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'THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY' WINS BEST DOCUMENTARY AT THE
2008 ONE WORLD AWARDS |
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'The War on Democracy', directed by John Pilger & Chris Martin, won Best Documentary at the prestigious One World Media Awards in London on 12 June 2008. It beat a field that included the documentary Oscar winner, 'Taxi to the Dark Side'.
The citation read: "There are six criteria the judges are asked to use to select the winner of this award: the film's impact on public opinion, its appeal to a wide audience, its inclusion of voices from the developing world, its high journalistic or production standards, its success in conveying the impact of the actions of the world's rich on the lives of the poor and the extent to which it draws attention to possible solutions. One film met every one of these. It was the winner of the award: John Pilger's 'The War on Democracy'."
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| | 'REPORTING THE WORLD' RELEASED ON DVD |
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A new John Pilger DVD box-set has been released in the UK, the third in a series which already includes 'In The Name Of Justice' and 'Documentaries That Changed The World'.
The 3-disc set 'Reporting The World' includes 15 more Pilger documentaries from his long and distinguished career, including 'Vietnam: Still America's War', 'The Secret Country' and 'Heroes'.
Find out more in the Films section. |
| | 2008 MARTHA GELLHORN PRIZE |
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| The 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for journalism has been shared by two 'extraordinary' winners - Dahr Jamail and Mohammed Omer. |
| | 'THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY' RELEASED ON DVD |
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Following ITV's showing of 'The War on Democracy' last August, more than 10,000 viewers contacted this website to ask about DVD distribution of the film.
'The War on Democracy' was released on DVD in Britain, the US and Australia in January and February 2008. Distribution throughout the US is through Bullfrog, which has carried many of Pilger's collected films.
Lionsgate and Hopscotch marketed the DVD following their successful cinema distribution of the film.
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| | 'INSIDE BURMA' RELEASED ON DVD IN AUSTRALIA |
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A new John Pilger DVD, 'Inside Burma: Land of Fear', is to be released in Australia in February 2008. The film, first shown in 1996 and updated in 1998, exposes the history and brutality of one of the world's most repressive regimes. The film includes an interview with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Read John Pilger's latest article on Burma, published in the New Statesman in October 2007. In the same month, Pilger also paid tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi at a London meeting organised by PEN and the Writers' Network of Burma.
All Burma articles by John Pilger. |
| | A CHANGE IS GONNA COME |
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'The War on Democracy' features the music of the great Chilean balladeer Victor Jara and the legendary American soul singer Sam Cooke (pictured right).
John Pilger describes Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' as "one of the finest, most lyrical pieces of black music ever written and performed. I was in the southern United States when it was released. It was the time of the civil-rights movement, and Cooke's song spoke to and for all people struggling to be free. The same is true of the ballads of the Jara, whose songs celebrated the popular democracy of Salvador Allende before Pinochet and the CIA extinguished it." www.samcooke.com |
| | THE RISING OF LATIN AMERICA - THE GENESIS OF 'THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY' |
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| "Modern fictional cinema rarely seems to break political silences. The very fine Motorcycle Diaries was a generation too late. In this country, where Hollywood sets the liberal boundaries, the work of Ken Loach and a few others is an honourable exception. However, the cinema is changing as if by default. The documentary has returned to the big screen and is being embraced by the public." John Pilger writes in the Guardian as his acclaimed film 'The War On Democracy' hits UK cinemas. |
| | THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT - PILGER AT THE SOCIALISM 2007 CONFERENCE IN CHICAGO |
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John Pilger addressed the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago on 16 June. He spoke about what Edward Bernays called the "invisible government which is the true ruling power" - the media - and how propaganda so often disguises itself as journalism.
Read transcript | Watch video |
| | NEW COLLECTION OF PILGER FILMS OUT ON DVD |
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John Pilger DVDs are now available to buy in the UK.
Released on DVD for the first time and personally chosen by John Pilger, the Documentaries That Changed The World & In The Name Of Justice box sets bring together 24 of Pilger's most hard-hitting and inspirational films.
You can also buy John's Australian and American DVDs. More |
| | 'FREEDOM NEXT TIME' UPDATED & OUT IN PAPERBACK |
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A fully updated paperback edition of John Pilger's latest book, Freedom Next Time, is published by Black Swan. For details contact Stina Smemo on ssmemo@transworld-publishers.co.uk
When Nelson Mandela stepped out of prison in 1990, the elation in South Africa and around the world was palpable. But true freedom for his people remains a distant dream. John Pilger describes how people battling to free themselves often glimpse freedom, only to see it taken away.
In South Africa, India, Palestine, Afghanistan and the forgotten Chagos islands, Pilger's vivid eyewitness reporting and tenacious interviews with the powerful blow away the secrets and lies of our rulers and turn a searchlight on to events consigned to shadows by an unrecognised, yet virulent censorship.
Click here to read the Guardian's review of this 'outstanding' book and John Pilger's impressions of the Hay Festival, where he launched 'Freedom Next Time'. |
| | VICTORY FOR THE CHAGOS ISLANDERS |
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The Appeal Court in London has upheld the previous High Court declaration that the expulsion of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean by the British government was "repugnant, illegal and irrational". The Chagos Islanders are now free to return to their homeland. They were expelled during the 1960s and 1970s in order to hand this British colony to the Americans for a military base.
Stealing a Nation, the Pilger film broadcast on ITV in 2004, first exposed the scandal. Out of Eden, an edited extract from John Pilger's new book Freedom Next Time, was published in the Guardian earlier this year.
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| | JOURNALISM AS A WEAPON OF WAR |
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In April 2006, John Pilger addressed the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, New York, in company with Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk and Charles Glass.
He argued that censorship by journalism is rife in Britain and the US - and it means the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries.
Read the complete or the abridged version of the address, which featured on the front cover of the New Statesman (right). |
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| Articles |
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| DON'T FORGET YUGOSLAVIA |
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In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger digs beneath the received wisdom for the break-up of Yugoslavia and points to a largely ignored memoir by the former chief prosecutor in The Hague - and an echo from current events in the Caucasus. |
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| THE LIES OF HIROSHIMA ARE THE LIES OF TODAY |
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In an article for the Guardian on the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, John Pilger describes the 'progression of lies' from the dust of that detonated city, to the wars of today - and the threatened attack on Iran. |
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| OBAMA, THE PRINCE OF BAIT-AND-SWITCH |
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John Pilger describes the devaluing of civilian casualties in colonial wars, and the anointing of Barack Obama, as he tours the battlefields, sounding more and more like George W. Bush. |
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| HOW BRITAIN WAGES WAR |
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John Pilger describes the insidious militarisng of Britain as the effects of two colonial wars and the cover-up of atrocities come home. |
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| ONE JOURNALIST'S STORY: FROM TRIUMPH TO TORTURE |
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In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes presenting a top journalism award to a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, and how, on his return home to Gaza, he was seized by the Israelis, who demanded the prize money and tortured him. |
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| IN THE CAUSE OF FEAR AND IGNORANCE |
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John Pilger describes another Britain: "a vicious, sectarian and mostly unreported war" against Muslims. People snatched from the homes following 9/11 are consigned to a Kafkaesque oblivion, and worse. |
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| IN THE GREAT TRADITION, OBAMA IS A HAWK |
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John Pilger reaches back into the history of the Democratic Party and describes the tradition of war-making and expansionism that Barack Obama has now left little doubt he will honour. |
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| FROM KENNEDY TO OBAMA: LIBERALISM'S LAST FLING |
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John Pilger refers back to his travels with Robert Kennedy to describe the false hopes offered by those, like Barack Obama, who exploit the appeal of liberalism then present a very different reality. |
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| BURMA, VICTIM OF THE 'WAR ON TERROR' |
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Writing for the Guardian, John Pilger marks the Burmese junta's renewal of the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi with an examination of the intimidations of the 'war on terror' on those who help to free her and her people. |
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| DESTROYING THE BEST OF BRITAIN |
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John Pilger describes how the New Labour government is destroying one of the the venerable features of "communal decency" in Britain - the local post office. Economies need to be made, though not in the pursuit of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. |
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| LATIN AMERICA: THE HIDDEN WAR ON DEMOCRACY |
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John Pilger argues that an unreported war is being waged by the United States, and Britain, to restore power to the privileged classes at the expense of the majority. |
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| THE STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID HAS BEGUN AGAIN IN SOUTH AFRICA |
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John Pilger describes how economic apartheid has become a model for much of the world and resistance to it has begun again in the country where apartheid was said to be in the past. |
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| HONOURING THE 'UNBREAKABLE PROMISE' |
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Almost fourteen years after South Africa's first democratic elections and the fall of racial apartheid, John Pilger describes, in an address at Rhodes University, the dream and reality of the new South Africa and the responsibility of its new elite. |
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| A TRIBUTE TO PHILIP JONES GRIFFITHS |
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In his column for the New Statesman, John Pilger pays tribute to his friend, the great photo-journalist Philip Jones Griffiths, who has died. "No photographer," he writes, "produced such finely subversive work, knowing that truth in war is always subversive." |
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