American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein is a 2009 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about the life of the American academic Norman Finkelstein

Norman Finkelstein

Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...

, directed and produced by David Ridgen

David Ridgen

David Ridgen is an award-winning independent Canadian filmmaker. He has worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, MSNBC, NPR, TVOntario and others.Ridgen co-directed Canadian Images of Vietnam with his brother Robert Ridgen in 1990...

 and Nicolas Rossier. The documentary features Finkelstein and several of his supporters and opponents, including Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

 and Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz

Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...

.

Reception

The film made its world premiere in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 as part of the 2009 IFP Chicago Underground Film Festival

Chicago Underground Film Festival

Chicago Underground Film Festival, founded in 1994, occurs each spring at various venues in Chicago, Illinois in the USA.Over the last 18 years it has become one of the most respected festivals in the USA and is today well attended by critics and programers. The festival's stated goal is "to focus...

 and won the audience choice award for best documentary. It was a part of the Sheffield Doc/Fest, IDFA in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 and Hot Docs

Hot Docs

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America's largest documentary film festival, conference, and market, held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...

 in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. It won the Cinema Politica

Cinema Politica

CINEMA POLITICA is a non-profit media arts organization based in Montreal with nearly 100 screening locations all over the world . Each chapter screens independent political documentaries for free or by donation to audiences, with guest filmmakers and speakers often invited to participate...

 Audience Award in 2010. Jerusalem Film Festival

Jerusalem Film Festival

The Jerusalem Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in Jerusalem, Israel. The festival was the brainchild of Lia van Leer, who inaugurated it on May 17, 1984...

 describes the work of the filmmakers as: “the most talked-about documentary films of the last months, a fascinating portrait that confidently walks that tightrope known as balance…” The film had its television premiere on Yes Television in Israel in May 2010. In April 2011 the film aired on Al Jazeera English worldwide.

Reviews

In February 2010 the film opened in New York and received 100% freshness ratings on Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, using data from 222 ratings and 11 reviewers. Despite the many controversies surrounding the main character, Norman Finkelstein, major national Jewish publications such as The Forward

The Forward

The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...

, Jewish Week and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is an international news agency serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world. The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in The Hague with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and...

 reviewed the film favorably. According to the distributor's website, the film has also received endorsements from personalities like Mark Achbar

Mark Achbar

Mark Achbar is a Canadian filmmaker, best known for directing The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media.- Biography :Achbar is a graduate of Syracuse University's Fine Arts Film Program...

, Michael Moore

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

 and others like author and historian Charles Glass

Charles Glass

Charles Glass is an American author, journalist, and broadcaster specializing in the Middle East. He writes regularly for The Spectator, was ABC News chief Middle East correspondent from 1983–93, and has worked as a correspondent for Newsweek and The Observer...

 and Canadian born actor Saul Rubinek

Saul Rubinek

Saul Rubinek is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage.-Early life:...

.

External links

• American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein – Al Jazeera English broadcast of the documentary in two parts (2 videos, each ca 46 mins)
• Interview with the directors David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier in Art Threat
• American Radical from Typecast Films.com
• IDFA Festival page
• American Radical, review in The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  .
• http://www.newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/82814/american-radical-the-trials-of-norman-finkelstein-film-review, review in 'Time Out New York".
• http://www.forward.com/articles/127217/, review in the "Jewish Forward".
• Interview with director Nicolas Rossier at Documentary Blog