Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Series

NEWSREEL

November 14 – November 20

November 14-20, 2025

In the wake of the October 1967 antiwar march on the Pentagon, a disparate group of filmmakers – many of them participants in the march, and hence painfully aware of the censored nature of mainstream media coverage of the event – met at the offices of the Film-Maker’s Coop in New York (at the invitation of Jonas Mekas among others), and founded a new, activist film collective. Adopting the name Newsreel, these filmmakers – including Robert Kramer, Norm Fruchter, Robert Machover, Peter Gessner, Allan Siegel, Marvin Fishman, and Masanori Oe – immediately set to work producing numerous politically and socially committed short films, which were skillfully crafted but which invariably privileged political engagement and urgent topical relevance over formal or aesthetic niceties.

Almost immediately upon its inception, Newsreel began a process of transformation, expanding both geographically (chapters soon sprang up throughout the U.S.) and in terms of its membership. Numerous filmmakers joined the fray, including some who would go on to develop important independent careers, such as Christine Choy, Tami Gold, Deborah Shaffer, and others. During the initial phase of its existence – from 1967-72 – Newsreel produced dozens of films covering topics spanning the anti-war movement, labor politics, civil rights, feminist struggles, housing rights, police brutality, colonialism, and much more.

While almost all of the original members of the collective had departed by the early 1970s, Newsreel continued to evolve and transform. Rather than sharing the fate of other similar initiatives from the era, so many of which fractured and ultimately disappeared, Newsreel gave rise to two organizations that continue to thrive today: the San Francisco chapter transformed into California Newsreel, while the New York chapter developed into Third World Newsreel, an organization that forged a particular commitment to developing filmmakers and audiences of color.

Third World Newsreel, with foundation support, has been gradually unearthing and digitally preserving the collective’s early films, and the fruits of this labor will be presented this fall at several venues in NYC: the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Maysles Documentary Center, and Anthology Film Archives. Here at Anthology, we will host six different programs, comprising two dozen films, many of which have not been seen for decades.

Special thanks to JT Takagi, Roselly Torres, Shu Wang, and Zenzelé Clarke (Third World Newsreel). For more info about Third World Newsreel visit: https://www.twn.org/ 

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