Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, and Syriana are movies made by Participant Productions. They call themselves a film company with a mission to make the world a better place. Each film has its own social action campaign at participate.net. “Our goal is to deliver compelling entertainment that will raise awareness about important social issues, educate audiences, and inspire them to take action.” Participant was founder by Jeff Skoll two years ago. Skoll was the first president and first full-time employee of eBay.

The list of current and future films make me optimistic that Participant might really be a new kind of film company.