Summary: Urban punks with green hair and green thumbs, the members of Tierra Viva transform toxic Mexican earth into vegetable gardens. Their actions make up one remarkable part of this wide-ranging Mexican odyssey. Depicting Michoacan farmers who are fighting the trend to move to the cities-and preserving the winter home of the monarch butterflies-the program also journeys to Magdalena Bay,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Infused with the concept of bayanihan, or "spirit of togetherness," this program presents encouraging stories of teamwork and activism in the Philippines. It travels through Manila's bustling Quiapo Market, where commerce thrives in many forms-in contrast to the sprawling Payatas garbage dump outside the city, where a group of mothers have transcended scavenger subsistence, creating a community...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Nelson Mandela spoke of the past haunting the present. This program explores the rebirth of South Africa, demonstrating that a national history racked with oppression can guide and instruct those working for a better future. Studying the moving and provocative art of the apartheid era, the program also visits Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned, and examines Cape Town's historic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program profiles the warriors of the White Nile, a tribe that others call Dinka but that calls itself Moinjang: Man of the Men. Wedding negotiations, which involve a bride price usually paid in cattle, are highlighted, along with a traditional high-stakes contest to be the fattest man in the land. The impacts of Sudan's civil war and of a thriving slave trade, intensified by famine and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: This program explores the traditional medical practices of the Bono people of central Ghana and how their healers are cooperating with Western doctors, using herbs and spiritualism to improve health-care delivery in rural areas. Traditionally, Bono tribal priests undergo a painful spiritual possession, during which deities reveal to them the causes of illnesses, which plants to use to treat...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: For the Canela, peace is more important than justice, and sharing-especially of sexual partners-means survival and prosperity. By putting the good of the tribe first, the Canela have retained their tribal identity for centuries, thanks both to the bonding that occurs through ritualized, extramarital, multiple-partner sex and to their ability to maintain communal harmony via their intricate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: It is the basis of many a myth, folk tale, and adventure story-the act of confronting a nearly insurmountable obstacle, either physical or mental, in order to enter the realm of adulthood and self-knowledge. Some rites of initiation may seem bizarre or extreme to Westerners, but within the societies that uphold those traditions they are worth every ounce of pain and endurance required. This...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is left of Africa's hunter-gatherers, and do they have a future? This program enters the lives of the San bushmen of the Kalahari and the Hadzabe people of Tanzania in a way that may soon become impossible. Examining their crafts and customs, the film studies intriguing methods of making fire, cooking, building huts, and crafting jewelry. Viewers will witness detailed preparations for a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Democratic political principles have finally reached the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Tanim-"to change" or "to turn"-is the story of how the Apulin people, the ruling tribe of Enga province, are struggling to balance this alien electoral system, with all its implicit values and practices, with the secure familiarity of their traditional approaches to rule, land ownership, and systems of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006