Is Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone an anti-semite? This question has swamped the blogosphere in the past few days after the director gave a controversial interview to the Sunday Times of London. The director of such celebrated films as PLATOON, WALL STREET, JFK and NIXON, whose most recent documentary SOUTH OF THE BORDER is a controversial look at the left-leaning politics in current favor in South America, has not exactly been known for his discretion. He is a social and political...

What one of the great benefits (and joys) of an event like the AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival is the presentation of films that go behind the news headlines and offer a portrait of the complexity and urgency of political and social events. The simple idea behind many of the films here is that the more we know, the more we understand, the more we can do. In the case of finding solutions to some of the world's most complicated issues, none is more pressing than the need t...