October 06, 2010 08:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time

WASHINGTON--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--With just one month to go before the finale of the 2010 Midterm Elections, SnagFilms announced that it will offer a series of thought-provoking, issues-based documentaries to voters in blue states, red states and all those purple states in between.

"SnagFilms' Midterm Madness" Festival begins today, October 6 and will run until November 2, offering viewers free streaming of hundreds of films addressing the hot button topics of the midterm election, including more than 15 new films, several of them available online for the very first time. Each film may be "snagged" and shared anywhere on the web.

Each film will address an election theme or an issue relevant to voters. The line-up has been chosen to appeal to voters across the political spectrum and provide viewers with a way to cut through the political clutter in order to gain a deeper understanding of the issues important to them.

"Americans have had it with soundbites and attack ads," said SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen. "They want thoughtful perspectives on tough issues, and they'll get it from these noted films in our huge library. Before you go into the voting booth alone, watch these films with friends, on every topic you're passionate about."

"We are always looking for unique partners, and during this midterm election year what better partner than SnagFilms and documentaries about the election," says Director of Programming for Hamptons International Film Festival, David Nugent. “From the screening booth to the voting booth, it is a great way to see how films can influence not only public policy, but the world we live in."

The virtual theaters of the "SnagFilms' Midterm Madness Festival" will be complemented by screenings in Long Island theaters beginning tomorrow, with the commencement of the Hamptons International Film Festival (October 7-11). The Festival will screen five new documentaries on issues that will play a key role at the voting booth: WELCOME TO SHELBYVILLE (dir. Kim Snyder, World Premiere), COOL IT (dir. Ondi Timoner, US Premiere), ON COAL RIVER (dir. Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood, New York Premiere), NO TOMORROW (dir. Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth), and CLIENT 9: THE RISE AND FALL OF ELIOT SPITZER (dir. Alex Gibney). The festival's"Midterm Madness" centerpiece film will be Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, with an extended Q&A with the filmmaker at the festival on Saturday, October 9.

The Hamptons will host a panel discussion about political documentary filmmaking, featuring the directors with films in the Midterm Madness sidebar on Friday, October 8 at 4:30 PM at the First Presbyterian Church Session House in East Hampton.

The slate of featured films available online as part of the "SnagFilms' Midterm Madness Festival" include:

Waiting To Inhale Official Selection Australian International Film Festival

Winner Wordfedst Houston 2005

Gold Special Jury Award

Co-winner Best Documentary 2005

New Jersey International Film Festival,

CINE Golden Eagle Award Winner Eureka! International Film Festival

Waiting to Inhale, directed by Jed Riffe, makes its online debut here. Waiting to Inhale examines the heated debate over medical marijuana in the United States. Twelve states have passed legislation to protect patients who use medical marijuana. Yet opponents claim the medical argument is just a smokescreen for a different agenda-- to legalize marijuana for recreation and profit. What claims are being made, and what are the stakes? Waiting to Inhale takes viewers inside the lives of patients who have been forever changed by illness—and parents who lost their children to addiction. Is marijuana really a gateway drug? What evidence is there to support the claim that marijuana can alleviate some of the devastating symptoms of AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis? Waiting to Inhale sheds new light on this controversy and presents shocking new evidence that marijuana could hold a big stake in the future of medicine.

Ripe for Change

California -- always a fascinating marriage of opposite extremes -- is at a cross-roads in agriculture policy. Many Californians are struggling to fend off overdevelopment and the loss of farming lands and traditions while embracing innovative visions of agricultural sustainability. At the same time, California is where fast food was born and a center of the biotechnology industry and large corporate agribusiness. The debates raging in California over issues of food, agriculture, and sustainability have profound implications for all of America, especially in a world where scarcity is the norm and many natural resources are diminishing. This fascinating documentary explores the intersection of food and politics in California over the last 30 years. It illuminates the complex forces struggling for control of the future of California's agriculture, and provides provocative commentary by a wide array of eloquent farmers, prominent chefs, and noted authors and scientists. The film examines a host of thorny questions: What are the trade-offs between the ability to produce large quantities of food versus the health of workers, consumers, and the planet? What are the hidden costs of "inexpensive" food? How do we create sustainable agricultural practices? Through the "window" of food and agriculture, Ripe for Change reveals two parallel yet contrasting views of our world. One holds that large-scale agriculture, genetic engineering, and technology promise a hunger-less future. The other calls for a more organic, sustainable, and locally focused style of farming that reclaims the aesthetic and nurturing qualities of food and considers the impact of agriculture on the environment, on communities, and on workers. Ripe for Change was directed by award-winning filmmaker Emiko Omori.

Bring Your 'A' Game

A 17 year old African-American male encounters prominent Black male icons ('A' Gamers) from diverse fields in a hip, computer-generated video game-style world, underscoring the importance of high school graduation and educational achievement. Bring Your 'A' Game makes its online debut on SnagFilms. Bring Your 'A' Game was directed by Mario Van Peebles.

The film comes to SnagFilms from Twenty-First Century Foundation. Their mission is to lead, innovate and influence giving for Black community change. As one of the few, endowed, Black foundations in the U.S., Twenty-First Century Foundation (21CF) works to advance the welfare of the Black community through strategic and collective grant making; special initiatives and research; donor education and donor services.

Becoming Barack

Becoming Barack presents a close-up, never-seen perspective of Barack Obama. Starting with his early days as a Chicago organizer in the 1980's and the early 1990's, Becoming Barack offers new details about how his identity evolved and his leadership skills developed. Even during this early period in his career, a vision of hope for "the world as it should be" shone brightly. But along the way, he realized that gaining power was the most certain path toward helping to assure change. This is the story of Barack Obama's amazing journey--a future president--years before he was a public figure. Directed by Robert Yuhas, Becoming Barack makes its online debut on SnagFilms.

Purple States: 14 Shorts on the 08 General Election and Primaries

The Purple States Channel by executive producer Cynthia Farrar will feature 14 shorts on the 08 General Election and Primaries.

Five very different citizens take their concerns to the candidates - and each other. In this series of shorts, which aired in 2008 on The New York Times and The Washington Post, a group of ordinary citizens travel the campaign trail together, and ask the questions American voters are still trying to answer. They express anger about the political process. They try to make sense of what they're hearing from the politicians who still dominate the political landscape. The issues contested then - jobs, health care reform, the environment, immigration, and the role of government - dominate this year's battles too. By documenting the 2008 campaign through the eyes of a group of citizens who together look like America, Purple States illuminates what's at stake in the coming election.

Nuclear Tipping Point

Directed by Ben Goddard, Nuclear Tipping Point is a conversation with Former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn, four men intimately involved in American diplomacy and national security over the last four decades, whose efforts have reframed the global debate on nuclear issues and, according to The New York Times, "sent waves through the global policy establishment."

Truth in Numbers? Everything, According to Wikipedia

Although Wikipedia is the 8th most popular website on the Internet today, and is already the 3rd most widely read 'publication' in human history, attracting 100 million unique visitors a month, this great social and academic experiment of our age is riddled with vandalism and challenged by skeptics, posing compelling questions about whether Wikipedia's model can truly achieve its goal.

The film intersperses founder Jimmy Wales' unusual rise to Internet super-stardom among the global implications of Wikipedia. Are entries factually accurate? Biased? Accountable? Does 'Jimbo' Wales posses the wisdom to ensure that Wikipedians aggregate knowledge correctly? Truth in Numbers is directed by Scott Glosserman and Nic Hill.

Prom Night In Mississippi

In 1997, Academy Award winning actor, Morgan Freeman, who lives in the Charleston, Mississippi community, offered to fund the first-ever integrated Senior Prom in the history of Charleston's one high school. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Morgan offered again...and the East Tallahatchie County School Board accepted. In this town of 2,300 people, its high school of 415 black and white students had previously always held separate proms: one black, one white. The film follows the Charleston High senior class of 2008 preparing and attending their historic, first integrated prom, in the context of strong emotions, traditions, and conflict inherent in race relations in the community, and in the Deep South. Prom Night In Mississippi is directed by Paul Saltzman.

Operation Homecoming

Eleven written items from the anthology "Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home Front" (ed. Andrew Carroll, Random House 2006) are presented using a variety of novel cinematic techniques. Each selection is chosen from the book's dozens of narratives, which were written not only by soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines but also by family members affected by combat deployments to the Middle East. The film's discrete sequences are synched with voice overs that are read from the writers' original work by a cadre of distinguished actors. The narrative presentations are interspersed with discussions by writers from the project and disquisitions on the nature and profundity of war writing by renowned writers who are themselves veterans of previous conflicts. Operation Homecoming is directed by Richard E. Robbins.

Tying the Knot

Oscar, Nominated, Best Documentary, Academy Awards, 2008

DGA Award, Nominated, Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Documentary, Directors Guild of America, 2008 Special Jury Award, Won, Innovative Documentary Storytelling, Florida Film Festival, 2007 IDA Award, Pare Lorentz Award, Nominated, International Documentary Association, 2007 Emmy, Won, News and Documentary Emmy Awards, Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft; Music and Sound, 2008

When a bank robber's bullet ends the life of police officer Lois Marrero, her wife of thirteen years, Mickie, is honored as her surviving spouse but denied all pension benefits. When Sam, an Oklahoma rancher, loses his beloved husband of 22 years, long-estranged cousins of his late spouse try to lay claim to everything Sam has. As Mickie and Sam's lives are put on trial, they are forced to confront the tragic reality that in the eyes of the law their marriages mean nothing. From an historical trip to the Middle Ages, to gay hippies storming the Manhattan marriage bureau in 1971, Tying the Knot digs deeply into the past and present to uncover the meaning of civil marriage in America today.

Extremely relevant, highly entertaining and utterly humanist, the critically-acclaimed film festival favorite Tying the Knot poignantly explores one of today's hottest issues, the political war between gay people who want to marry and those determined to stop them. Tying the Knot is directed by Jim de Seve.

Questioning Faith

All his life, award-winning filmmaker Macky Alston has believed in a merciful and benevolent God. The untimely death of a close friend and fellow seminary student Alan Smith, however, challenges Alston's deepest convictions. He initiates his film with the pressing question: How does one believe in God in the face of so much human suffering?

Move On: The Movie

Directed by Alex Jordanov and Scott Stevenson, MoveOn: The Movie is a feature-length documentary focusing on the revolutionary history of the biggest progressive grass-roots movement seen in the United States since the 1960s.

The 2000 election marked the end of the Bush era. For months, Republicans and Democrats squared up for the main event. Alongside the candidates, the parties, the powerful lobbies, the religious groups and the unions, a relative newcomer was part of the battle. MoveOn rocked the foundations of the American political system. In a span of just ten years, they have become a force to be reckoned with in America.

Electoral High School

Is it better for a presidential candidate to carry more votes or more states? Electoral High School is a short documentary that explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Electoral College by using it to elect a High School Prom King and Queen. Electoral High School is directed by Hayley Karl.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

Based on journalist and historian Thomas Frank's book of the same name (subtitled: How Conservatives won the Heart of America) What's the Matter with Kansas? is a film by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston. It shows Kansas' transformation from an outpost of radicalism into a bastion of hard-core conservatism, telling the stories of unforgettable characters and shining a new light on our nation's political divide.

11/04/08

Winner, Chicago Film Fest Award "Special Achievement in Interactive Filmmaking"

Two weeks before the election of Barack Obama, Director Jeff Deutchman asked friends around the world to record their experiences of 11/4/08, a day that had become historic before it had even taken place. In this documentary, a global canvas unfolds: in St. Louis and Austin, idealistic volunteers think they can turn their states blue. In Chicago, voter lines grow even longer when Obama shows up to cast his own vote. In Dubai, Berlin, Geneva and New Delhi, expatriates express their emotion from a distance. And in Harlem, a felon casts doubt on whether any of this will affect his life.

11/04/08 unveils an unfolding global canvas as we approach Obama's victory at 11pm EST. What emerges is a portrait of how people choose to live through history: the celebration of a new future remaining entangled with the universally visible tensions of the past.

About SnagFilms

SnagFilms features free ad-supported viewing of more than 1600 award-winning titles from some of the greatest names in documentary film. All films are shareable across the web. Since its launch in July 2008, SnagFilms' library has been featured on over 2 billion web pageviews, via more than 100,000 affiliates, and is distributed throughout AOL channels, and the websites of the Miami Herald and IMDb; portals like Hulu and Fancast; hundreds of non-profits, special interest sites and blogs; and thousands of social network pages. Beginning later in October, SnagFilms will be featured on the Starbucks Digital Network, available in 6700 Starbucks in the US. OVGuide has twice named SnagFilms a Top Site and MovieMaker Magazine named SnagFilms to its annual list of "50 Best Websites for Moviemakers."

The company was founded and is majority owned by digital entrepreneur, documentary film producer, professional sports teams' owner and philanthropist Ted Leonsis, and is additionally backed by AOL co-founder and Revolution LLC Chairman, Steve Case; philanthropist and former digital executive Jean Case; operating executive and philanthropic venture capitalist Miles Gilburne; a group led by Ted and Jim Pedas, founders of Circle Films; and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The SnagFilms family also includes indieWIRE, for more than 14 years the web's top source of news, reviews and information about independent film.

About The Hamptons International Film Festival

The Hamptons International Film Festival was founded to celebrate the Independent film - long, short, fiction and documentary - and to introduce a unique, varied spectrum of international films and filmmakers to the public. The Festival is committed to exhibiting films that express fresh voices and differing global perspectives, with the hope that these programs will enlighten audiences, provide invaluable exposure for filmmakers and present inspired entertainment for all.

HIFF greatly appreciates the support from their corporate sponsors, which include Altour International, American Airlines, Lexus, The Wall Street Journal, Vector Media, Babelgum, Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte, Easy Scent Lampe Berger and Nice Shoes among many others.

The Hamptons International Festival headquarters are located at the beautiful c/o The Maidstone Hotel on Main Street in East Hampton

For more information about the 2010 Festival, and to become a member, please visit our website at www.hamptonsfilmfest.org.

The 2010 Hamptons Film Festival takes place October 7th -11th.