Wed, Jul 10, 2002
One of the world's least-known societies, Iraqi Kurdistan, is under ongoing genocidal attack by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In 1988, Saddam launched a series of biological and chemical attacks against the Kurds, the tragic long-term effects of which are only now becoming apparent. British filmmaker Gwynne Roberts shot inside Iraqi Kurdistan for five years to prepare this unique report on a group who may play a crucial role, equivalent to that of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, in any military attempt to overthrow Saddam's bloody regime. And with biological weapons already used by Saddam on one enemy, the program considers who may be next.
Wed, Jul 17, 2002
Every year this nation's economy struggles to absorb 20 million new unemployed, while the newly rich move to gated communities with private schools and tennis courts. If this sounds like Daddy Warbuck's America, it isn't. It's the new China. Once the home of the "iron ricebowl" and social equality for all, today China has joined the ranks of the World Trade Organization. The country's new commitment to private enterprise and free markets may change China more in a single year than most countries change in a decade. This extraordinarily candid film introduces viewers to the unemployed, the working poor and the nouveaux riches alike.
Top-rated
Wed, Jul 24, 2002
Small and fiercely independent,the republic of Chechnya has been embroiled for years in a war for self-determination against Russia. The ruined cityscape of Grozny and the scarred roads and fields of the countryside bear witness to a conflict that has been marked both by brutal occupation and terrorist resistance. This film is a journey that leads the viewer behind the lines on both sides, and into the hearts of civilians and soldiers alike. Film crews accompany Russian troops on "cleansing missions" through residential districts of Grozny, and spend 24 tense hours at a Russian checkpoint. They also go undercover in the border regions where a radical Islam increasingly motivates Chechen fighters and provides glimpses of the webs of special interest woven around this horrific conflict by the United States, the Wahabist Muslims and the Georgians.
Jul 2002
"Land of Wandering Souls" follows a group of workers who are laying a high-tech fiber optic cable that will link Cambodia to the rest of Asia and Europe. The project is a hopeful symbol of the country's slow integration into the world community and the modern technological age. However, for the people employed to actually dig the trench by hand -- a group of rice farmers, ex-soldiers, and their families, the poorest of the poor -- the work is a mixed blessing. This film provides a haunting glimpse into the lives of these indigent workers as they encounter the painful remnants of the past - mines, bones, and a landscaped littered with human suffering - and labor to bring Cambodia into the modern age.
Wed, Aug 7, 2002
In December 2001, the Argentinian government defaulted on $155 billion in public debt. Since then, this once-wealthy country has gone through five presidents and watched its currency fall by more than 70 percent. How do people survive in a broken economy? The solutions range from the ingenious -- barter clubs where members can exchange goods and services without money -- to the brutal, including outbreaks of rioting. With the most basic government services now only a memory and the army camped around the capital, how can the people of Argentina begin to put their society back together? What does a financial meltdown look like? And where do American interests or responsibilities lie?
Wed, Aug 21, 2002
In the new political landscape of Central Asia, U.S. troops are on the ground and Western military bases are under construction throughout the region. But now, the forces aligned against the Taliban and their terrorist allies find themselves in an uneasy relationship with the drug lords who control the cultivation of much of the world's heroin. With the departure of the Taliban, the current opium crop in Afghanistan is among the largest ever. How will the world's drug control authorities deal with this fact of Central Asian life? Can agricultural reforms be implemented that will equal the profitability of the opium trade? And how will the United States resolve a dilemma that pits the war on terror against the war on drugs?
Wed, Aug 28, 2002
Ten years ago, filmmaker Bruno Sorrentino began recording the lives of eight newborn babies from around the world. In 1992, world leaders met in Brazil for the Earth Summit on sustainable development. There they made plans and promises to conquer the global problems of overpopulation, over-consumption and poverty. In the ten years since, Sorrentino has revisited the children repeatedly and recorded how their lives have been affected by the issues discussed at Rio. Now, as world leaders prepare to journey to Johannesburg this August for the Rio+10 follow-up summit, Sorrentino returns to film these children and to see whether the promises of Rio have been kept. His camera captures his subjects, now ten years old, coping with the problems of racism, poverty, child labor, political violence, environmental degradation and access to education. Shot on location in South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Latvia, the UK, the U.S., India and China, this film is a touching and timely portrait of children growing up in the world of the 21st century.
Sat, Aug 3, 2002
Recently Mexico was startled by the murders of two young women lawyers, one from the political right and the other from the left. Both had fought to support human rights and legitimate protest, and to destroy the official and institutional corruption that has plagued Mexico for years -- a system of bribes, debts and favors that has prevented the world's tenth-largest country from fulfilling its political and economic potential. The election of President Vicente Fox in 2000 ended more than 70 years of single-party rule. This film examines the hopes that a new dawn has come in Mexico's history, and the fear that graft and corruption are immovable.
Wed, Sep 11, 2002
The most successful and most brutal European dictator since Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic played the trump cards of nationalism and racism in his rise to power. Once in office, he performed an intricate balancing act, controlling information and the media to safeguard his reign and accomplish his ends -- which included concentration camps and ethnic cleansing. How did he do it? Exclusive interviews with former Milosevic associates -- both dissenters and loyalists -- include a remarkable encounter with his wife and political mentor, Mira. This investigative report will take the viewer inside the realm, and inside the mind, of one of the most effective and brutal tyrants of the past 50 years.
Sat, Aug 17, 2002
The bloody conflict between Hindus and Muslims in northwestern India is at the forefront of a struggle for India's identity, led by an increasingly powerful Hindu nationalist movement whose goal is to turn India into a Hindu nation. The film focuses in part on the efforts of India's supercop, K.P.S. Gill, a Sikh, sent by the federal government to quell the violence in Gujarat and on Harish Bhatt, a leader of the Bajrang Dal or Monkey Brigade, India's largest Hindu youth movement. Amid recruitment drives and martial arts training, Bhatt imbues the young with the spirit of Hindu nationalism. At the same time, Gill attempts to keep order as preparations are made for the dramatic Rathyatra, an annual religious parade of painted elephants and Hindu songs.