of the Spanish titles is not necessary for full enjoyment of the film.)
25 minutes
" . . . one of the most moving political films this reviewer has seen . . ." (Lenny Rubenstein, Cineaste)
She's Beautiful When She's Angry
In a skit presented at an abortion rally in New York City, a beauty contestant is pressured to fulfill certain roles in order to be the "ideal woman", a "winner". The skit shows how women, especially minority women, are used in this society for profit. The women who perform also discuss their personal lives and how their struggle as women is expressed in the skit. ( Note: Soundtrack is sometimes difficult to understand. )
1967 - 17 minutes
Strike City
Plantation workers in Mississippi having gone on strike against the extreme exploitation of the plantation system, and decide to form their own collective Their determination to stick together, rather than go back to the plantation or be forced out of the state, is their main resource. After a bitter winter, living in tents, they obtain partial support from private sources and begin building permanent housing. The poverty program backs down on its promise of support in response to Mississippi senators who fear the implications of collectives of back farmers in Mississippi.
1967 - 30 minutes
Summer '68
Draft resistance organizing in Boston, a Boston organizer's trip to North Vietnam -- a GI. coffeehouse in Texas, Newsreel's take-over of Channel 13 in New York -- following the production of the Rat's special issue on Chicago -- and Chicago during the Democratic Convention, the planning and carriage out of five days of protest. Each section focuses on an organizer central to each project--the attempt is to define the nature of commitment to "the Movement" against a backdrop of 1968's summer activities.
1968 - 60 minutes
BDRG: Boston Draft Resistance Group
This film detailed draft resistance organizing in Boston.
1968 - 15 minutes
Troublemakers
In 1965, a group of white organizers went into Newark's central ward to work with the black community, forming the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP). Traditional forms of protest--letters to city officials, demonstrations, electoral politics--were used as tactics for organizing. The film focuses on the action undertaken around three issues. The first is an attempt to get housing code enforcement; the second, to get a traffic light installed at a hazardous intersection. After many months of hallow promises, and inaction on the part of the city government an attempt was made to elect a third party candidate to the City Council. Lacking the resources of the two major parties, this was doomed to failure too The film is an absorbing, informative documentary of the frustrating failures of NCUP and the problem of getting even modest reform within the present political structure. But it goes beyond this--it shows clearly the contradictions in the concept of white groups organizing in black and other third world communities. A good study in some of the early New Left tactics--how and why they failed.
1966 - 53 minutes
The Woman's Film
The film was made entirely by women in San Francisco Newsreel. It was a collective effort between the women behind the camera and those in front of it. The script itself was written from preliminary interviews with the women in the film. Their participation, their criticism, and approval were sought at various stages of production.
"... What we see is not only natural and spontaneous, it is thoughtful and beautiful. It is a film which immediately evokes the sights and sounds and smells of working class kitchens, neighborhood streets, local supermarkets, factories, cramped living rooms, dinners cooking, diaper-washing, housecleaning, and all the other "points of production" and battlefronts where working class women in America daily confront the realities of their oppression. It is . . . a supremely optimistic statement, showing the sinews of struggle and capturing the essential energy and collective spirit of all working people-and especially that advanced consciousness which working class women bring to the common struggle." (Irwin Silber, Guardian)
1971 - 40 minutes
Yippie
Yippie is filmed farce, juxtaposing the brutal police riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention with the orgy scenes from D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance." A clear and energetic no-verbal statement of Yippie politics Hip jive.
1968 - 15 minutes
Young Puppeteers of South Vietnam
"A gift from the youth of South Vietnam to the youth of America." Teenagers in the NLF liberated areas of South Vietnam make beautiful, intricate puppets from scraps of US. war materials. Armed with these puppets, they travel through the liberated zones performing for the local children while our planes "search and destroy". A poignant film that gives a view of the war even more powerful than images of atrocities. English sound track.
25 minutes
Mayday (Black Panther)
On May 1, 1969 the Black Panther Party held a massive rally in San Francisco. Speakers Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, and Charles Garry present the rally's demands for the release of Huey Newton and all political prisoners. The film includes footage of the police raid on Panther headquarters in San Francisco a few days prior to the rally and the Panther's Breakfast for Children Program.
1969 - 15 minutes
Only the Beginning
For years the sentiment against the war in Vietnam has been growing. The latest polls show that 73% of the US. population want the troops out of Vietnam now G.I.'s are among the most active protesters against the war. In April, l971, thousands of G.I.'s-Marines and regular army, veterans and active duty personnel came to Washington, DC., to denounce their participation in that "dirty war," and to demand it be ended immediately. The film begins with the demonstration in Washington. In front of the Capitol, we see the veterans come before the crowd and throw their medals away. The film moves to Vietnam where the devastating effects of US. bombs are documented. ONLY THE BEGINNING is about the GI. movement to end the war.
1971 - 20 minutes color
Two Heroic Sisters of the Grassland
A cartoon version of a true story about two young sisters who risked their lives to save their commune's sheep heard during a sudden snowstorm. The film gives us a sense both of the values stressed in the new society, and the people's participation at every level in the transformation of China.
English track 42 minutes
El Pueblo Se Levanta (THE YOUNG LORDS FILM)
One-third of the Puerto Rican people live in the United States. Most have come in search for the better life promised them by US. propaganda. Instead they found slum housing, poor or miseducation, low-paying jobs, and constantly rising unemployment, in a society determined to destroy their cultural identity The film traces the growth of the Puerto Rican struggle by focusing on the development of the Young Lords Party. A Newsreel crew in New York City worked closely with the Lords for a year and a half-participating and recording the events and programs which the Young Lords are using to make significant advances in the Puerto Rican struggle. The film deals with the main problems in the Puerto Rican community-health, education, food, and housing. These problems become the focus of the Young Lords Party.
The Case Against Lincoln Center
Urban renewal removes 35,000 Puerto Rican families from New Your City's upper West Side to build Lincoln Center, a cultural show-case for the city's middle and ruling class. The film discusses the links between the problems of the city, and the forces of American corporate imperialism.
1968 - 12 minutes (available in Spanish)
No Game
October 21, 1967; The pentagon; 100,000 anti-war demonstrators who had not come prepared for a violent confrontation with the military police and Pentagon guards; for the tear gas, and rifle butts.
Considered the first collective Newsreel film. [According to Marvin Fishman, “This film was shot and edited before Newsreel officially came into existence and was then donated to Newsreel to get the newly formed organization’s distribution service off the ground.”]
1967 - 17 minutes
Pig Power
As student take to the streets in New York and Berkeley, the forces of order illustrate Mayor Daley's thesis that the police are there "to preserve disorder", and we must organize to challenge their control and preserve our lives as well as our life styles. A short impressionistic montage of music and images pointing up the disparity between their force and ours. The function of police repressing Black and white demonstrators alike is emphasized.
6 minutes
Community Control
The struggle for Community Control in Black and Puerto Rican communities in New York City. An examination of colonialism as it manifests itself in many American cities. In two so called experimental districts, police are constantly called in to enforce the political decisions of the state and city bureaucracy, and the striking teachers; union. All ofthis taking place against the legitimate demands of the community (Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and East Harlem). Filmed inside some of the schools involved in the conflict; contains interviews with Herman Ferguson, Minister of Education for the Republic of New Africa, and Les Campbell, director of The Afro-American Teachers Association.
50 minutes
Venceremos
A film shot in Cuba in l970-71 about two brigades of 500 Americans that went to Cuba illegally in order to show support by breaking the blockade and to help with the sugar harvest of ten million tons. They cut cane with brigades that were sent from Vietnam, North Korea, and Latin America. This is the story of their boat ride from St. Johns, Canada and their stay in Cuba.
20 minutes
High School
A film about high school students and how school becomes a prison.
20 minutes (muddled, poor editing)
You Don't Have to Buy the War
A speech by former Miss America, Bess Meyerson presented to the group Another Mother for Peace at a gathering in Beverly Hills. One of the strongest speeches ever given about who is making money out of the war in Vietnam. She gives excellent reasons to boycott many everyday products that women buy.
Open for Children
One of the first films ever made about the need for childcare.
Make It Real
This is what Newsreel considered an energy film. It contains great shots of street actions and hot music. These short films were made to show between our longer films that were "more serious" They were made to give youth a feeling that they could get up and become "street fighting men".
8 minutes
McDonnel-Douglas
A film about the McDonnel-Douglas company and its relationship to the war-machine.
Free Farm
A film made by Newsreel folks that went to live in Vermont. A story about a community free farm on land loaned by a small college. It tell the story of coming together to farm the land and to have Sunday community gatherings. The college calls the cops to kick people off the land in the fall before the harvest and local young men trash the farm. An interesting note is that posters are put up warning that a local cop named Paul Lawrence was setting up and beating up people. Ten years later he was busted for planting drugs and was known as the bad cop that went to jail. A true story of hippies with politics.
1971 - 18 minutes
Inciting to Riot
A quick montage flirtation with the idea of rural guerrilla struggle in the US returning repeatedly to the reality of pig power in the cities and space technology. A flashing image of a state of mind common among hip and political youth.
10 minutes
Don't Bank on America
This is the story of one of the first ecological political actions of the period, the burning of the Bank of America. (Newsreel distributed this film?)
Mighty Mouse and Little Eva
This is a 1930's racist cartoon, taking off on Uncles Tom Cabin. Distributed by Newsreel.
8 Minutes
Ice
A film made by Newsreel member Robert Kramer with a production team made up of Newsreel members. A story of a time in the future when the US is at war with Mexico and the Americans are living in a police state. The film includes a kidnapping, a murder, prison break, takeover of an apartment house for political education, sex, nudity, and violence. and much, much more. 150 Minutes
( a new description of this film will be available soon! although this was perhaps the description in an early NR catalogue, we hope to have more background on these old films. how they were made. the process and reflections of those who worked on them )
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This collection includes links to each of the Newsreel Films that is currently available to view on the web. If you find that any of the links are broken, please drop a note to the archive manager (see, Contact tab) and let us know!
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Roz Payne offered the following brief reflection on Newsreel Films in 2002:
"In 1967 a group of independent filmmakers, photographers, and media workers formed a collective to make politically relevant films sharing our resources, skills, and equipment. As individuals we had been covering many of the events that we considered news, demonstrations, acts of resistance, and countless inequities and abuses. Sometimes films were made and sometimes not. Most often they were made too late and did not go to the people who could use them best.
We met in a basement in the lower eastside of New York and later at the alternate U, then more basements until we got an office. The only news we saw was on TV and we knew who owned the stations. We decided to make films that would show another side to the news. It was clear to us that the established forms of media were not going to approach those subjects which threaten their very existence.
I was a school teacher in New Jersey who shot photos. My marriage with Arnold Payne, Mr. Muscle Beach Jr. had broken up, I left a little house on the Palisades, overlooking the boats on the Hudson River right over the Spry sign across from 96th Street. I would sit looking at the burning windows of the NYC skyline as the sun set. That fire and the fire from a GI's Zippo lighter on the straw of a Vietnamese hut helped ignite me. I moved to New York City.
Walking down Second Ave and 10th Street with my camera one afternoon Melvin Margolis , a wild looking hippie stopped me and said, ‘Hey, your a photographer and there's a meeting tonight of all the political film people. You have to go. It is very important. Make sure that you go. I'm not kidding.’ I showed up that night, to the first meeting of Newsreel.
About 30 people met weekly to talk about films, equipment, and politics. I think we were great because we came from various political backgrounds and had different interests. We never all agreed on a political line. We broke down into smaller groups to work on the films. The working groups included anti-Vietnam-war, anti-imperialist, high school, students, women, workers, Yippies, Third World, and the infamous sex, drugs and party committee.
We wanted to make two films a month and get 12 prints of each film out to groups across the country. We wanted to spark the creation of similar news-film groups in other major cities of the United States so that they would distribute our films and would cover and shoot the events in their area.
The first film I worked on was the 1968 student take-over of Columbia University. The students had taken over 5 buildings. We had a film team in each building. We were shooting from the inside while the rest of the press were outside. We participated in the political negotiations and discussions. Our cameras were used as weapons as well as recording the events. Melvin had a W.W.II cast iron steel Bell and Howell camera that could take the shock of breaking plate glass windows.
Newsreel worked to expand the awareness of events and situations relevant to shaping the movement. Our films tried to analyze, not just cover; they explored the realities that the media, as part of the system, always ignores.
In 1967 the FBI started the Counter-intelligence program to try to destroy African Americans, especially the Black Panther Party and the New Left. We worked with Third World groups. We produced various films that these groups could use to tell their stories and to use in organizing in their own communities and workplaces, hopefully serving as catalysts for social change.
Newsreel not only made films but we were among the first to distribute films made in Cuba, Vietnam, Africa, and the Middle East.
As Newsreel grew, we spread out, opened offices and distribution centers across the country. We had offices in San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, Kansas, Los Angeles, Vermont, and Atlanta. We made films and distributed our films in the hope that the audiences who saw them would respond to the issues they raised. We wanted people to work with our films as catalysts for political discussions about social change in America and to relate the questions in the films to issues in their own communities.
We had many struggles in Newsreel around class, women, political education, cultural and worker politics, the haves and have nots. It was hard to hold to the correct political line. Little by little the groups changed from film-maker control to worker control, to women control, to third world control. Today, Third World Newsreel is in New York, California Newsreel is in San Francisco, and there is a Vermont Newsreel Archives.
In 1972, myself and others moved to Vermont. We continue to distribute Newsreel films, shoot videos, use computer graphics, and maintain a film, photo, and document archive. With the easy accessibility of video cameras thousands of people are making their own documents to tell the stories of what is happening around them. I am shooting history of retired FBI agents that worked on COINTELPRO against Don Cox, an exiled Black Panther and the white women who helped him. I teach History of the Sixties, Civil Rights Movement, Women, and Mycology at Burlington College."
In 2019, another original Newsreel Film member, Marvin Fishman, remembered a slightly different version of some of the events Roz related above:
“Roz invariably reminded me that it was her chance encounter with me on 14th Street that led to her attending that meeting [rather than Melvin Margolis]. Melvin, Marvin . . . I always nodded in agreement with her when she reminded me of that, but honestly, my memory is vague on that street encounter, though I always accepted it as true because she seemed so certain. I leave open the possibility that she indeed met Melvin earlier in the day, and that our meeting on 14th Street happened later on, when she was searching for the meeting address. But I do remember bringing her upstairs to the Free School, the site of the meeting.”
Fishman went on, “Also omitted [from Roz’s narrative] is the earlier, actual very first meeting, which was held on December 22, 1967, in Jonas Mekas’ Filmmakers Cinematheque. This is the date and place of what I consider the beginning of the collaborative undertaking among filmmakers. More than 30 people attended. Coincidentally, if I remember correctly, this is the date that Universal Newsreel, a service of Hollywood’s Universal Pictures, closed down.
Perhaps more important for Newsreel’s history, is that the narrative on the website does not mention why the meetings at the Cinematheque and then at the Free School were held. That is, what brought all the filmmakers together to that meeting which led to the formation of Newsreel? In fact, the catalyst for that meeting was the Pentagon Demonstration. To omit this fact is to omit the precipitating event, the traumatic historic milestone which led a disparate bunch of filmmakers and others to unite.”
According to filmmaker and activist, Danny Schechter, “Working in decentralized film collectives in several cities, [Newsreel] produced many, many films, mostly shot on 16 mm. Most were in black and white, as gritty and realistic as the subjects they depicted. These were films of civil rights and civil wrongs, of uprisings in communities and on campuses, about the Vietnam War and the war at home against it. They are in some cases angry films, as alienated from the forms of traditional newscasts as anything that has been produced in our country. Some of the films were produced in the spirit of similar work underway in Cuba and Vietnam. Some were American originals - bringing the voices of change and changemakers to the social movements of the era. These films were revolutionary in spirit and commitment.
These are films that deserve to be seen and learned from. They are part of a dissenting tradition of American film-making. They are also a record of the emotions that made the 60's what they were. Some were agit-prop. Some captured important moments of history. Most were populist in spirit - while others were more intellectual but not in the sense of the ‘intellectual property’ everyone talks about today. These film makers did not seek individual credit or promote themselves as Hollywood wanabees - although some did end up making commercial films. They preferred anonymity and a democratic approach to film making that may seem naive in world where production is characterized by craft unions and a star system.”
The UCLA Film & Television Archive adds, “Shunning the professional polish of mainstream productions, Newsreel embraced the aesthetic of raw immediacy that was prevalent in the newly flourishing underground press, rock music, cinema verité and poster art. The student movement (Columbia Revolt), racism (Black Panther) and Vietnam (No Game; People's War) were among the subjects Newsreel addressed. Feminist consciousness-raising efforts were documented in films such as The Woman's Film, produced collectively by women, and Makeout. Films made in association with Newsreel were strongly influenced by the film style of Santiago Alvarez, who headed Cuban newsreel production units after the 1959 revolution. His films, such as L.B.J. and Now omitted narration in favor of collages of found materials, stills, newsreel footage and fragments from speeches.”
Among the items in this collection is also a 7-page journal article, "Newsreel: Film and Revolution," written by Bill Nichols for Cinéaste in 1973. The article provides a different introduction to Newsreel Films. Nichols also completed an M.A. Thesis by the same title at UCLA in Theater Arts in 1972. That thesis runs more than 300-pages and can be found online for those interested in a much more in-depth exploration of the history of Newsreel:
https://billnichols99.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/newsreel-film-and-revolution.pdf
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The following is a list of Newsreel films made and/or distributed by the group during the 1960s-era with a brief description after each one written by Roz Payne. It is reprinted from Roz Payne's website:
Amerika
Against the background of the November 1969 Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Washington DC., footage from all over the world.
1969 - 45 minutes
Army
US. imperialism needs massive military power capable of maintaining its markets overseas and quelling rebellions at home. This film records the training and indoctrination given to G.I.s to produce this force. The men themselves talk about who the army really serves, and the effect the indoctrination has on them, and the beginnings of resistance to the army and against the war.
Off the Pig (Black Panther)
This is one of the first films made about the Panthers. It contains interviews with Party leaders Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver describing why the Party was formed and what its goals are. It also includes footage of Panther recruitment, training and the Party's original 10 Point Program laid out by Chairman Bobby Seale.
1968 - 20 minutes
El Caso Contra Lincoln Center
La Renovacion Urban destruyo los hogares de 35,000 familias puertoriquenasde la ciudad de Nueva York para construir Lincoln Center, una vitrina cultural para las clase dominante de la ciudad. La pelicula explica la coneccion entre esta accion cotidiana y es imperlialismo corporativo norteamericano.
12 minutes
To keep the well-to-do from continuing to flee the city and depleting its tax base, city, state, and federal government, and the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Mellons finance the prestigious Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It was built in the middle of a Puerto Rican ghetto, displacing thousands of families and a lively street culture. Upper-income families moved into high-rise apartment houses and gourmandise the "humanities," financially inaccessible and culturally irrelevant to the lives of the former residents.
11 minutes
Columbia Revolt
In May 1968, the students of Columbia University went on strike after the administrators repeatedly ignored their demand for open discussion of the university's involvement in racist policies, exploitation of the surrounding community of Harlem. This is the story of our first major student revolt, told from inside the liberated buildings.
1968 - 50 minutes
The Earth Belongs to the People
An analysis of the ecology crisis, this film dispels the myths that big business and big government have been telling the people about the world-wide ecological crisis. Is there really over-population in the world, or is there an unequal distribution of wealth and food? Do people or large industries ruin the environment? Will the earth survive for the people or for corporate profit????
1971 - 10 minutes
Garbage
Bringing the revolution to the Ruling Class, the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers export garbage from their Lower East Side ghetto to the halls of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts-all the while, New York was in its longest bitterest sanitation workers strike.
1968 - 10 minutes
High School Rising
High school corridors patrolled by narcotics agents and police, distortion of the history of black, brown, and poor white people, provoked student attacks on the tracking system. Stills, live footage and rock music. (Note: This film is not technically excellent, but it is very useful in understanding the problems occurring in most high schools across the nation today,)
1969 - 15 minutes
Los Siete de la Raza
This film is about the oppression of the Third World community in the Mission district of San Francisco. It deals specifically with seven Latino youths who were recruiting street kids into a college Brown Studies Program. They are accused of killing a plainclothesman. While they become victims of a press and police campaign to "clean-up" the Mission, their defense becomes the foundation of a revolutionary community organization called Los Siete
1969 - 30 minutes.
Available in Spanish and English. Spanish soundtrack is poor quality.
Make Out
The oppressive experience of making-out in a car...from the woman's point of view. Short and sweet. It can be shown a second time with the sound off and the male can make up his own sound track.
1969 - 5 minutes
Up Against the Wall Miss America
A now historical film about the disruption of the Miss America pageant of 1968. With raps, guerrilla theater, and original songs . Women stress the (mis)use of their sisters, by the pageant, as mindless sexual objects. Footage includes Attorney /activist Flo Kennedy.
6 minutes
Richmond Oil Strike
In January, 1969 oil workers in NorthernCalifornia struck. The local police and the Standard Oil goon squads attacked the strikers and their families, killing one and injuring others. The striking students from San Francisco State were asked to join the struggle. For the first time workers and students fight together against their common enemy.
Footage includes speeches of Bob Avakian.
People's Park
In the spring of 1969 , the Berkeley street community initiated a project to transform a barren and unused university-owned Lot into a park for the whole community to enjoy-a People's Park. Because the park threatened the control of the university and presented a challenge to the concept of private property, the police and National Guard were used to brutalize the people and destroy the People's Park.
25 minutes
This film was made by SF Newsreel and was originally rejected as not being political enough. It was too hippie dippy so the beginning five minute rap by Frank Barneke, a Peoples Park politico was added on in the beginning .
Por Primeria Vez (For the First Time)
The Cuban Film Institute sends mobile film units into the rural provinces-young and old delight on seeing movies "for the first time." Modern Times with Charlie Chaplin is shown in a rural village. An enchanting short that leaves you happy and smiling.
10 minutes (Available in Spanish)
Peoples' War
In the summer of 1969, Newsreel went to North Vietnam. From that trip came PEOPLES' WAR. This film moves beyond the perception of the North Vietnamese as victims to a portrait of how the North Vietnamese society is organized. It shows the relationship of the people to their government-how local tasks of a village are coordinated and its needs met. It deals with the reality of a nation that has been at war for twenty-five years, that is not only resisting US aggression and keeping alive under bombing, but that is also struggling to raise its standard of living and to overcome the underdevelopment of centuries of colonial rule. Amid much publicity, the footage was confiscated upon its return to the US. Despite this attempt at suppression, PEOPLE'S WAR has become one of the most sought-after films on Vietnam. Blue ribbon at U.S.A. film festival in Houston, Texas. and the Golden Bear Award, Moscow, USSR
1969 - 40 minutes
R.O.T.C.
The issue of ROTC is uppermost on many college campuses and is a major focus of anti-war activity. In an interview with the head of Harvard ROTC, the University's ties to the military industrial complex and how ROTC serves this relationship is exposed.
1969 - 20 minutes
Seventy-Nine Springs of Ho Chi Minh
This film on the life and death of Ho Chi Minh is a skillfully interwoven blend of old still photographs and Newsreel footage of the DRV's (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) founder, a man whose life spans three revolutions, three continents and three wars. It portrays his life: from militant student to revolutionary lead of this country; and his life-long work dedication to the Vietnamese people and their struggle for liberation. This eulogy was made by Cuba's renowned filmmaker, Santiago Alvarez. Musical soundtrack, Spanish titles. (Note: Understanding of the Spanish titles is not necessary for full enjoyment of the film.)
25 minutes
" . . . one of the most moving political films this reviewer has seen . . ." (Lenny Rubenstein, Cineaste)
She's Beautiful When She's Angry
In a skit presented at an abortion rally in New York City, a beauty contestant is pressured to fulfill certain roles in order to be the "ideal woman", a "winner". The skit shows how women, especially minority women, are used in this society for profit. The women who perform also discuss their personal lives and how their struggle as women is expressed in the skit. ( Note: Soundtrack is sometimes difficult to understand. )
1967 - 17 minutes
Strike City
Plantation workers in Mississippi having gone on strike against the extreme exploitation of the plantation system, and decide to form their own collective Their determination to stick together, rather than go back to the plantation or be forced out of the state, is their main resource. After a bitter winter, living in tents, they obtain partial support from private sources and begin building permanent housing. The poverty program backs down on its promise of support in response to Mississippi senators who fear the implications of collectives of back farmers in Mississippi.
1967 - 30 minutes
Summer '68
Draft resistance organizing in Boston, a Boston organizer's trip to North Vietnam -- a GI. coffeehouse in Texas, Newsreel's take-over of Channel 13 in New York -- following the production of the Rat's special issue on Chicago -- and Chicago during the Democratic Convention, the planning and carriage out of five days of protest. Each section focuses on an organizer central to each project--the attempt is to define the nature of commitment to "the Movement" against a backdrop of 1968's summer activities.
1968 - 60 minutes
BDRG: Boston Draft Resistance Group
This film detailed draft resistance organizing in Boston.
1968 - 15 minutes
Troublemakers
In 1965, a group of white organizers went into Newark's central ward to work with the black community, forming the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP). Traditional forms of protest--letters to city officials, demonstrations, electoral politics--were used as tactics for organizing. The film focuses on the action undertaken around three issues. The first is an attempt to get housing code enforcement; the second, to get a traffic light installed at a hazardous intersection. After many months of hallow promises, and inaction on the part of the city government an attempt was made to elect a third party candidate to the City Council. Lacking the resources of the two major parties, this was doomed to failure too The film is an absorbing, informative documentary of the frustrating failures of NCUP and the problem of getting even modest reform within the present political structure. But it goes beyond this--it shows clearly the contradictions in the concept of white groups organizing in black and other third world communities. A good study in some of the early New Left tactics--how and why they failed.
1966 - 53 minutes
The Woman's Film
The film was made entirely by women in San Francisco Newsreel. It was a collective effort between the women behind the camera and those in front of it. The script itself was written from preliminary interviews with the women in the film. Their participation, their criticism, and approval were sought at various stages of production.
"... What we see is not only natural and spontaneous, it is thoughtful and beautiful. It is a film which immediately evokes the sights and sounds and smells of working class kitchens, neighborhood streets, local supermarkets, factories, cramped living rooms, dinners cooking, diaper-washing, housecleaning, and all the other "points of production" and battlefronts where working class women in America daily confront the realities of their oppression. It is . . . a supremely optimistic statement, showing the sinews of struggle and capturing the essential energy and collective spirit of all working people-and especially that advanced consciousness which working class women bring to the common struggle." (Irwin Silber, Guardian)
1971 - 40 minutes
Yippie
Yippie is filmed farce, juxtaposing the brutal police riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention with the orgy scenes from D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance." A clear and energetic no-verbal statement of Yippie politics Hip jive.
1968 - 15 minutes
Young Puppeteers of South Vietnam
"A gift from the youth of South Vietnam to the youth of America." Teenagers in the NLF liberated areas of South Vietnam make beautiful, intricate puppets from scraps of US. war materials. Armed with these puppets, they travel through the liberated zones performing for the local children while our planes "search and destroy". A poignant film that gives a view of the war even more powerful than images of atrocities. English sound track.
25 minutes
Mayday (Black Panther)
On May 1, 1969 the Black Panther Party held a massive rally in San Francisco. Speakers Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, and Charles Garry present the rally's demands for the release of Huey Newton and all political prisoners. The film includes footage of the police raid on Panther headquarters in San Francisco a few days prior to the rally and the Panther's Breakfast for Children Program.
1969 - 15 minutes
Only the Beginning
For years the sentiment against the war in Vietnam has been growing. The latest polls show that 73% of the US. population want the troops out of Vietnam now G.I.'s are among the most active protesters against the war. In April, l971, thousands of G.I.'s-Marines and regular army, veterans and active duty personnel came to Washington, DC., to denounce their participation in that "dirty war," and to demand it be ended immediately. The film begins with the demonstration in Washington. In front of the Capitol, we see the veterans come before the crowd and throw their medals away. The film moves to Vietnam where the devastating effects of US. bombs are documented. ONLY THE BEGINNING is about the GI. movement to end the war.
1971 - 20 minutes color
Two Heroic Sisters of the Grassland
A cartoon version of a true story about two young sisters who risked their lives to save their commune's sheep heard during a sudden snowstorm. The film gives us a sense both of the values stressed in the new society, and the people's participation at every level in the transformation of China.
English track 42 minutes
El Pueblo Se Levanta (THE YOUNG LORDS FILM)
One-third of the Puerto Rican people live in the United States. Most have come in search for the better life promised them by US. propaganda. Instead they found slum housing, poor or miseducation, low-paying jobs, and constantly rising unemployment, in a society determined to destroy their cultural identity The film traces the growth of the Puerto Rican struggle by focusing on the development of the Young Lords Party. A Newsreel crew in New York City worked closely with the Lords for a year and a half-participating and recording the events and programs which the Young Lords are using to make significant advances in the Puerto Rican struggle. The film deals with the main problems in the Puerto Rican community-health, education, food, and housing. These problems become the focus of the Young Lords Party.
The Case Against Lincoln Center
Urban renewal removes 35,000 Puerto Rican families from New Your City's upper West Side to build Lincoln Center, a cultural show-case for the city's middle and ruling class. The film discusses the links between the problems of the city, and the forces of American corporate imperialism.
1968 - 12 minutes (available in Spanish)
No Game
October 21, 1967; The pentagon; 100,000 anti-war demonstrators who had not come prepared for a violent confrontation with the military police and Pentagon guards; for the tear gas, and rifle butts.
Considered the first collective Newsreel film. [According to Marvin Fishman, “This film was shot and edited before Newsreel officially came into existence and was then donated to Newsreel to get the newly formed organization’s distribution service off the ground.”]
1967 - 17 minutes
Pig Power
As student take to the streets in New York and Berkeley, the forces of order illustrate Mayor Daley's thesis that the police are there "to preserve disorder", and we must organize to challenge their control and preserve our lives as well as our life styles. A short impressionistic montage of music and images pointing up the disparity between their force and ours. The function of police repressing Black and white demonstrators alike is emphasized.
6 minutes
Community Control
The struggle for Community Control in Black and Puerto Rican communities in New York City. An examination of colonialism as it manifests itself in many American cities. In two so called experimental districts, police are constantly called in to enforce the political decisions of the state and city bureaucracy, and the striking teachers; union. All ofthis taking place against the legitimate demands of the community (Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and East Harlem). Filmed inside some of the schools involved in the conflict; contains interviews with Herman Ferguson, Minister of Education for the Republic of New Africa, and Les Campbell, director of The Afro-American Teachers Association.
50 minutes
Venceremos
A film shot in Cuba in l970-71 about two brigades of 500 Americans that went to Cuba illegally in order to show support by breaking the blockade and to help with the sugar harvest of ten million tons. They cut cane with brigades that were sent from Vietnam, North Korea, and Latin America. This is the story of their boat ride from St. Johns, Canada and their stay in Cuba.
20 minutes
High School
A film about high school students and how school becomes a prison.
20 minutes (muddled, poor editing)
You Don't Have to Buy the War
A speech by former Miss America, Bess Meyerson presented to the group Another Mother for Peace at a gathering in Beverly Hills. One of the strongest speeches ever given about who is making money out of the war in Vietnam. She gives excellent reasons to boycott many everyday products that women buy.
Open for Children
One of the first films ever made about the need for childcare.
Make It Real
This is what Newsreel considered an energy film. It contains great shots of street actions and hot music. These short films were made to show between our longer films that were "more serious" They were made to give youth a feeling that they could get up and become "street fighting men".
8 minutes
McDonnel-Douglas
A film about the McDonnel-Douglas company and its relationship to the war-machine.
Free Farm
A film made by Newsreel folks that went to live in Vermont. A story about a community free farm on land loaned by a small college. It tell the story of coming together to farm the land and to have Sunday community gatherings. The college calls the cops to kick people off the land in the fall before the harvest and local young men trash the farm. An interesting note is that posters are put up warning that a local cop named Paul Lawrence was setting up and beating up people. Ten years later he was busted for planting drugs and was known as the bad cop that went to jail. A true story of hippies with politics.
1971 - 18 minutes
Inciting to Riot
A quick montage flirtation with the idea of rural guerrilla struggle in the US returning repeatedly to the reality of pig power in the cities and space technology. A flashing image of a state of mind common among hip and political youth.
10 minutes
Don't Bank on America
This is the story of one of the first ecological political actions of the period, the burning of the Bank of America. (Newsreel distributed this film?)
Mighty Mouse and Little Eva
This is a 1930's racist cartoon, taking off on Uncles Tom Cabin. Distributed by Newsreel.
8 Minutes
Ice
A film made by Newsreel member Robert Kramer with a production team made up of Newsreel members. A story of a time in the future when the US is at war with Mexico and the Americans are living in a police state. The film includes a kidnapping, a murder, prison break, takeover of an apartment house for political education, sex, nudity, and violence. and much, much more. 150 Minutes
( a new description of this film will be available soon! although this was perhaps the description in an early NR catalogue, we hope to have more background on these old films. how they were made. the process and reflections of those who worked on them )
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This collection includes links to each of the Newsreel Films that is currently available to view on the web. If you find that any of the links are broken, please drop a note to the archive manager (see, Contact tab) and let us know!
Creator
Newsreel Films
Source
Newsreel Films on YouTube
Publisher
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date
ca. 1960s and 1970s
Format
film
