The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland in 1966 and quickly became known for both its armed patrols and its free breakfast programme. The documentary puts that doubleness at the center: the same organisation armed itself against the state and fed children who would otherwise go to school hungry. Then the FBI's COINTELPRO programme goes to work and the organisation comes apart from inside. Stanley Nelson's film is the first feature-length documentary about the party. It took seven years; Nelson interviewed more than fifty people and about thirty made the final cut. Those who speak include former Panthers, police, FBI informants, journalists, and both supporters and critics. The film neither mythologises the movement nor reduces it to crime; it tells how it was built and how it fell apart together. It premiered at Sundance on 23 January 2015 and had a limited release later that year. Who it's for: Anyone interested in civil rights and radical political history and in wide-ranging archival documentary. Who it's not for: A very broad period is covered in a hundred and fifteen minutes and some sections pass quickly. The room given to the role of women in the party is also limited.