newsreel

A short film containing news or current affairs; especially one of several shown in sequence.

The film, written and directed by Michelle Ferrari, is filled with jaw-dropping moments: newsreel footage of white American families merrily competing in “genetic fitness” contests at state fairs where they were measured like livestock; a retelling of a pivotal court case where a teenage mother was forcibly sterilized by her mother; and the story of how the irrepressible inventor of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes became a champion of eugenics.

The genre of such films.