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The two-week political science documentary series, “This Is Not Your TV,” begins Satu

Of the 11 political documentaries being screened by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in the two-week series “This is Not Your TV,” one clear highlight is acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris’ new work “Fog of War: Eleven Lessons of Robert S. McNamara.” One of the most celebrated documentary makers in recent history, Morris will be present to speak about his film after it screens at the Harmony Gold Theater on Nov. 20.

Yet big names aren’t the only things that the archive has to offer. Kicking off tonight at the James Bridges Theatre, the series will start with the premier of “A Different World is Possible,” a film collectively directed by 33 people documenting the G-8 protests in the streets of Genoa in July 2001. This Sunday, the theater will screen “My Terrorist,” a very personal work by Yulie Cohen Gerstel, who is otherwise not a professional filmmaker.

The diversity of films reflects the “embarrassment of riches” that Cheng-Sim Lim, co-head of programming at the Film and Television Archive, confronted as she put the series together.

“We’ve wanted to do a political documentary series for a while,” Lim said. “And in the last year at least, we noticed that there were so many fantastic documentaries being made around the world, and they weren’t getting shown very much in the U.S., on TV or theatrically. Also, we felt that there was a need to show something other than what passes for political discourse in our mass media.”

Part of the sudden boom in documentary filmmaking can be attributed to the runaway success of Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine.” But many films to be featured by the archive are decidedly unconventional compared to Moore’s critically and commercially successful film. “A Different World is Possible” eschews traditional narration in favor of a more lyrical meditation on mass protest. Travis Wilkerson’s “An Injury to One,” which started as a student project at the California Institute of the Arts, is characterized by its “bold, Bauhaus-inspired design.” Lim, however, thinks that there’s one singular characteristic that viewers will find in all the featured films.

“In the same vein of the American indie movement in the ’90s, documentary filmmakers are feeling a need that Hollywood hasn’t been paying attention to – people are hungry for the well-told stories. So, like the indie narrative features, ... it’s the documentaries that can provide them.”

Both accessible and forward-thinking, the documentaries may provide the archive with a chance to dispel certain myths about the medium that keep it from garnering a larger audience and serious attention from Hollywood.

“I think people who are not familiar with documentaries may have a perception that they are full of preachy speeches,” Lim said. “One of the points that we wanted to make with this particular series was ... that there are many ways to tell a story. Of the narrative techniques used, some take a more personal approach, some allude to different forms of drama, some are lyrical. They all have different effects, but they’re all very effective.”

For a full list of documentaries being screened as a part of the “This is Not Your TV” series, visit www.cinema.ucla.edu.