Nick Macdonald
2021Break Out!
Nick Macdonald
A self-criticism, self-analysis in which Macdonald struggles with his own status as a self-declared “armchair radical.” Wondering what real effect making films and attending demonstrations can have, he wrestles with the idea of violence and examines his own excuses (protecting his family, protecting his life) for not “being radical as opposed to talking radical.” In a section that introduces the letter board and bricolage technique that would become so prominent in his filmography, he lays out a radical 12-point program for the attainment of a more decent society; a coda proposes a halfway point between armchair radicalism and bomb-throwing.
Break Out!
The Liberal War
Nick Macdonald
The Vietnam War during the JFK years and beyond. Made in 1972 in the filmmaker's apartment, without documentary footage of the war, metaphors are created through the animation of images and objects, and through guerrilla skits. By rejecting the authority of traditional documentary footage, the anarchist spirit of individual responsibility is established. This is history from one person's point of view, rather than a definitive proclamation.
The Liberal War
Still Attica Remains
Nick Macdonald
A film shot in New York City in one day, on September 13, 1975, the 4th anniversary of the massacre at Attica prison. The narration presents a case that the brutal assault was cold-blooded and senseless, causing an avoidable tragedy. Handheld footage of the city provides a backdrop as Macdonald recounts the events of the rebellion, focusing in particular on Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s refusal to negotiate and his role in escalating the conflict that resulted in 43 deaths. Both a screed against political power and a memorial to those who lost their lives, Still Attica Remains details some of the horrors of prison— unfortunately relevant today as it was in 1975.
Still Attica Remains
No More Leadershit
Nick Macdonald
Macdonald lays out his theory of anarchy—in its purest sense of a rejection of hierarchy—in this seriocomic short he argues that protesters, police, and soldiers alike are not the perpetrators of violence but are victims at the hands of leaders.
No More Leadershit
