Young Lakota (2013)

Director: Marion Lipschutz & Rose Rosenblatt
Run Time: 83 min.
Call Number: E99.O3 Y68 2013

"The Pine Ridge Reservation is no stranger to strife and heartbreak, stark realities and inspired idealism. In Young Lakota, we are brought directly into the emotional and often uncertain journey of Sunny Clifford, her twin sister Serena, and their politically ambitious friend Brandon Ferguson . . . . Their political awakening begins when Cecelia Fire Thunder, the first female president of their tribe, defies a proposed South Dakota law criminalizing all abortion by threatening to build a women's clinic on the sovereign territory of the reservation." 

—Film distributor's website

Blueberry Soup (2013)

Director: Eileen Jarrett
Run Time: 77 min.

"Blueberry Soup is an extraordinary documentary about the constitutional change in Iceland following the financial crisis of 2008. This is a not-well-known-story of grassroots constitutionalism, an inspiration to the rest of the world. The film is a deeply touching account of an eclectic group of individuals reinventing democracy through the rewriting of the nation's constitution." 

—Film's website

Out of Print (2013)

Director: Vivienne Roumani
Run Time: 55 min.
Call Number: Z1033.E43 O9 2013

"Out of Print, narrated by Meryl Streep, draws us into the topsy-turvy world of words, illuminating the turbulent and exciting journey from the book through the digital revolution. Jeff Bezos, Ray Bradbury, Scott Turow, Jeffrey Toobin, parents, students, educators, scientists – all highlight how this revolution is changing everything about the printed word – and changing us."

                                                                                        –Film website

I Will be Murdered (2013)

Director: Justin Webster
Run Time: 53 min.
Call Number: F1466.7 .I22 2013

"On a Sunday morning in May, 2009, Rodrigo Rosenberg, a wealthy, charismatic lawyer was gunned down near his home in Guatemala City. Nothing unusual in that, as the country was suffering one of the highest homicide rates in the world. What was extraordinary was that he knew he was going to be killed. . . . Two of Rosenberg’s clients had been murdered a few weeks before. He was driven to investigate a case which, he told his friends, he feared would lead to his death. A video he recorded days before he died accused the president of his murder. Uploaded to YouTube, it nearly brought down the government. Thousands took to the street in protest."

—Filmmaker's website

West of Memphis (2013)

Director: Amy Berg
Music: Nick Cave
Run Time: 147 min.
Call Number: HV6534.W47 W473 2013

"In 1993, three 8-year-old boys . . . were murdered in West Memphis, Ark. Police arrested three teenagers – Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. – and charged them with capital murder based on the theory that Echols, a known reader of Stephen King novels and wearer of black T-shirts, was the ringleader of a homicidal satanic cult, and that Baldwin and Misskelley were his followers. . . . Providing testimony from 'experts' with mail-order diplomas and no direct evidence, the prosecution scared jurors witless with photos of the victims’ mutilated bodies and obtained first-degree convictions in all three cases. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison, and Echols received the death penalty. . . . Moving and gruesome, West of Memphis is an eloquent disquisition on the banality of evil."

—Leah Churner, Austin Chronicle