Jonathan Kim with Daniel Ellsberg As part of my work on ReThink Reviews, I've been fortunate enough to interview some pretty amazing people. Sometimes they're filmmakers, some they're the subjects of documentaries I've reviewed (like Daniel Ellsberg, pictured on the right). I try to ask questions that only the subjects can answer, so I avoid the usual junket-type questions to keep things interesting for both myself, the person I'm interviewing, and readers/viewers.
In September 2009, I had the great honor of interviewing Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. His heroic act kept Nixon from escalating the Vietnam War and eventually led to Nixon's resignation — and the end of the war nine months later. Ellsberg is the subject of a new documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.http://www.mostdangerousman.org/shapeimage_5_link_0
Daniel Ellsberg
read/view PART 1 and PART 2 on HuffPohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethink-interview-with-da_b_308967.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethink-interview-daniel_b_318588.htmlshapeimage_8_link_0shapeimage_8_link_1
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papershttp://www.mostdangerousman.org/shapeimage_9_link_0
I filmed the interview — where topics included Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan, counterinsurgencies, and advice for whistleblowers — and used clips of it for a two-part article in the Huffington Post entitled The Most Dangerous Man in America Speaks. Joshua Harris
We Live in Publichttp://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/shapeimage_12_link_0
Ondi Timoner's Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary We Live in Public is about Joshua Harris, who is billed as "the greatest internet pioneer you've never heard of." A whiz kid from the dotcom boom, Harris accurately predicted that TV would move online and that average people would begin volunteering personal information and make it public on the internet. http://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/shapeimage_13_link_0
Then, through a series of experiments that were more like performance art pieces, Harris attempted to enact these predictions in an extreme form that put the sanity and safety of others, as well as himself, at risk. read the interview on HuffPo Philippe Diaz
The End of Poverty?http://www.theendofpoverty.com/shapeimage_17_link_0
Philippe Diaz is the writer/director/cinematographer of the documentary The End of Poverty?, which seeks to uncover why there are so many people in the world living in poverty while resources are plentiful and so many countries enjoy so much wealth. The film traces the beginning of modern poverty back to 1492, when Europe began its brutal expansion into the Americas and implemented a system that enriched the European countries of the northern hemisphere by enslaving indigenous people and stealing their natural resources.
read/watch PART 1 and PART 2 on HuffPohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethink-interview-philipp_b_367295.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethink-interview-phillip_b_393469.htmlshapeimage_20_link_0shapeimage_20_link_1
Cevin Soling
The War On Kidshttp://www.theendofpoverty.com/http://www.thewaronkids.com/shapeimage_22_link_0
Cevin Soling is the director and co-producer of the documentary The War On Kids, which goes inside the American public school system to reveal that American schools more closely resemble prisons under a system that was designed to foster obedience, not educate. Kids are routinely denied basic rights, are forced to endure harsh punishments under Zero Tolerance policies, and are having their brains altered by powerful psychotropic drugs. read the interview on HuffPo Linda Stay & Fred Karger
8: The Mormon Propositionhttp://www.theendofpoverty.com/http://www.thewaronkids.com/shapeimage_26_link_0
Linda Stay and Fred Karger are gay rights activists featured in 8: The Mormon Proposition, a documentary about the Mormon Church's involvement in the passing of California's anti-gay marriage law, Proposition 8. Stay is a former Mormon, founder of Moms for Equality, and is the mother of Tyler Barrick, who married his boyfriend, Spencer Jones, on June 17, 2008 — the first day that gay read/watch the interview on HuffPo marriage was made legal in California. Fred Karger founded Californians Against Hate and was the first to obtain evidence that the Mormon Church was illegally interfering in anti-gay marriage campaigns. Lawrence Bender & Lucy Walker
Countdown to Zerohttp://www.theendofpoverty.com/http://www.thewaronkids.com/shapeimage_31_link_0
After the success of An Inconvenient Truth, producer Lawrence Bender decided to take on the other existential threat to the planet — nuclear weapons. So he enlisted the help of director Lucy Walker (the Devil's Playground) to make Countdown to Zero, which shows that the potential for nuclear disaster has actually increased since the end read/watch the interview on HuffPo of the Cold War due to threats by rogue states and terrorist groups, proving that the only solution is to abolish nuclear weapons completely. A few days before the film's LA opening, I had a chance to speak to Bender and Walker about the film.