Shout Gladi Gladi is a documentary about hope. It tells the story of one woman's quest to cure fistula and save mother's lives in Africa. Shot in Malawi and Sierra Leone (just prior to the Ebola crisis) this is an intense portrait of the people suffering from fistula and the struggle of those who are not only trying to fix this condition but curtail it through better maternal health care. In addition, it is about women's empowerment, specifically through a radical device from BBOXX, a solar powered generator that provides the women not only with electricity in a region where there is none but also as a means to make money by charging cell phones.
Anne Braden: Southern Patriot is a first person documentary about the extraordinary life of this American civil rights leader. Braden was hailed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail as a white southerner whose rejection of her segregationist upbringing was eloquent and prophetic. Ostracized as a red in the 1950s, she fought for an inclusive movement community and mentored three generations of social justice advocates. Braden’s story explores not only the dangers of racism and political repression but also the power of a woman’s life spent in commitment to social justice.
Follow General George Armstrong Custer from his memorable, wild charge at Gettysburg to his lonely, untimely death on the windswept Plains of the West. On June 26, 1876, Custer, a reputation for fearless and often reckless courage ordered his soldiers to drive back a large army of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. By day's end, Custer and nearly a third of his army were dead.
Blending drama with the explanations of passionate historians and specialists, this enriched historical reconstruction traces 60 years in the life a man who transformed the Middle Ages and laid the foundation of modern Europe, William The Conqueror.
By early in the twentieth century, Nuremberg was regarded as the most anti-Semitic city in Europe. By 1929, Hitler had decided to make Nuremberg the "City of the Party Rallies" and a symbol representing the greatness of the German Empire. Even today, it is possible to see signs in Nuremberg of the megalomaniac proportions that the system was to assume.
A powerful documentary starring Morgan Freeman about the genesis of The Blues in the South and the music spreading around the world. Morgan Freeman shares his story of his experience of growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi and his love for the Blues.
Marthas is a PBS documentary about an extraordinary rite of passage in Laredo, Texas where teenage Mexican-American girls debut in a grand Colonial Ball dressed as American revolutionaries - a tradition that goes back 114 years.
Doctors of the Dark Side is the first feature length documentary about the pivotal role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture. The stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their abuse demonstrate how US Army and CIA doctors implemented the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and covered up signs of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Interviews with medical, legal and intelligence experts and evidence from declassified government memos document what has been called the greatest scandal in American medical ethics. Based on four years of research by Producer/Director Martha Davis, written by Oscar winning Mark Jonathan Harris, and filmed in HD by Emmy winning DP Lisa Rinzler, the film shows how the torture of detainees could not continue without the assistance of the doctors.
Narrated by Candice Bergen, Elusive Justice is an unprecedented examination of the more than six-decade global hunt for the 20th century's most notorious war criminals, thousands of whom are still presumed to be alive. Featuring intimate portraits of the Nazi hunters, the film also examines the nations and institutions that helped bring war criminals to justice or, in too many cases, helped them to escape.
This electrifying film documents the efforts of Vincent Bugliosi, one of our nation's foremost prosecutors, as he presents his case that former president George W. Bush should be prosecuted for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq because he deliberately took our nation to war under false pretenses. Based on Bugliosi's New York Times bestseller, the movie discloses shocking hidden details of how Bush and his people systematically lied to Congress and the country. He shows incontrovertible evidence that Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al committed a monumental crime under our constitution and the laws of this land. He leads us through a legal understanding of what is needed to bring a formal prosecution, setting the stage for what would be the biggest and most important trial in U.S. history.
The Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition of 1912 is considered one of the most amazing feats of endurance of all time. Although his two companions perished, Douglas Mawson survived, but how? In a bold historical experiment, scientist and adventurer Tim Jarvis is retracing the gruelling experience, with the same meagre rations, primitive clothing and equipment to uncover what happened to Mawson physically — and mentally — as a man hanging on the precipice of life and death.
Paul Goodman, whose best-selling 'Growing Up Absurd' made him the philosopher of the New Left in the 1960s, was also a brilliant poet, out queer (and family man) in the 1940s, radical pacifist and visionary. His ideas and stubborn integrity helped many find a moral compass in the '60's -- and can do so again today.
Dated to the late Stone Age, Stonehenge may be the best-known and most mysterious relic of prehistory. Every year, a million visitors are drawn to England to gaze upon the famous circle of stones, but the monument's meaning has continued to elude us. Now investigations inside and around Stonehenge have kicked off a dramatic new era of discovery and debate over who built Stonehenge and for what purpose. How did prehistoric people quarry, transport, sculpt, and erect these giant stones? Granted exclusive access to the dig site at Bluestonehenge, a prehistoric stone-circle monument recently discovered about a mile from Stonehenge, NOVA cameras join a new generation of researchers finding important clues to this enduring mystery.
After years of serving in the army and drifting across the Amazon, Loeti yearns to go back to his land, to find his roots, and be amongst his people, the Aluku, the first Maroons of French Guiana and Suriname. One night, due to a crackdown on illegal gold mining, Loeti is forced to flee the site where he is working. Lost in the Amazon forest, he must use what is left of his childhood knowledge of the forest, to find his way back and combat the many deadly perils that lurk with every step. He is guided by the spirits, the animals, a compass, and his prayers. An intense reunion confronts Loeti with a changing world where old traditions and values are both challenged and influenced by the invading modern world. Loeti must deal with his past and grapple with what remains of the Aluku's ancient African customs by immersing himself in their magical world.
In 1942, when computers were human and women were underestimated, a group of female mathematicians helped win a war and usher in the modern computer age. Sixty-five years later their story has finally been told.
On a stormy day in May of 1889, the South Fork Dam impounding Conemaugh Lake exploded, unleashing a 40-foot wall of water. The bustling industrial city of Johnstown, PA, in the valley below was reduced to a wasteland, killing more than 2,200. This heavily dramatized documentary reviews the factors that led to the dam's collapse, while dramatic reenactments and survivors' personal testimonies detail the horror.
Despite their personal short comings, many of the Roman Empires great engineering accomplishments were introduced during the reign of the Caesars. The tradition continued under Vespasian, builder of the Coliseum, Trajan, builder of the Forum, and Hadrian, builder and possibly the designer of the Pantheon. Finally, a decade later Caracalla built a bath complex/recreation center in an effort to secure his own reputation in history.
Like many Japanese Americans released from WWII internment camps, the young Omori sisters did their best to erase the memories and scars of life under confinement. Fifty years later acclaimed filmmaker Emiko Omori asks her older sister and other detainees to reflect on the personal and political consequences of internment. From the exuberant recollections of a typical teenager, to the simmering rage of citizens forced to sign loyalty oaths, Omori renders a poetic and illuminating picture of a deeply troubling chapter in American history.