The Radical Lens of the Newsreel Collective

The Newsreel Collective was a national collective of revolutionary filmmakers in the US who produced some of the most important agitational and documentary films of the 1960s and 1970s. Newsreel filmed from the people’s side of struggle, and left behind one of the most important filmic archives of the 1960s, struggles and issues and ideas still vital to activists today. If you have seen original footage of the Black Panther Party, or of guerilla warfare in Vietnam, or youth revolts in the streets of the US, you have probably seen the work of the Newsreel Collective.

Jesse Drew, professor of cinema and digital media at UC Davis, lived collectively with Newsreel members, as a teenage runaway and radical activist. He has curated a program of Newsreel shorts that will highlight the influence of Newsreel and discuss ways in which activists today can benefit from their work. He will also discuss the influence of the work of famed Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez and the historical linkage to the 1930’s Film and Photo League, the NYC-based documentary unit of the working class.