Across the globe, a major legal and scientific war raging over one simple question: should individuals and corporations be permitted to patent genes?  more »

While many have characterized WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange as a heroic champion of free speech, his ongoing exposé of US foreign policy would not have been possible without the work of Private Bradley Manning. Reporter Quentin McDermott tells the inside story of Bradley Manning and his daring intelligence heist.  more »

India’s booming private healthcare system is expected to be worth billions of dollars in the decades to come, as westerners flock to India to get healthy. Fed up with long lines and exorbitant fees at home, these patients can now fly to the subcontinent and go straight to the front of the line for cheap operations in newly built, hi-tech hospitals.  more »

The Arctic sea ice, a plate of ice roughly the size of Europe, is disappearing. This film discusses the dramatic environmental, political, and economic implications.  more »

Diana McGowin, an articulate, high-spirited woman is the first person to chronicle the onset of Alzheimer's. In her book, Living in the Labyrinth, she writes about her good and bad days and the effect of her illness on her children and her husband.  more »

This is a deeply personal exploration of the bedroom politics that make black women especially vulnerable to AIDS infection. The film follows a young female doctor, working in the South Bronx, as she gives medical and emotional support to her afflicted patients.  more »

The stories of several women show that welfare reform has made the system less responsive to individual needs and circumstances.  more »

An 87-year-old Eskimo hunter looks out over the glacial expanse of his Arctic homeland and recalls a past way of life when he hunted polar bear with spear, and harpooned walrus from his kayak.  more »

The women of a small, remote village in the Indian Himalayas have their world transformed with the arrival of a silk weaving cooperative. One woman, Hema, begins a cooperative in her new village to teach local women—and her husband—to weave.  more »

The issue of gay marriage has polarized the country. This even- handed film follows events in Massachusetts after the state supreme court ruled 4 to 3 in favor of allowing same sex marriage. It is a compelling portrait of several responsible, loving, stable couples who yearn for recognition by the state and their community to validate their families.  more »

A history of the community development credit union movement which grew out of the need for African Americans to get bank loans.  more »

Despite advances in pharmacology, many patients suffer needlessly. This film makes a case for better pain management.  more »

American Swan in Paris is both a love letter to Paris and to dance. It features the charming Kathleen Thielhelm, from Wisconsin, a recent addition to the Bejart Ballet Lausanne.  more »

Selected by his mentor to lead the Bejart Ballet Lausanne, Gil Roman is well aware of the dauntingly large shoes he’s expected to fill. His choreography and his leadership must prove worthy to secure the future of the institution, which has never before operated without its founder’s active guidance.  more »

This is a poignant portrait of the migrant farm worker from Mexico in the strawberry fields of Watsonville, CA. Undocumented, they have no way to protect themselves from exploitation.  more »

The film gives voice to the gay and lesbian high school students in Westhampton, Massachusetts after the state enacted an anti-discrimination law establishing their rights. It allows us to hear articulate testimony from all sides of the controversy.  more »

A powerful and moving film exploring the complexity of female infanticide in southern India and showing steps that are being taken to eradicate the practice  more »

Thailand's booming economy rests on the exploitation of rural women. Through portraits of three women, we see the human cost of the country's rapid industrialization.  more »

Half the population of Mexico City are illegal squatters. This film introduces us to several families struggling to survive, putting a human face to Mexico's urban problems.  more »

This visually stunning film focuses on two street children who survive in Bombay by guile, toughness and with the protection of other boys like them.  more »

Ebola is one of the most contagious and frightening diseases that exists today. It can kill its victim in as little as 48 hours. When it broke out in Northern Uganda, there were scant resources and little knowledge about how to deal with it at Lacor Hospital, in Gulu, Uganda.  more »

This film shows how difficult it is for a lesbian or gay man to mourn the loss of a lover because the straight world doesn't consider the gay relationship quite legitimate.  more »

In the 1950's, the patriotic Mormon community of St. George, Utah took the full impact of the downwind radioactive dust from atomic tests. Government scientists deliberately lied to the local population, many of whom developed cancer and died.  more »

An expose of the part played by multinational corporations, Third World debt and trade barriers in fueling poverty and environmental destruction in the poorest countries.  more »

Using interviews and old footage the film follows the bloody civil war in El Salvador and the role of the Church in the conflict. Archbishop Romero, who took a strong anti-government stand was murdered while delivering a sermon.  more »

This film highlights the events that led to the bankruptcy of Enron in 2001.It was the first in a series of debacles that included the mammoth corporations Tyco and WorldCom as well as the leading accounting firm Arthur Andersen.  more »

Say I Do chronicles the stories of three "mail-order brides" from the Philippines who uprooted themselves to marry men they did not know in order to escape poverty. Life was not what they expected.  more »

India's cities are thronged with faceless rickshaw workers. This film puts a human face on those at the low end of the caste system whose only chance to eke out a bare subsistence for their families is to do the work done by beasts of burden in more affluent societies.  more »

Relegated to remote reservations on the rugged slopes of Mt. Pinatuba, the Aetas survived slavery by the Spanish colonizers and battled commercial logging and encroachment on their ancestral land.  more »

This is a documentary about people of mixed racial heritage, based on the filmmaker’s own search for identity and community. We are given an inside view of the emotional reality of being racially unclassifiable in a society obsessed with race.  more »

An award-winning short drama of an Asian Indian immigrant family torn between their traditions and assimilation  more »

This film examines the cultural, political and historical reasons behind the persecution of homosexuals in the early years of Cuba's revolution and shows the improvements in their lives today.  more »

This is an inspiring film about mother that refused to institutionalize her Down's syndrome son. The family moved to a small town where John grew and blossomed.  more »

This documentary, filmed in Ho Chi Minh City, chronicles the search of an awkward 38-year-od Singaporean for a young, beautiful Vietnamese bride, with the help of a marriage broker.  more »

The tragic story of the efforts of a Polish Jewish official to warn the world of the Nazi horrors in Poland.  more »

Dr. Fred Lee, renowned specialist in prostate cancer, discovers he has the disease. His experience as a patient deepens his understanding of life and death issues.  more »

The effects of the one-child policy combined with a rapid revolution in China's values and lifestyles, have created increasingly selective middle-class Shanghai women. For working class men, finding a wife is a quest that requires money, time, and the strength to withstand countless disappointments.  more »

The border that runs between Tijuana and San Diego is the most heavily militarized border between "friendly" countries anywhere in the world. Yet an average of one person a day dies trying to cross into the U.S.  more »

To counteract severe economic hardships, Cubans are seeking strength in religion, from Christianity to Afro-Cuban forms of worship.  more »

This film captures Mr. Pink, a unique and creative individual, who moved from Jamaica to Britain in the fifties. Inspired by a mixture of dreams, memories of childhood and his religion, he adorned his Victorian mansion to recreate the vivid colors of the Carribbean.  more »

The filmmaker, a Chilean now living in exile, returns to her country to gather testimony of the abuses under Pinochet. She is shocked to learn the the next generation has little knowledge of the horrors of the regime.  more »

Sound and Fury: Six Years Later is an engaging look at what has happened to the Artinians since their family saga surrounding the decision whether or not to get cochlear implants captured audiences around the world six years earlier.  more »

The film follows two sets of one-year-old twins for three years. Each set has one profoundly deaf twin who has been given a cochlear implant, and a hearing twin with whom their language development is compared. One can see the astonishing growth in the deaf children's speech and hearing as well as their integration and assimilation into mainstream life.  more »

This film gives voice to African-American students around the country as they articulate issues of race, racism and race relations.  more »

Artists of the Bahamas is a unique film that brings to light the rich artistic talent flourishing on the islands. The film profiles locally and internationally recognized artists in the homes, communities, and studios where they develop their vibrant creations.  more »

This intensely personal film traces the filmmaker’s search for identity within the culture of her Armenian parents and in the context of the larger multicultural society in which she lives. Weaving together archival footage and interviews with elderly survivors of the Genocide, it creates a deeply felt portrayal of a holocaust that the Turks deny.  more »

Three short films show the vitality of ethnic identity which blends with the prevailing culture, yet keeps its own spirit. Filmed in Trinidad, Tobago, the U.S. and Britain.  more »

The tragic story of Pela Atroshi, a daughter of Kurdish immigrants living in Sweden, who was murdered by her family after she went out on a date.  more »

Many women over age forty soon realize that their own eggs have expired. These women decide to use eggs donated from a younger woman. This film follows three older women, as they struggle to achieve a pregnancy and later, as they cope with the unique problems of being an older mom.  more »

In 1980, the Communist Government of China instituted a policy of one child per family as a means of curtailing population growth. Now, the success or failure of this highly controversial social experiment can be assessed. This report travels from middle class Beijing to poor farms in the countryside to see the effect of the policy.  more »

This powerful film examines the intellectual attraction of suicide to a vulnerable teen and the impact on his family and community.  more »

Many of the active, healthy elderly people in this film are organizing for the right to end their lives before they are overtaken by frailty, illness or dependence.  more »

The film explores the recent history of Libya, isolated since Colonel Gaddafi seized power thirty-five years ago. For decades an enemy of the West, Libya is now desperately trying to rejoin the rest of the world. It is using its vast oil reserves -- to woo back former foes especially the United States. Gaddafi's Gamble asks: why now?  more »

It has become apparent over the past few years that an increasingly destabilized Saudi Arabia is more willing to listen to Islamic fundamentalists and to bankroll the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in a holy war against the West. This film obtained rare access to the "closed kingdom," where we see a country full of frustrated young people sixty percent under the age of 25 who are increasingly alienated, both by some in the royal family and perceived American aggression against Muslim countries  more »

Iran, an Islamic republic, has the largest number of internet users in the Middle East. A large dissident population is finding new ways to communicate, risking arrest, prison, torture and even death as they try to organize resistance to the repressive religious government.  more »

Largely forgotten by the rest of the world, Iran is home to the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. After the revolution in 1979, a majority of the Jews fled, many to the United States, but 25,000 still remain. This provides insight into what life is like for them now in Iran.  more »

Almost every person charged with committing a serious crime in Japan is convicted and goes to jail. Jury trials simply do not exist and convictions are based on confessions. The filmmaker obtained rare access to Japan's jails, where a cruel, secret system allows the abuse, torture and death of inmates.  more »

The spiritual side of Japanese society is often overlooked. This fascinating report focuses on Genshin Fujinami, a corporate employee who became a monk and embarked on a search for meaning in his life. He completed a grueling running test, known as the "Kaihogyo," which is not simply running, but rather a pilgrimage around the sacred mountain, worshipping Buddha.  more »

The vast Niger Delta holds an estimated three percent of the world's oil, and to the U.S. it's a vital alternative to the oilfields of the Middle East - worth $30 billion per year. Yet a well organized crime gang in Nigeria has the power to disrupt the oil flow, threatening economies worldwide.  more »

Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known modern novelist and winner of the Nobel prize in 2006, became a pariah in his country overnight for speaking out about the Turkish role in the Armenian genocide. He insists the nation should know the truth about its history, and that there must be freedom of speech.  more »

The two currencies in Papua New Guinea are the modern cash economy and a traditional economy based around shell money, banana leaves and pig tusks. The problem is that there is no exchange between the two and a bank is badly needed.  more »

Buenos Aires is in the heart of a country where 80 per cent of the people are Catholic and the culture of machismo is still rife. Now the Argentinean capital is leading the push in Latin America to bring equality to gays.  more »

In recent years, more than one million Latin Americans in search of a better life have surged into the United States. The US has undergone one of its history’s most dramatic demographic and cultural shifts, with Latinos expected to emerge as an American majority by 2050. This film details how this influx has resulted in acute growing pains along with countless successes.  more »

Today it has become a clandestine battlefield critical to Washington's success in its "war on terror". Yemen¹s government has found a middle path between Washington¹s demand to seek out and destroy Al Qaeda, and the views of many Yemenis who are sympathetic to its ideals. It is called the "Yemen Option". The government buys back weapons on the black market, no questions asked.  more »

Why did the U.S. and Britain ignore the devastating reports about Nazi atrocities during World War II? Anti-Semitism was common at that time both in the U.S. and in Europe and among high officials of the State Department.  more »

The mummified corpse of Anchhor, one of the few mummies that have been recovered fully intact, has been the object of an elaborate scientific investigation by the National Museum of Antiquities in the Netherlands.  more »

In the Muslim country of Zanzibar, where women’s activities are severely curtailed, a feisty group of women has defied the cultural constraints by playing a man’s game—soccer—and giving reign to their competitive spirit.  more »

This portrayal of gays of Asian descent in Australia explores the relationship between race and sexuality, the reality of racial stereotyping and discrimination in the gay world.  more »

Exposes the brutality of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, including their cruel treatment of women, the destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues, and the harsh suppression of political opposition  more »