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<\/a><\/p>\nSteal This Story, Please!<\/em> is a powerful documentary that is structured as a biographical piece on an independent journalist who might not be on everyone\u2019s radar – Amy Goodman, the face and the backbone of Democracy Now!<\/em>, a TV and radio show aiming to give voice to people who have no platform to speak from. The film acts as a politically charged statement about the importance of information and a call to action communicating what might be the most universal truth there is – it\u2019s the people who have the power. As Patti Smith and Fred Smith wrote in their empowering anthem featured in the film credits: \u201cpeople have the power to dream, to rule, to wrestle the world from fools\u201d. Or in the case of the journalistic code of honor – power to demand information, power to have an unbiased opinion, power to make a difference by being an impartial witness. The documentary was met by the audience at the screening at Santa Barbara Film Festival<\/em> with great enthusiasm and a strong feeling of unity and need for action. As shared by the director Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water, The Janes) at the post-screening Q&A, the film has won an audience choice award at every festival it was screened at (Palm Springs, Hamptons, St. Louis, etc). That speaks to the urgency and particular importance of the message it conveys.<\/p>\n Steal This Story, Please!<\/em> covers Amy Goodman\u2019s professional career spanning years of journalistic and activist work, her bravery in the face of most violent conflicts witnessed firsthand (East Timor Massacre of 1991), her persistence at continuing to report what\u2019s denied by officials (9\/11 Toxic Exposure), her ethics, integrity and resilience (Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship). When asked in an interview for the film how she was able to get access to so many powerful stories and why some people would tell her things that they don\u2019t tell anyone else, Amy responds only half-jokingly that she simply asks questions. It seems especially poignant in the times of \u201cuniversal yes\u201d, when people do not dare to say \u201cno\u201d and question what\u2019s being presented to them inside a certain frame. The film includes a multitude of archival video clips featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Amy challenging public officials and not shying away from doing the actual legwork allowing her to witness events and find people on the margins who do not fit into the official narrative.<\/p>\n Despite being a traditional documentary narrative by form, the film feels thrillingly dynamic and emotionally strong due to exquisite fast-paced editing with just the right accents and rich archival material showcasing most prominent cases in Amy Goodman\u2019s career, pairing them with added commentary from Amy and her colleagues and coworkers. What is most striking in this narrative is how the magnitude of the stories is contrasted with a very limited number of people bringing them to life at Democracy Now!.<\/em><\/p>\n A commentary persistently delivered via several repetitions of candid videos with failed attempts to get information out of public officials points towards the statement Amy makes closer to the end of the film that actually looking into problems and solving them is considered boring for contemporary media, as what brings much desired views and consequentially high advertisement budgets is fear and terror. Even though a lot of the issues raised in the documentary could be seen as depressing and hopeless, this is not how it was perceived by its audience after the credits rolled. Steal This Story, Please!<\/em> offers a path to better understanding of our increasingly complex world and inspires us to go deeper into any news story, use our own critical judgement to always ask to see the other side, to hear from the \u201cpeople on the other end of the bomb\u201d and to \u201csteal\u201d important stories and spread them in order to not be silenced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Margarita Bergquist. Viewed at SBIFF. Steal This Story, Please! is a powerful documentary that is structured as a biographical piece on an independent journalist who might not be on everyone\u2019s radar – Amy Goodman, the face and the backbone of Democracy Now!, a TV and radio show aiming to give voice to people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,3,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/249136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49157"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49184,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49157\/revisions\/49184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}