Made just before America would be forced into the Second World War, this short subject is a brief dramatized history of American democracy. It targets a perceived threat to democracy from board room and soapbox fascists who advocated a government based upon contemporaneous European models.
The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.
This Passing Parade series short chronicles the political life of Francisco Madero, who tried to bring democracy and land reform to Mexico.
In post-WWII Japan, an American captain is brought in to help build a school, but the locals want a teahouse instead.
Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occuring.
Documentary about Japan's road to democracy
A documentary about a proposed military training area in Rothenthurm, Central Switzerland, and the village's resistance to those plans.
A documentary of Turkish political history about multi-party period, Democrat Party government and the coup d'etat of 27th May. Including eye-witness interviews with journalists, officers, politicians and family members.
It's easy to say... After 23 years of single-party rule, Turkey decided to try democracy once again in 1946. In every attempt up to that time, the regime had been turned upside down and given up in a short time. Now a new one was coming. Would he be able to reach the multi-party regime that has been pursued since Atatürk this time? The calendar of democracy began to run on the morning of Monday, January 7, 1946. That day was a turning point in Turkish political history. The Republic of Turkey woke up with a single party in the morning, it was now multi-party...
Societies, like people, have turning points in their histories. These milestones sometimes silently and spontaneously knock on the door, and sometimes they explode like a terrifying thunderclap. The year 1950 was such a turning point for Turkey. A simmering social reaction against 27 years of power erupted in the spring of 1950. Society has cracked its quarter-century shell. Not by shedding blood in the streets, but by voting at the ballot boxes. "Demirkırat" was reared by the general vote. That's why the 14 May 1950 elections were always called the "White Revolution"...
The spring of 1950 was also the spring of the multi-party regime in Turkey. A new 10 years, a new regime, a new government. The first test of democracy was beginning. The National Chief of the single-party period had returned to his Pink Mansion. The address of the opposition was clear now. When it comes to power... Power was shared by a tripartite trivet from the first day: DP Group in the Parliament. Celal Bayar in the Mansion and Adnan Menderes in the Prime Ministry..
During the multi-party period in Turkey, no party could achieve the success that the Democrat Party achieved in the 1954 elections. Since those days, no party has been able to repeat the 56 percent of the DP's votes in that election. Now, 93 out of every 100 deputies in the parliament were from the DP. The DP power had reached a heavy and overwhelming majority... Menderes was at the peak of his power and prestige. But as in everything else, the highest point reached in politics was also the point where the descent would begin.
Looking back at the turmoil of the 1950s today, it's hard not to be sad. Even though one knows the end of the story, he is always waiting for something to happen to prevent this bitter ending. He wants the mistakes made to be noticed, a common point to be agreed and the accident that says I am coming to be prevented. But in vain... After the accident today, all we can do is look at the causes of the accident and learn from it... Beginning from the mid-1950s, the democracy, which was knitted stitch by knot before, began to unravel again, stitch by stitch. A tense, harsh, vicious period has opened in the political arena... It seemed impossible to see the future and take precautions in that dusty smoke...
In the past, when spring came, there was a spring atmosphere in politics. But the spring of 1959 brought the CHP's spring offensive on the contrary. Seeing that the opportunity for a dialogue was completely lost after Menderes' plane crash, İsmet Pasha put on his boots in April and took his 46 deputies with him to the expedition. The chosen route was the route of the Great Offensive in the War of Independence. Uşak, where İnönü took the Greek Commander-in-Chief Trikupis prisoner, was the first stop...
While the government was in a deep sleep, the brain staff of the revolution was completing its final preparations at the Military Academy, there were only a few hours left for the revolution that had been prepared for six years. Despite six years of preparation, there was actually no serious plan at hand. An unplanned, unscheduled full night raid was to be organized. The management level of the army was pro-government. Therefore, it was impossible for the intervention to take place within the chain of command. This was to be a grassroots military operation. The army of the operation consisted of young cadets. Except for the Harbiye, there was no force at hand. It was even possible for units such as the Guards Regiment and the Central Command to resist. That's how the day of May 27 began with the unknown and risks. Major General Cemal Madanoğlu, the commander of the Revolution Headquarters, would have the last word...
It is a famous saying: "One can come to power with a bayonet, but not sit on it." The organization, which carried out 27 May, came to power with a bayonet. Moreover, these young officers seized power that night by breaking the traditional chain of command. In the morning, a 10-year DP period was over, the support of the public was gained at first hand, and a brand new phase was reached. Now, the days that would mark the future of Turkey were beginning. Now, as those days put it, the "second republic period" was beginning.
Revolutionaries passed before the streets of the 1960s on the road to democracy. Then the youth with the victory songs, the workers with the rebel flags, the rightists, the leftists and the putschists again. The country spent 12 years in the grip of the revolution and in the end all roads came to the same crossroads. Ankara was restless in the minutes when the ousted prime minister of the Democratic Party, Adnan Menderes, was hanged. The news of Menderes' execution had not yet come. There was an anxious wait in the houses. Ears were on the radio. Everyone was wondering what happened in Imrali. In the Assembly, the National Unity Committee was in a meeting. They were also trying to learn the fate of Menderes. Suddenly, news came that EP Chairperson Ragıp Gümüşpala and Secretary General Şinasi Osman wanted to meet with the committee urgently. The committee members did not break the request of their former commander Gümüşpala and made an appointment for 14:30...
By the end of 1963, the word coup was no longer spoken in Turkey. Talat Aydemir is history, the last tremors of the May 27 earthquake have passed and the sliding faults of the regime have begun to settle into place. In this transition period, which lasted more than four years, the person who managed to get the ship to the port without running aground was İsmet İnönü. He ruled for four troubled years in a country torn between armed uprisings, Cyprus crises, coalition governments and regime debates. But meanwhile, he was also worn out. In the local elections held at the end of 1963, while the CHP's votes remained at 37 percent, the AP found 45 percent. But on the very day of the final election results, a few gunshots heard from across the Atlantic turned everything upside down...
The slogan "Great Türkiye" began to be heard for the first time in the mid-60s. The Turkish economy had become unstable and stagnant at the hands of military interventions and the provisional government. After 1965, the system began to settle. The economy's also recovered. With the 2nd Development Plan, the wheels of a liberal economy were turned. On the 1 hand, private sector incentives, big projects such as Keban Dam and Bosphorus Bridge. Electricity was going to the villages, Turkey was getting its share from the growth in the world, the country was "doubling up" in the words of the prime minister. Inflation was five percent. Demirel, who rushed from one groundbreaking ceremony to the next, had nothing to say. Of course, this vitality was also reflected in social life. Unions, associations, universities were fidgety. The world and Türkiye were going to 1968 at full speed. The year that gave its name to a generation in the history of the world and Turkey; 1968 had come...
When March of 1971 knocked on the door, a military intervention was imminent in the country. Bombs were exploding in a strange way from right to left, and the urban guerrilla was resorting to unconventional acts such as bank robbery and kidnapping. The generals had decided to put a stop to this trend. Dynamite was placed under Prime Minister Demirel. The question now was who would ignite the fuse of the dynamite. President Sunay was waiting to watch the approaching explosion silently from Çankaya. Tuğmaç, Chief of General Staff, tried to delay the explosion as much as possible, preferring Demirel to self-destruct. The two generals were watching each other to see who would ignite the fuse first. These two generals were Faruk Gürler and Muhsin Batur. The fire was in their hands. They were going to detonate the dynamite...