Summary: The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is a world-renowned cultural center filled with some of the ancient world's most precious artifacts-including the famed burial mask of King Tutankhamun and the Royal Mummies of Luxor. The museum's collection is so large that it has traditionally shown only half of its holdings at any one time. This program documents an expanded presentation that enables viewers to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: In 1908, Albert Kahn and his chauffeur embarked on a global trek to observe and absorb other cultures-an early "prototype" of the many photography missions Kahn would fund over the years. This program illustrates that formative round-the-world trip as well as the 1913 journey undertaken by photographer Stephane Passet to China, Mongolia, and India. Viewers will encounter startling images of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: As they built an unsurpassed visual archive of world culture, Albert Kahn and his photographers turned their attention to widely divergent locations. This program follows the maritime odyssey of Lucien Le Saint, circa 1922, as he captured on film the daily lives of Newfoundland cod fishermen, as well as expeditions into northwestern Africa. Images from Morocco and Tunisia focus on occupying...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: A peace-loving man with a decidedly global perspective, Albert Kahn spent most of his life and wealth trying to expand Western understanding of other cultures-largely through film and photography. This program delves into Kahn's origins and formative years and the launch of his Archive of the Planet project. Topics include Kahn's Jewish ancestry and Alsacian upbringing; his early success in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Poverty, emigration, declining birth rates, and ethnic divisions weakened many European countries as the 20th century began. From France to the Balkans, leaders prescribed nationalism and military buildup as the only solutions. This program studies the continent's march to war as depicted in the photographic record commissioned by French banker Albert Kahn. Early color images and film footage...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Throughout history, one type of individual has instinctively grasped art's power to persuade and manipulate-and indeed, images have become at least as deadly as swords or guns in the hands of political and military leaders. This program revolves around a basic question: when did art mutate from a vehicle of the imagination into a tool of the ruler? Beginning in Britain, the program looks at the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: The world is a mosaic of visions, and each vision is encapsulated by a language. Yet every two weeks, one of the world's approximately 6,500 languages dies out. What is the significance of this loss to those who speak the language as well as for the rest of humankind? Why do some languages become global while others disappear? And how are language and identity connected? In this program,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This chapter of the acclaimed series New York: A Documentary Film provides a powerful portrait of the events leading up to and following the 2001 terrorist attacks on September 11, reaching back to when the idea of a “world trade center” was first conceived and the towers were constructed. Filmmaker Ric Burns explores the physical, economic, and symbolic aftermath of the 9/11 attack - and what...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003
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Summary: As World War I engulfed his country, Albert Kahn struck a deal with the French army: his team of photographers would capture images and footage that helped the war effort in exchange for direct access to militarized zones. A century later, this program presents the results-revealing the life and environment of the French soldier as recorded in Kahn's Archive of the Planet. The visual details of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Versailles, 1919: French banker Albert Kahn and his camera team are among the few photographers allowed inside the Hall of Mirrors for the treaty signing-an example of Kahn's uncanny talent for documenting change. This program focuses on Kahn's pictorial record of the war's aftermath and the challenges of securing a true peace across Europe. Zeppelin-borne aerial footage conveys the scope of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In addition to documenting the Great War itself, Albert Kahn's team of photographers recorded the impact of the conflict on French civilian life. This program examines offerings from Kahn's Archive of the Planet, exploring both the propaganda value and the genuine emotional power in images of the war-torn French populace. French and Belgian refugees, ruined churches, and farms tended by women...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Anthropologist/ethnobotanist Wade Davis is a passionate advocate for preserving what he's dubbed the "ethnosphere." Using stunning photos and stories, Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures in this TEDTalk. A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Davis travels the globe to document the cultural practices of people whose time-honored ways of life are...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: From 1914 through much of the 1920s, Albert Kahn's photographic team was hard at work in Asia, amassing culturally and historically vital images for the Archive of the Planet. This program recounts journeys through Indochina and greater Asia in which the Kahn team opened up a world most Europeans had never dreamed of. Viewers discover Vietnam through its beggars, Tet celebrants, and elegantly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: When did we begin to create images and, more importantly, find tangible meaning in them? How did this conceptual leap lay the groundwork for our modern, visually oriented culture? This program investigates when and why humanity underwent what archaeologists call the "creative explosion" and invented pictorial art. Beginning with the Altamira cave paintings in Spain, the film addresses questions...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: English is a language spoken by two billion people, perhaps even more. This classic PBS program examines the prevalence of English in the world today and presents a historical overview of its rise. Focusing on the expansion of the British Empire and the emergence of English-language mass media, the program explains how widespread English usage survived Britain's post-WWII decolonization,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: No sooner had Europe declared an end to its Great War than the seeds of new conflict were sewn-in the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. With typical global awareness, photography patron and archivist Albert Kahn chose to document the historic changes occurring in the colonial Middle East. This program traces his team's expeditions into Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine as Western powers...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program travels the globe as it surveys a large portion of the world's languages-25 percent of which are spoken by a mere 0.1 percent of the Earth's population. Moving from Africa to Oceania and up to Asia and then west to Europe and across the ocean to the Americas, the program assesses how many languages are spoken in each region, the characteristics they share, and misconceptions about...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the 19th century, English spread throughout the British Empire-but which English? This classic PBS program traces the roots of white Commonwealth English to Cockney, the language of London's working class. Explaining the influence of Cockney on modern, standardized speech, the program shows how, in fact, the accents of BBC English are gradually becoming modified by Cockney speech...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: What precisely is language, and how did humans acquire it? In an effort to answer those essential questions, this program journeys back to prehistoric times in search of language's origin. But this is not a passive discussion, as Noam Chomsky; Brown University's Philip Lieberman; Johanna Nichols, of U.C. Berkeley; Stanford University's Merritt Ruhlen; professor of anthropology Richard Klein;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program travels to both developing and industrialized countries to capture culture-defining rhythms and melodies and explain the important roles they play in human society. With stops in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe, the video observes how music is used by gauchos and Cossacks, Sufis and Buddhist monks, Papuan warriors and Western soldiers, Senufo weavers and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In this episode of New York: A Documentary Film, filmmaker Ric Burns explores the turbulent and often harrowing years from 1945 to 2003. Emerging from the Depression and the Second World War as the most powerful metropolis on Earth, New York soon confronted urban woes of unprecedented proportions, and fought for its very existence. In exploring the social, economic, and physical forces that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003
View online at AVOD
Summary: Promoted in its time as a celebration—or at least a fully informed study—of foreign ethnicities and customs, the 1900 World’s Fair is recognized today as a spectacle of Eurocentric myopia. This program lays bare that conceit as it interweaves archival photographs, film clips, and posters from the Fair with commentary from renowned art historians. Offerings from museum collections across the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Changpa people live cut off from the rest of the world on a barren, 4,000-meter-high plateau in the southeast of Ladakh, in the Kashmir Himalayas. Here, livestock must search far and wide to pry something edible from the earth. Inhospitable as it is, the region is also home to a living treasure: Changpa goats, which grow a fine wool - but only at extremely high altitudes and in bitterly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines the 20th-century history of Appalachia through the prisms of economic hardship, spiritual perseverance, and the region's rich musical heritage. Showcasing the power of the traditional string band, the video chronicles the rise of modern country music by way of the radio and phonograph. It also highlights the resonance of long-standing church traditions and documents the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006