Two Women shows that when
governments determine health
care priorities, some people suffer
truly unfortunate consequences.
Watch It Now!
Indoctrinate U, reveals the
ugly truths about academia that
you won't see in their glossy
admissions brochures.
Watch The Trailer!
In A Short Course in Brain
Surgery, filmmaker Stuart
Browning shows the callousness
of "single-payer", government
-run health care systems. Watch It Now!
Our short film El Uno De Mayo,
casts a light on the left-wing
totalitarian groups behind the
recent May Day marches. Watch It Now!
Think Canada's government-run
health care system is a model for
the U.S.? Think again!
Dead Meat is a searing cine-
matic examination of socialized
medicine. Watch It Now!
We've just posted details for two more campus screenings of Indoctrinate U: one at Louisiana State University (Shreveport) and another at San Diego State University. For more information, visit the Indoctrinate U screenings page.
Matthew Sheffield at NewsBusters has interviewed Evan Maloney. Topic: The making of Indoctrinate U.
Recently I had the privilege of attending the premier of the "Indoctrinate U," a documentary that exposes the widespread suppression of conservative and libertarian opinions on America's college campuses. Turns out, the same 60s and 70s radicals who marched for free speech back then aren't so interested in the concept now that they're running academia.
This is a great film and a very necessary one as well. I was so impressed by it that I wanted to interview its creator, Evan Coyne Maloney. We had an in-depth and candid discussion about a variety of things including how he got interested in film, getting funding for it, the background behind campus speech codes, how the media covers academic censorship and much more.
We are starting to post some of the scenes we loved but ended up having to cut from our feature length film Indoctrinate U. The first deleted scene is called "Columbia Quiz."
This less-than-five-minute video may prove embarrassing to the administration of Columbia University, which very clearly did not want Evan Maloney filming - unless he could convince them that our film would paper over the truth and make the university look good.
Yesterday I gave an interview about Indoctrinate U on KCOL-AM out of Loveland, CO. Today saw two more interviews with Greg Allen of Accent Radio Network and Bud Hedinger from WFLA-AM out of Tampa, FL.
Please listen for me talking about our important film on the Steve Deace show tomorrow (9/6/2007) on WHO-AM from Des Moines, Iowa and with Travis Jackson on Knucklehead Radio from Maine.
Then on Friday (9/7/2007) I'll be on Lynn Woolley's show on KTEM-AM out of Temple, TX. Finally, next Wednesday (9/12/2007) I'll be promoting Indoctrinate U on "Kelli's" show on WJON-AM out of St. Cloud, MN.
Please tune in -- on the radio or on the web -- if you get the chance. The discussions arising from the film and the entire topic of political correctness run amok on college campuses have been great.
The Washington Times has a write-up of our new film Indoctrinate U:
"Indoctrinate U" follows Mr. Maloney to different campuses, where he chronicles the stories of students like Steve Hinkle, who was prosecuted for posting flyers for an upcoming College Republicans event at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Because neither campus administrators nor university trustees are protecting individual rights on campus, Mr. Maloney said, someone must. "It's time for us as taxpayers and as citizens to exercise some oversight on our own," he said.
Stanley Kurtz at the National Review has a new, in-depth review of our new feature-length film Indoctrinate U:
One of the virtues of Indoctrinate U, Evan Coyne Maloney's powerful new documentary, is that it helps us answer the "isolated anecdote" argument - both intellectually, and at a gut level.
Indoctrinate U explores the Kafkaesque nightmares that befall students and professors who run up against the P.C. behemoth: A woman with two brothers - one an adopted Guatemalan orphan - writes a letter to her school paper saying she wouldn't want to see one brother favored over the other because of skin color. A professor questions the fairness of a panel on which all seven speakers favor reparations for slavery. A representative of the College Republicans posts a flier at the campus multi-cultural center advertising a lecture by a conservative black speaker. A student writes a column complaining that the school's "issues committee" invites only left-leaning speakers to campus. A professor is accidentally revealed to be a Republican. A student from Kuwait writes an essay praising the role of the United States in world affairs. Everyone knows that such actions fly in the face of campus orthodoxy, yet few will be prepared for the enormity of the punishment these nonconformists face.
The free-wheeling film first documents the rise of the "campus free speech movement" in the 1960s and '70s, then cuts to examples of modern-day conservatives being shouted down and otherwise intimidated on college campuses. Ward Connerly is verbally assaulted for daring to disagree with campus orthodoxy on the issue of affirmative action and black professors like John McWhorter, formerly of UC-Berkeley, Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University's Law School, and Temple's Lewis Gordon all express their dismay with the current state of the academy, and the suppression of intellectual diversity therein.
David Hogberg at The American Spectator attended the special screening for the press of our new feature film "Indoctrinate U". His review is up this morning:
"If you see one of those ragheads, shoot him right in the f****** face." Given the climate on today's campuses, one would reasonably expect that any student expressing those words would be severely disciplined, if not expelled. The fact that the student would did write such words in an email faced no consequences at all is one of the more eye-opening revelations in Evan Coyne Maloney's documentary, Indoctrinate U.
The ninety-minute look at political correctness run amok in colleges across the nation premiered Monday evening at the Tribeca Film Center in New York City. As the political right struggles to make inroads into cultural arenas such as film, Maloney's documentary is a major step forward. While it doesn't quite have the slick production feel of, say, a Michael Moore film, it still manages to effectively weave learning, controversy, and humor. It leaves the audience both entertained and outraged.
FrontPage Magazine has an interview with On The Fence Films' Evan Maloney:
It was after McCain-Feingold became law, and it occurred to me that the campaign finance laws had a huge loophole in them, what I call the Michael Moore loophole. Whereas private citizens like you or me could not buy airtime to express our views within 90 days of a general election--it would be illegal--Hollywood was exempt. So people in Hollywood would have a huge megaphone with which to promote their views, while people like us--people who didn't have access to the Hollywood distribution machine--are shut up and shut out of the process.
The Indoctrinate U trailer has gotten a lot of attention. As of this morning, 7,878 Americans have signed up to have the full feature-length film screened in their home town. If you haven't seen the trailer or signed up, go to www.indoctrinateu.com.
So far, our new short film has been well-received with tens of thousands of viewings so far. Some film-related notes:
All footage originated at the San Francisco and New York City marches that took place on May 1, 2006. No stock footage is used (although there are stock historical photos). The vast majority of the footage is from San Francisco where I was the sole cameraman.
Some have wondered if the film is representative of the event. "Surely, there could not have been so many far-left extremists at the rally" seems to be the sentiment. If we had used an additional camera, we could have captured even more of the same on film. Some of the attendees even carried sticks and in one case what looks to be a real sword. This was shown briefly in the film. In case you missed it, here is a still-shot from the film:
Peaceful Protester?
Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has posted a Flash version of the film at his website. If you have problems viewing the film here at our website, try there.
The phrase 'Stalinist androids' used to describe the authoritarian marxists of the International ANSWER group on the movie web page was coined by Eric Alterman of The Nation magazine. Ironically, Mr. Alterman is the author of the book 'What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News' which allegedly debunks the notion that the mainstream media is slanted to the left.
Our report from the campus of Yale University yesterday prompted many to ask about the accompanying video footage. Actually, Evan's visit to New Haven was most likely the last production shoot for our upcoming film Indoctrinate U. Scenes from this latest campus romp will appear there.
The post-production team is on schedule for an early summer completion and we plan to release the film in time for the new school year in the fall. If you wish to be emailed when the trailer appears, subscribe to our mailing list. We will not be sending e-mails frequently, so if you subscribe, you won't have to worry about us filling up your inbox.
The New York Times weighs in (registration required) on this year's Sundance documentaries:
As ever, political subjects pervaded the documentary categories, nearly always addressed from a left-of-center perspective. It would be nice, if only for variety's sake, to encounter a pro-war or pro-death-penalty documentary here, but that seems unlikely.
An interesting choice of conservative film topics.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and wife Dr. Helen Smith recently interviewed Stuart Browning and Evan Coyne Maloney for their newly-inaugurated podcast series.
This month's issue highlights our short film Dead Meat:
On the Fence Films, founded by technology entrepreneur Stuart E. Browning and lawyer Blaine Greenberg, says it is working to create a new breed of political documentary that informs, entertains, and considers points of view different from those offered by The New York Times, CBS News, and other major media outlets.
[...]
Before his unexpected death in March 2005, Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Conrad F. Meier, managing editor emeritus of Health Care News, was actively involved with the On the Fence Films crew in producing the documentary. Many other proponents of consumer-directed health care reform--including David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute and Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute--also worked on the film.
"Dead Meat will be compulsory viewing for all Americans who have a love affair with a Canadian-syle single payer system," said Pipes.
Evan, Blaine, and I are meeting next weekend in Los Angeles to kick-off the final post-production phase of our upcoming film Indoctrinate U, a documentary that exposes political persecution, ideological brainwashing and totalitarian tactics on today's American campus.
In the meantime, American Enterprise Magazine has a review of Brainwashing 201: The Second Semester in the current (January/February 2006) issue. BW201 is an interim (unreleased) short which uses footage from the upcoming feature film and was screened last fall at the Liberty Film Festival in Hollywood:
"Fascists have no right to speak!" yelled a left-wing protestor, stomping onto the stage at the premiere of Evan Maloney's new film, Brainwashing 201. It was a dramatic example of what Maloney's picture is all about-the lack of fairness on college campuses, where liberal academics turn their classrooms into pulpits for political indoctrination, while conservatives "have no right to speak."
For those who haven't been on college campuses recently, Maloney's documentary is eye opening. Non-left academics are harassed for their political views. Students who show a conservative bent are threatened. Military recruiters are driven off campus.
[...]
Indeed, students in the film express amazement at how left-wing academics manage to wedge politics into nearly every subject. "It's pretty inventive," says one. "In geography class I learned that gender is socially constructed," illustrates another. "I really don't know why issues such as global warming, globalization, and militarism are brought up in a class in German literature," puzzles a third student.
[...]
There are also many humorous moments in the film, as when Maloney goes in search of the "Men's Center" on various campuses. He appears at each college's "Women's Center" and asks for directions to their counterpart. "We figured it was like the men's room and the women's room. The bathrooms are right next to each other," he states.
While seemingly laughable, Maloney points out that under the federal Title IX rules that have been used to push a feminist agenda at universities, not having a "Men's Center" might actually be illegal.
[...]
Campuses are supposed to be marketplaces of ideas where issues stand and fall on their merits. Brainwashing 201 demonstrates effectively that this is now far from the case.
The Carolina Journal, a publication of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, covers our film work documenting bias, political indoctrination and intolerance of free speech in academia.
The Chronicle of Higher EducationcoversBrainwashing 201: The Second Semester in its latest issue:
"Unfortunately, all too many campuses are quite antagonistic to multiple points of view," [director Evan Coyne Maloney] says. In higher education, there should be as much respect for diversity of viewpoints as there is for diversity of everything else, he says, which is why he made the film.
Mr. Maloney appears in it himself, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Tall and thin, he looks younger than his 33 years. He could easily pass for a student and usually does, until he walks unannounced into the offices of college administrators and politely asks questions about university policies that he believes condone the liberal indoctrination of students. Administrators, not surprisingly, typically refuse to answer. His unflappable demeanor and deadpan tone frustrate them so much that sometimes they threaten to have him arrested.
Film has an immediacy newspaper articles do not. In Brainwashing 201 we see the people who feel they have been discriminated against and the hurt on their faces as they tell their stories.
[...]
When colleagues found out she was Republican, [Cal Poly professor Laura] Freberg says, she was removed as chairman of her psychology department. (She says that she sued the university and reached a settlement, but according to Robert C. Detweiler, interim provost at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, her charges alleging political and gender discrimination were thrown out.)
"I'm talking about neurons," Ms. Freberg continues, but students told her they knew all along that she was Republican. When she asked them how they could tell, she says, they told her, It's "because of what you don't say."
A murmur of sympathy from the audience, but soon the film elicits more laughter. "I'm learning in geography class that gender is socially constructed," one student tells Mr. Maloney.
"I never knew that carbon chains had anything to do with politics, but they do," says another student.
But what really makes the crowd howl are the shots of Mr. Maloney randomly asking students to direct him to the men's-studies department and the men's center on various campuses. They look at Mr. Maloney like he's crazy, telling him, sometimes while laughing, that such things don't exist.
At the University of California at Santa Cruz, when Mr. Maloney asks a female student the purpose of the women's resource center she tells him it "promotes feminism" and tries to get women "involved in politics." At this, the words "Warning: Truth Detected" flash on the screen, as her word "politics" echoes several times.
The audience loves it. After the film, Mr. Maloney receives a standing ovation.
Note: The publicly-accessible link to the article above will be active for one week; after that, the article will be available only to Chronicle subscribers here.
We are honored to announce that Brainwashing 201: The Second Semester was selected as the Best Short Film of 2005 by the jurors of the Liberty Film Festival. This year, Liberty awarded prizes for submitted films in only two categories, Best Short and Best Feature, so it was quite flattering to have been selected. Although there are no plans to release Brainwashing 201 as a stand-alone film, much of the material will be included in the upcoming feature-length film Indoctrinate U, which we hope to complete in early 2006.
As the world rang in 2005, the Liberty Film Festival released its picks for the 10 Best Documentary Films of 2004. We're flattered to announce that Brainwashing 101 was selected in the top 10!
On October 3rd, Brainwashing 101 received a standing ovation after being screened at the Los Angeles-based Liberty Film Festival.
To read the previous buzz about Brainwashing 101, go here.
