With so many filmmakers, organizations and everyday bloggers creating video, Netroots Nation is delighted to offer a screening showcase that will feature short segments of the diverse work created by, distributed through and appealing to the Netroots. This showcase will present 5-10 film projects, giving each filmmaker up to 15 minutes minutes to show a clip, discuss the project, ask for feedback / help / connections. Kick off the Screening Series by meeting and engaging fellow filmmakers, and seeing a wide array of what's being worked on by whom, so you can continue the conversations throughout the conference.

Dirt! The Movie brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.

A Sea Change asks viewers to imagine a world without fish. The film rings an alarm bell, revealing the startling impact of ocean acidification not only on aquatic wildlife, but the intertwined global ecosystem as we know it.

Earth Days looks back to the dawn of the modern environmental movement—from its post-war rustlings in the 1950s and the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s incendiary Silent Spring to the wildly successful first Earth Day celebrations of the 1970s.

“The Politiical Prosecutions of Karl Rove,” a compelling video by Project Save Justice and John McTiernan, whose film credits include “Die Hard,” “Predator,” and “The Hunt for Red October,” features experts who say that hundreds of defendants across the nation were targeted by federal prosecutors who focused on particular defendants for political reasons. Inlcuded are interviews of victims and their families who suffered at the hands of the Bush Department of Justice, the payoffs recieved by federal operatives, and highlights of those political prisoners still being held in US Federal Prison Camps.

"Free The River Park - The Story of Citizens' Fight to Free the
Schuylkill River Park" This mini documentary explores a neighborhood's ultimately victorious efforts to create and preserve at grade access to the Schuykill River Park despite the adamant objections of the CSX Railroad. The film tells the inspiring story of the Philadelphia community 'winning over' the railroad through interviews with key elected officials and citizen activists. Winner of the "best green film" award at the Delray Beach Film Festival, it has been shown at film festivals across the country. With an array of extras, the Free the River Park DVD is designed to be used as a template for inspiring and instructing other communities on how to use new media technologies and network centric strategies to win. See the trailer at www.freetheriverpark.org

Some of the most memorable videos from the recent election and from ongoing advocacy campaigns are also the funniest. Activists and comedians discuss their favorite comedic campaigns, debate the role of humor, and offer their advice to you on how comedy could be a vehicle for your cause.

A workshop / discussion on how to build an audience for your film or web video content. In today's environment, you don't need to win a festival, have a primetime ad buy or get a wide release to be seen. What are alternative venues, and how do you link into them? What partner groups have built audiences? What online services allow people to connect with your film or videos? New media has democratized the means of distributing media, and media makers have more outlets than ever for creating interest and an audience.This session focuses on connecting filmmakers and web video creators and generating awareness of new distribution resources.

The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

Join NDN President Simon Rosenberg and film makers Annabel Park and Eric Byler for a special screening of 9500 Liberty, a new film that examines the political intrigue and socio-economic impacts of one of the most infamous immigration battles ever conducted at the local level, which led to a virtual grassroots network of activists on both sides of the issue.

In July 2007, Prince William County, VA became ground zero in America's explosive battle over immigration policy when elected officials adopted a local ordinance requiring police officers to question individuals that they considered to be "probably" undocumented. In the battleground county of a key battleground state, the "Immigration Resolution" became the central issue in a local election held one year before the 2008 Presidential Election.

Because it is likely that immigration legislation will be introduced this fall, this film –scheduled to premiere on October 1st - will provide an invaluable tool for moderates and progressives on this issue through unprecedented access to the inner workings of the anti-immigrant lobby and its strategic approach to electoral politics. The film also reveals the social and economic fallout when local governments resort to harsh immigration enforcement measures.

"9500 Liberty makes it clear that when we, as a nation of immigrants, debate the immigration issue, we are defining our very identity as Americans." - John Grisham

Too often advocacy organizations will wrap complex policy issues in focus-group tested messaging without honestly connecting with the people most affected. People’s stories and voices are incredibly powerful and compelling, and may be able to accomplish what email outreaches, blogs and social networking cannot: humanize progressive reform, capture the attention of new supporters, and build a diverse and powerful outcry for change. The challenge for progressives is to use storytelling to pierce the static of advocacy messaging, and inspire more people to get behind meaningful and lasting reform. This session features the creative work of new-documentarians, people who are using the power of storytelling through video and new Web applications to let people’s stories drive large audiences to support policies that solve real-world problems.

Director Robert Greenwald's latest film, Rethinking Afghanistan, has been released as a free serial on Youtube and the Brave New Films website. As a special engagement, the film will show in its entirety at Netroots Nation. Rethinking Afghanistan focuses on the human and financial costs of combat in the Middle East to challenge the notion that Afghanistan is "the good war". Instead, Greenwald argues troop escalation threatens to entrench America in an unwinnable, unwanted war that only further empowers the resurgent Taliban. Followed by a discussion with filmmaker Robert Greenwald and Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake

Three films of, by and/or for the netroots will be presented; short scenes followed by brief Q&A with filmmakers/producers will introduce these films to the audience to discuss process, distribution, collaboration and potential activism.

Coal Country offers a dramatic look at the costs of modern coal mining. Interviews with miners, company men, locals and activists bring together a dialogue on the financial and environmental tolls of feeding a nation’s energy addiction.

The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of activists, filmmakers, and free-divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret.

Doctors and Detainees, a feature length documentary currently in production, follows the whistleblowers who dared to go public about prisoner abuse in the War on Terror, with special emphasis on the role of physicians in abetting torture. Co-producer/director Julie Gribble will be on hand.

From Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) comes OUTRAGE, featuring journalist/blogger Michael Rogers and Sirus/XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile. The film is an indictment of closeted politicians who campaign against the LGBT community and reveals the hidden lives of some of the nation's most powerful policymakers. OUTRAGE looks at the harm they inflict and profiles those who seek to expose their hypocrisy. The film probes the psychology of these double lives, the ethics of outing, and the double standards that the media upholds in its coverage of the sex lives of gay public figures. A Q&A with Rogers and Signorile will follow the screening.

The well recognized term, "Exclusive Footage" is a hallmark of mainstream media dating back to the earliest days of broadcasting. With the advent of the Internet and YouTube, exclusive footage is rapidly being replaced by inclusive footage, video footage that traverses the globe faster than any single media outlet can control. As seen in the footage by Iranian protesters, video has escaped the confines and control of governments and mainstream media and now anyone with a camera and PC can produce and distribute video to a worldwide audience. This panel will explore the creation and distribution of viral videos and how they can further progressive causes.

In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder,Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride. A participatory media experiment, from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP: A remix manifesto, Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the lines of battle. Which side of the ideas war are you on?

Three films of, by and/or for the netroots will be presented; short scenes followed by brief Q&A with filmmakers/producers will introduce these films to the audience to discuss process, distribution, collaboration and potential activism.

American Casino is a powerful and shocking look at the subprime lending scandal. Interviews with Wall Street defectors and America’s working poor expose the real and lasting costs of gambling with human chips.

Happiness Is travels a cinematic road trip across the country to explore the various ways Americans interpret the “pursuit of happiness”. From spirituality to materialism (and most everything in between), the filmmakers quest to understand what makes up the Constitutionally-protected good life.

Corner Store tells the story of Palestinian grocer Yousef, as he travels back to his fractured homeland to reunite with his family after ten years separation. But a lot has changed in a decade, and Yousef must confront the new realities in both his family and his country while still keeping his dreams of a new life in America with his wife and children alive. Director Katherine Bruens will present clips from this feature length documentary, and will be available for questions.

On the 40th anniversary of the conception of the Internet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tells the story of the effect the web is having on our society, as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of,” visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director, Ondi Timoner (DIG!), documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade with 5000 hours of footage to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.

Josh Harris, often called the “Warhol of the Web,” founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network during the infamous dot-com boom of the 1990s. He also created his vision of the future: an underground bunker in NYC where 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days over the turn of the millennium. (The project, named QUIET, also became the subject of Ondi Timoner’s first cut of her documentary about Harris. Her film shared the project’s name.) With Quiet, Harris proved how, in the not-so-distant future of life online, we will willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire. Through his experiments, including another six-month stint living under 24-hour live surveillance online which led him to mental collapse, he demonstrated the price we will all pay for living in public.

WE LIVE IN PUBLIC won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. It also garnered the Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. Timoner is the only filmmaker in Sundance history to win the Grand Jury Prize twice.