A Force More Powerful is a 1999 feature-length documentary film and a 2000 PBS series written and directed by Steve York about non-violent resistance movements around the world. Executive producers were Dalton Delan and Jack DuVall. Peter Ackerman was the series editor and principal content advisor.
Institutional support for the film included funding from the United States Institute of Peace and the Albert Einstein Institution.
The film played in festivals worldwide and was broadcast nationally on United States television network PBS in September 2000. It was nominated for a Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program.
The series explores 6 successful nonviolent movements in the 20th century starting with Gandhi's leadership of the Indian Independence movement, the U.S. civil rights movement, the boycotts in the Eastern Cape Province as part of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, the Danish resistance to Nazi Occupation, the Polish Solidarity Movement, and the Chilean democracy movement to oust Augusto Pinochet.
A Force More Powerful is also the name of the companion book to the PBS series, authored by DuVall and Peter Ackerman,. The book was published with Palgrave Macmillan and has been recognized as an important resource for peace education.
In 2006, the team behind the film, TV series and book released a nonviolent video game developed by Breakaway Games with the same title. The video game was designed to teach the waging of conflict using nonviolent methods. Ivan Marović, one of the leaders of the Serbian student movement called Otpor!, was one of the designers. A turn-based strategy game, it consists of ten pre-built scenarios and an editing system that will allow players to create scenarios of their own.
Famous quotes containing the words force and/or powerful:
“In the new science of the twenty-first century, not physical force but spiritual force will lead the way. Mental and spiritual gifts will be more in demand than gifts of a physical nature. Extrasensory perception will take precedence over sensory perception. And in this sphere woman will again predominate.”
—Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)
“With a balanced combination of the two principal energies from mother and father, a girl can both be in touch with her womanly strengths and be a powerful force in the world—strong and nurturing, decisive and caring, goal- oriented and aware of the needs of others. She has the courage to voice what she thinks and feels and the strength to follow her destiny.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)