Presented with the support of FilmStudyGroup.org and the Citizens United Productions.
At our next session of the Sydney Film Study Group, we will present the Australian premiere screening of Occupy Unmasked – an exposé of the “Occupy” protest movement, featuring the late US conservative activist Andrew Breitbart.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612. Guests and first time attendees are welcome!
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
About the Documentary (from the American filmakers):
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)
“While the Liberal establishment and mainstream media portray the Occupy Wall Street movement as organic and nonviolent, Occupy Unmasked reveals the sinister, organized, and highly orchestrated nature of its leaders and their number one goal: Not just to change government, but to destroy it.
“Led by hugely influential conservative visionary, the late Andrew Breitbart, Occupy Unmasked delves deep beneath the surface of the Occupy movement to show its dark anarchist roots. Behind the largely naïve students and legitimately concerned citizens looking for answers stand those who advocate the use of violence, black bloc operations, and intimidation as protest tactics – the same tactics they used during the anti-war protests of the 1960’s, anti-nuclear weapons protests of the 80’s, WTO protests of the 90’s, and the IMF protests of recent years.
“Former leftists turned patriotic citizen journalists Brandon Darby, David Horowitz, Pam Keys, Anita MonCrief, Mandy Nagy, Lee Stranahan, and others take viewers into the Occupy camps around the country to see first-hand the truth of what is happening and who is at the heart of the movement. Exclusive footage and eyewitness accounts tell the story of the criminal activity and raw brutality in the camps – much of which has not been reported by the mainstream media.
“Directed by Stephen K. Bannon (The Undefeated, Generation Zero) and produced by David N. Bossie (Generation Zero, Perfect Valor), Occupy Unmasked is an eye-opening look at a startling movement that could have a dangerous impact on the future of America.”
“Occupy Sydney”, photographed in Martin Place, October 2012
Attending
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee is $5 to cover the remainder of 2012. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own food and (strictly non-alcoholic) beverages. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for one session only. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612. Guests and first time attendees are welcome!
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
About the talk
Five broad Schools of Thought are explored by Dr. Nigel Ashford:
Milton Friedman and the Chicago School
Public Choice Theory
Austrian School (eg. Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek)
Natural Rights (eg. Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick)
Anarcho-Capitalism (eg. Murray Rothbard, David Friedman)
Dr. Nigel Ashford is senior program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies.
He joined IHS from the United Kingdom where he was professor of politics and Jean Monnet Scholar in European Integration at Staffordshire University, England. Dr. Ashford has also directed the Principles for a Free Society Project at the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation in Sweden, and was a Bradley Resident Scholar at the Heritage Foundation and Visiting Scholar at the Social and Philosophy Policy Center in Bowling Green.
He is a recipient of the International Anthony Fisher Trust Prize for published work which strengthens public understanding of the political economy of the free society.
Dr. Ashford was also Chairman of the American Politics Group of the United Kingdom.
He is author of Principles for a Free Society (Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation, 1999, 2003), which is available in six languages. He is co-author of US Politics Today (Manchester University Press, 1999); Public Policy and the Impact of the New Right (St Martin’s Press, 1994) and A Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (Routledge, 1991), and numerous articles on how ideas influence US politics.
Attending
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee is $5 to cover the remainder of 2012. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own food and (strictly non-alcoholic) beverages. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for one session only. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612. Guests and first time attendees are welcome!
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
About the Documentary
Description from Biography Channel:
(This documentary explores) … the incredible achievements and lonely life of one of the greatest scientists of all time.
By the age of 23, he had laid the foundations for calculus, the laws of gravity, motion and inertia, and begun experiments on light.
His major work, The Principia, has become to science what the Mona Lisa is to art.
Isaac Newton has been called the Father of Modern Science.
His incredible body of work represents arguably the greatest contribution to science ever made by an individual. But despite living at the vibrant center of an inspired social scene, his personal life was marked by loneliness.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON examines the many discoveries and private fears of this remarkable man.
Leading scientists trace the extent and impact of his discoveries, and reveal the self doubt that led him to hold back on publishing many of his findings. It was only after his Principia was recognized as one of the great works in science that he released a number of his earlier findings.
(Sir Isaac Newton: Gravity of Genius) … explores the life of the man once called by Lord Maynard Keynes ”the last great magician, the last great mind which looked out on the visible world with the same eyes as those who began our intellectual inheritance.”
Notes from AETV.com:
(This documentary) relates the story of Isaac Newton’s life from his birth during a plague in an English village through his seminal work in mathematics, theology, alchemy and astronomy.
Newton devoted his life to the study of the natural world, discovering the laws of gravity, analyzing light, and developing the three laws of motion to explain the movement of the planets and their satellites.
The documentary provides in depth discussions of each of Newton’s major discoveries, including calculus, gravity and the reflecting telescope.
It traces his studies of ancient history and of the Bible, and details his struggle to gain public recognition for his scientific work.
Some quotes from Sir Isaac Newton:
“If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.”
“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people. ”
“… from the same principles, I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World.”
Principia Mathematica
“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. `Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things.”
Quoted in G Simmons Calculus Gems
(New York 1992)
“The description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn.”
Principia Mathematica.
“The latest authors, like the most ancient, strove to subordinate the phenomena of nature to the laws of mathematics.”
His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.
“If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”
Letter to Robert Hooke
“I know not what I appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell, whilest the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Quoted in D Brewster,
Memoirs of Newton
UPDATE (13/08/12)!
Sir Isaac Newton: Gravity of Genius will be preceded by a short documentary:
EVERYONE’S SPACE featuring Scott Bakula (star of Quantum Leap)
From the beginning of the Space Race in 1959, the exploration of mankind’s last great frontier has been considered the exclusive domain of government. Common wisdom has long dictated that ventures requiring such a massive outlay of capital and complicated technological research and construction required tax dollars and the administration of a massive government agency. Common wisdom also dictated that only trained astronauts would be able to experience these “off-world adventures” for the foreseeable future.That was then, this is now.Everyone’s Space explodes the myth and shows how private entrepreneurs have now taken the helm of the new space race. Star Trek’s Scott Bakula demonstrates how the power of competition and risk taking has propelled aeronautics and telecommunications to great heights, and why this competitive force will also elevate space tourism and space exploration into the realm of private enterprise.
Set at the stunning Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California, Scott Bakula and leading space industry experts explore this newest frontier of Everyone’s Space.
Attending
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee is $5 to cover the remainder of 2012. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own food and (strictly non-alcoholic) beverages. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for one session only. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
Presented with the support of FilmStudyGroup.org and the kind permission of Dave Compton, Broken Pencil Productions & Two Million Minutes.
At our next session of the Sydney Film Study Group, we will present another documentary from the makers of 2 Million Minutes, entitled The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612.
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
About the Documentary
Finland’s education system has consistently ranked among the best in the world for more than a decade. The puzzle is, why Finland?
Documentary filmmaker, Bob Compton, along with Harvard researcher, Dr. Tony Wagner, decided to find out.
The result of their research is captured in a new film, “The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System”.
In the 60-minute film, Dr. Wagner guides the viewer through an inside look at the world’s finest secondary education system.
A life-long educator and author of the best-selling book “The Global Achievement Gap,” Dr. Wagner is uniquely qualified to explore and explain Finland’s success.
From within classrooms and through interviews with students, teachers, parents, administrators and government officials, Dr. Wagner reveals the surprising factors accounting for Finland’s rank as the #1 education system in the world.
Tony Wagner
Attending
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee is $5 to cover the remainder of 2012. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own food and (strictly non-alcoholic) beverages. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for one session only. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
Presented with the support of FilmStudyGroup.org and the kind permission of Dave Compton, Broken Pencil Productions & Two Million Minutes.
At our next session of the Sydney Film Study Group, we will present the the first installment of the celebrated documentary series 2 Million Minutes, entitled A Global Examination, which examines the education systems in China, India and the United States.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0415 315 472.
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
About the Documentary
Regardless of nationality, as soon as a student completes primary school, the clock starts ticking. From that very moment the child has approximately –
… Two Million Minutes until the end of high school
… Two Million Minutes to build an intellectual foundation
… Two Million Minutes to prepare for university and ultimately a career
… Two Million Minutes to transition from a teenager to an adult.
How a student spends their Two Million Minutes – in class, at home studying, playing sport, working, sleeping, socialising or just mucking about — will affect their economic prospects for the rest of their lives.
How do most high school students in the West spend this time? What about students in the rest of the world? How do family, friends and society influence a student’s choices for time allocation? What implications do these choices have on their future and on a country’s economic future?
This film takes a deeper look at how the three superpowers of the 21st Century – China, India and the United States – are preparing their students for the future.
As the filmmakers follow two students – a boy and a girl – from each of these countries, they compose a global snapshot of education, from the viewpoint of kids preparing for their future.
The film’s goal is to tell the broader story of the universal importance of education today, and address what many are calling a crisis for schools in the U.S. (and other Western nations like Australia) regarding chronically low scores in mathematics and science.
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee for calendar 2012 is a nominal $10 to cover the entire calendar year. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own food and (strictly non-alcoholic) beverages. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for one session only. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
At our next session of the Sydney Film Study Group, we will present the acclaimed documentary The Power of the Poor, featuring the influential Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto.
Date: Sunday, 15 April 2012
When: 4.30pm (doors open). Session: 5.00pm—7.00pm (Note different day and times)
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612.
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
About the Documentary
The Power of the Poor is a story animated by ideas. How could a small group of economists and researchers help defeat home-grown terrorists in Peru?
How could they pressure the government to make legal reforms that would lift millions out of poverty? And how could they avoid being the target of bombings and assassination attempts? It takes both courage and ideas that work.
The Power of the Poor is a compelling look at the surprising and vital role of inclusive lawand titled property in establishing peace and prosperity. It is also the story of real people with real struggles—all of whom share a commitment to entrepreneurship.
Filmed on location in HD and hosted by renowned Peruvian economist and author Hernando de Soto, this insightful program tells how corruption, bureaucracy and a lack of simple legal rules have locked two-thirds of the world’s population out of the global economy. Forced to operate outside the rule of law, they have created their own parallel, but limited, commercial systems. “It’s time to let them in,” says de Soto.
De Soto and his team have proven that, even hobbled by great obstacles, the world’s hard-working poor entrepreneurs have created far more wealth than anyone had ever imagined possible—even with the absence of the legal frameworks people in the rich north take for granted. Prosperity is possible, if only we simplify the rules of the game. That means giving the poor titled property and the legal business tools we in the West enjoy. Such will enable them to harness the power of their considerable assets, as these stories illustrate.
Peruvian history proves de Soto right. Facing the growing violence of the Sendero Luminoso, the “Shining Path,” de Soto and his team were able to pass numerous legal reforms that helped lead to the defeat of the Shining Path and set the stage for Peru’s economic resurgence. To unlock The Power of the Poor is to change the world. If we fail, the world’s ‘humble people’ will turn against capitalism as they have turned against other failed economic systems. Such could make for a very difficult and violent age. But with policies of legal inclusion, there is hope.
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee for calendar 2012 is a nominal $10 to cover the entire calendar year. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own (strictly non-alcoholic) drinks and noise-free eats. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for the first of such attendances. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612.
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
Don’t worry if you missed the first half! For the benefit of attendees who were not present at the 15 February session, a brief recap of the first half of the episode will be provided prior to screening the second half.
Presented with special thanks to InVision Productions of London & William Cran and with the support of FilmStudyGroup.org.
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee for calendar 2012 is a nominal $10 to cover the entire calendar year. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own (strictly non-alcoholic) drinks and noise-free eats. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for the first of such attendances. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
Presented with special thanks to InVision Productions of London & William Cran and with the support of FilmStudyGroup.org.
We are pleased to announce that the next session of the Sydney Film Study Group will feature Episode 1 (first half) of the acclaimed documentary, Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, entitled The Battle of Ideas.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612.
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
Important Note: We will be splitting Episode 1 of Commanding Heights into two parts, each approximately one hour in length. The first half will be screened at our session on 15 February and the second is expected to be screened at the following session.
About the Documentary
A global economy, energised by technological change and unprecedented flows of people and money, collapses in the wake of a terrorist attack … The year is 1914.
Worldwide war results, exhausting the resources of the great powers and convincing many that the economic system itself is to blame. From the ashes of the catastrophe, an intellectual and political struggle ignites between the powers of government and the forces of the marketplace, each determined to reinvent the world’s economic order.
Two individuals emerge whose ideas, shaped by very different experiences, will inform this debate and carry it forward.
One is a brilliant, unconventional Englishman named John Maynard Keynes.
The other is an outspoken émigré from ravaged Austria, Friedrich von Hayek.
But a worldwide depression holds the capitalist nations in its grip. In opposition to both Keynes and Hayek stand not only Hitler’s Third Reich but Stalin’s Soviet Union, schooled in the communist ideologies of Marx and Lenin and bent on obliterating the capitalist system altogether.
For more than half a century the battle of ideas will rage. From the totalitarian socialist systems to the fascist states, from the independent nations of the developing world to the mixed economies of Europe, and the regulated capitalism of the United States, government planning will gradually take over the commanding heights.
But in the 1970s, with Keynesian theory at its height and communism fully entrenched, economic stagnation sets in on all sides. When a British grocer’s daughter and a former Hollywood actor become heads of state, they join forces around the ideas of Hayek, and new political and economic policies begin to transform the world.
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. Guests are welcome! The membership fee for calendar 2012 is a nominal $10 to cover the entire calendar year. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own (strictly non-alcoholic) drinks and noise-free eats. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for the first of such attendances. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
Presented with the support of FilmStudyGroup.org and with special thanks to Fawaz Al-Matrouk.
We are pleased to announce that the next session of the Sydney Film Study Group will feature the excellent and timely documentary, Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged.
RSVP is required to David Prichard by email or SMS 0411 527 612.
The evening will follow the Film Study Group format, with a moderated discussion after the documentary screening.
Events are open to members and their guests, including guests that the President may sign in at the door. The membership fee for calendar 2012 is a nominal $10 to cover the entire calendar year. Members are not required to attend any minimum number of events. Members and their guests may bring their own (strictly non-alcoholic) drinks and noise-free eats. Non-members are welcome to attend as a guest of a member for the first of such attendances. Members will take responsibility for their guests and all participants must treat the venue and other members with courtesy.
About the Documentary
Written, Produced, Directed by Chris Mortensen – a television producer and documentary filmmaker whose many programs have appeared worldwide. In the U.S. his documentary subjects have ranged from Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, Hermann Goering and John Paul Jones to American Gangsters, the HIV crisis and the Iraq War. From Professional Wrestling to Halle Berry to the Suez Canal, his programs have appeared on Discovery, A&E, History Channel, ESPN, Fox Sports, BET, TV One, et al.
Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged is a feature length documentary film that examines the resurging interest in Ayn Rand’s epic and controversial 1957 novel and the validity of its dire prediction for America.
Set in what novelist and philosopher Rand called ‘the day after tomorrow,’ Atlas depicts an America in crisis, brought to her knees by a corrupt establishment of government regulators and businessmen with political pull – the ‘looters’ and the ‘moochers’ – who prey on individual achievement.
Less a conventional work of fiction than a philosophical manifesto in the form of a romantic novel, over the course of a thousand-plus pages, Atlas tackles no less an essential argument than the one debated by philosophers and theologians since time immemorial: altruism vs. self-interest. Am I my brother’s keeper – or not? For Ayn Rand, the answer is an emphatic no. To Rand and the disciples of her Objectivist philosophy, self-sacrifice is as heinous an act as murder … murder of the soul.
Upon publication, Atlas Shrugged was widely scorned by critics for its ‘preposterous’ plot and one-dimensional characters. Intellectuals and academics from across the ideological spectrum roundly dismissed the new and original philosophy called ‘Objectivism’ that Rand so compellingly illustrated in the novel.
Despite this pummeling, Atlas became a best seller and has remained in print ever selling a healthy 75,000 or so copies each year. Then with the new century, sales began to increase dramatically. In 2007, its fiftieth anniversary year, Atlas sold a record 180,000 copies. Since then Atlas Shrugged – published over a half century ago – has sold over a million copies.
Why? Because – as evidenced by pointed and frequent references to Rand and Atlas Shrugged in the media – an increasing number of Americans – right or wrong – see their society devolving into a nightmare scenario like the one Rand projected over a half century ago.
Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged looks into Rand’s background for the ideas and philosophy that inspired and shaped her novel and seeks to determine whether America is indeed headed for the disastrous outcome she predicted.
Presented with the support of 
