30 September 2013 Science/Evolution

BBC - Rise of Animals Triumph of the Vertebrates (2013) (Serie) (2)

David Attenborough embarks on an epic 500-million-year journey to unravel the incredible rise of the vertebrates. The evolution of animals with backbones is one of the greatest stories in natural history. To tell this story, David presents explosive new fossil evidence from China, a region he has long dreamt of exploring and the frontier of modern paleontological research. See the Serie Here.

30 September 2013 Science/Technology

Terra Mater - Bionic Revolution (2012)

This innovative and spectacular 3-part series shows how examples from nature can make human beings and their machines faster, smarter and more efficiently. Whether in ice deserts, under thousands of meters of water, or on the highest mountains in order to survive, animals need the conceivable best, toughest and most sophisticated equipment. Over the past three and a half billion years of evolution always had it develop new, more crafty plans and recipes. When we observe people's nature, therefore we find many of our own toughest technical problems already solved. We just have to look closely. See the Serie Here.

29 September 2013 Society/Religion

PBS - Devil's Playground (2001)

Devil's Playground is a documentary film by Lucy Walker which explores the Amish adolescent rite of passage called “rumspringa”. Upon their sixteenth birthdays, Amish youth, both male and female, are released from Amish restrictions and can explore secular life – the devil's playground – outside of the Amish community. The period may last from a few months to several years. By experiencing the outside world, they work temptations out of their systems and prepare themselves for making their most important life decision: to reject the secular world and be baptized into the Amish church. The film weaves together interviews with several Amish youths who, to varying degrees, embrace popular youth culture, including smoking, drinking and drug use. Some return to their Amish tradition and are baptized. Others decide against returning, and still others waffle between the options. Do they join the church and commit to being Amish for the rest of their lives, or do they turn their backs on their families and religion and live on their own in “modern” society? See the document Here.

27 September 2013 Politics/Democracy

PBS Frontline - Egypt in Crisis (2013)

The inside story of a revolution gone wrong Less than three years after the popular uprising that led to President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, and just one year after Egypt's first free and fair elections, the democratically elected government has been overthrown and the Egyptian military is running the state. And the Muslim Brotherhood–the secretive, long-outlawed Islamist group that came out of the shadows to win the presidency in June 2012–is once again being driven underground. Were the Brothers ever really in charge? Or was the Egyptian “deep state”–embedded remnants of Mubarak's police force, Supreme Court and, most of all, military–in control all along? In Egypt in Crisis, FRONTLINE and GlobalPost's Charles M. Sennott go inside the Egyptian revolution, tracing how what began as a youth movement to topple a dictator evolved into an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to seemingly find the political foothold it had sought for decades–and then why it all fell apart. With Egypt's hopes for democracy in tatters, and the military-led government violently cracking down. See the document Here.

26 September 2013 Society/Crime

Pink Ghetto - The Mark of Cain (2001)

Sailing ships, stars, angels and executioners The Mark of Cain chronicles the vanishing practice and language of Russian Criminal Tattoos. Captured in some of Russias most notorious prisons, including the fabled White Swan, the film traces the animus of the flowers of this carnal art by way of the brutality of its origins- the penitentiary and the criminal environment. Incisive interviews with prisoners, guards, and criminologists reveal the secret language of The Zone and The Code of Thieves of the vory v zakone. As early as the 1920s, Russian prisons and Gulag began to attract the attention of researchers. The prisoners of the Stalinist Gulag, or “Zone,” as it is called, developed a complex social structure that incorporated highly symbolic tattooing as a mark of rank. The very existence of these inmates at prisons and forced labor camps was treated by the state as a deep secret, and their tattoo art was considered a forbidden topic. See the document Here.

24 September 2013 Society/Environment

PBS - Boom Behind the Bakken (2013)

Because of advanced new technology, a second oil boom has hit Western North Dakota and Eastern Montana. This Bakken formation has impacted more than just the oil industries. Towns around the Bakken oil formation are experience sudden growth in population. This program features those besieged by these new changes as well as those who are capitalizing on the oil boom. RV’s and man camps dot the sides of the roads that connect one town to another. New residents of these once small-towns battle for a place to call home. Some locals are able to capitalize off the one thing that brings all these different people together. Oil. Businesses are hiring and towns are bursting at the seams. This is the Boom, Behind the Bakken. See the document Here.

24 September 2013 Science/Neurology

PBS - Brains on Trial (2013) (Serie) (2)

Brains on Trial with Alan Alda takes a fictitious crime-a convenience store robbery that goes horribly wrong-and builds from it a gripping courtroom drama. As the trial unfolds it takes us into the brains of the major participants-defendant, witnesses, jurors, judge- while Alan Alda visits the laboratories of some dozen neuroscientists exploring how brains work when they become entangled with the law. The research he discovers raises the controversial question: How does our rapidly expanding ability to peer into people's minds and decode their thoughts and feelings affect trials like the one we are watching in the future? And should it? See the document Here.

21 Septembeer 2013 History/War

Arte - Mission Paradise (2010)

Eden a persistent utopia, a quest as fascinating as it is incongruous, has never ceased to obsess the collective imagination. With credits shaped as a travel diary, and dream-like landscapes shot in HD, this documentary tries to immortalize today's earthly paradises. The two directors traveled all over the world, from Buthan to Cuba, from Polynesia to Brittany, observing and interviewing those who are after this crazy quest that leads to Eden. On their way, they question this universal myth, retracing its evolution through the ages, and its different representations in the various civilizations. See the document Here.

19 Septembeer 2013 Art/Jazz

BBC - Queens of Jazz The Joy and Pain of The Jazz Divas (2013)

Queens of Jazz is a celebration of some of the greatest female jazz singers of the 20th century. It takes an unflinching and revealing look at what it actually took to be a jazz diva during a turbulent time in America's social history - a time when battle lines were being constantly drawn around issues of race, gender and popular culture. See the document Here.

11 Septembeer 2013 History/Society

BBC - Requiem for Detroit (2010)

Detroit was once America's fourth largest city. Built by the car for the car, with its groundbreaking suburbs, freeways and shopping centres, it was the embodiment of the American dream. But its intense race riots brought the army into the city. With violent union struggles against the fierce resistance of Henry Ford and the Big Three, it was also the scene of American nightmares. See the document Here.

7 Septembeer 2013 Terrorism

Channel 4 - Rebuilding the World Trade Centre (2013)

Marcus Robinson has been filming, photographing and painting at the World Trade Center site since 2006. One of his specialties is time-lapse photography; with 13 35mm cameras permanently running, his material shows vast buildings grow to tower over the city in a single shot. This is a story of epic architecture and engineering, but it is also a film that gives a voice to the construction workers, from the site managers to those who dug the foundations and the legendary iron workers who assemble the steel frame of the buildings, walking across open girders hundreds of feet in the air. In Marcus' own words, 'they are healing a scar in the bedrock of the city, in its skyline, and in many ways what they are doing is part of a much greater act of rebuilding and healing.' See the document Here.

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