Summary: As a child of the Spanish Civil War and the repressive post-war era, Carmen Martin Gaite found kindred spirits among the Madrid literati, led by her future husband Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, during the '50s. In her long and uninterrupted literary career, Gaite chose socially critical topics such as the relationship between the sexes and the differences between provincial and city life. Using...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Raised within the socially restrictive mores of a transient middle-class family and troubled with a stammering problem, Ana Maria Matute took refuge in literature. At 17, she began to use her experiences to probe the themes of lost childhood, injustice, and the lives of the marginalized. She soon developed a fresh prose style that deftly blended fantasy and realism, revitalizing the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Chilean novelist Isabel Allende has sold 15 million books in 30 languages over the past two decades. Few living writers receive the critical acclaim, popular following, and consistent sales records that she has enjoyed since the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits, in 1982. And yet her own story of exile after the rise of the dictator Pinochet is, perhaps, the most...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Born in Cuba to Chinese parents, award-winning novelist Zoe Valdes has achieved worldwide recognition for portraying the struggles and dreams of women. This program highlights her upbringing, education, and influences, as well as examining several of her most important books, including La Hija del Embajador and Te Di La Vida Entera.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Isabel Allende, the most recent Latin American novelist to bestride the world literary stage-and the first Latin American woman-describes the emotions that inform her fiction and the events that set them in motion. Niece of the deposed (and presumably assassinated) Chilean Marxist president Salvador Allende, she fled Chile in terror and blossomed in exile to write of the love, hate, and revenge...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Born in Barcelona, Rosa Regas has founded two publishing houses and two magazines, as well as written several award-winning novels. In this extended interview, the novelist and journalist discusses several of her books, including Azul, Luna Lunera, and Le Cancion de Dorotea.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In 1925 Luigi Pirandello brought his troupe to England as part of a worldwide tour. This program re-creates one day in London as "The Einstein of the Theater" watches his plays and, away from the footlights, confronts the paradoxical nature of his life. Portions of Six Characters in Search of an Author; Henry IV; Right You Are, If You Think You Are; and The Rules of the Game are meticulously...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: The German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer who developed the drama as a social and ideological forum is the subject of this program, in which those who knew him discuss his life and many works. Excerpts from plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children, The Life of Galileo, The Good Woman of Setzuan, and Antigone highlight the development of Brecht's austere form of irregular verse....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Until recently, the serious works of Russian avant-garde writer Daniil Kharms-his absurdist pieces, the ones laced with irony and steeped in trenchant wit-were known only to the Soviet Union's literary underground. This production, reset in modern-day America, is the first film adaptation of Kharms' novella The Old Woman, a dark comedy about a man trying to get rid of a dead body.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Ridiculed by some, admired by others, and ignored by no one, Yukio Mishima has remained a paradox in both life and death. This program combines extensive archival footage of Mishima; interviews with colleagues, including his biographer, Henry Scott Stokes, and two of his translators; and readings by actor John Hurt to portray Japan's immensely popular novelist, playwright, actor, and patriot of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: My role as a writer is to create positive myths, says Amin Maalouf. The Lebanese-born novelist and journalist also acknowledges "the material that history gives me." This program features conversations with Maalouf about his imaginative, historically grounded novels and his identity as a Christian Arab living in Paris. On-screen readings by the author present excerpts and themes from Leo...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In the early years of his dental practice, Alaa Al Aswany had an office in Cairo's deteriorating Yacoubian Building-eventually turning his experiences there into a successful novel by the same title. This interview with the Egyptian author highlights his views on social issues affecting the Islamic world as well as his attitudes towards literature and the West. Guiding viewers through his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Refuting any connection with overt political goals, Turkish novelist and Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk aims to create stories "as a child, not knowing where I am going next." Yet few writers in the Islamic world are more closely associated with political strife or have sparked as much street-level anger. This program features an interview with the world-renowned author in his Istanbul office,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This short adaptation of a play by Trinidad's foremost black writer is a metaphorical exploration of relations between black and white in the postcolonial world. The plot concerns a retired white actor and his black factotum; presumably they will perform a pantomime version of Robinson Crusoe, but roles become reversed, much to the white man's bewilderment and discomfort.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Her father was an ex-Nazi and alcoholic who clung to his fascist beliefs. For much of her life, she struggled against Nicolae Ceausescu's dehumanizing regime. But no matter how prolonged or alienating her hardships, they never crippled Herta Muller's spirit-and have, in fact, shaped and amplified her astonishing literary output. Commissioned by the Nobel Foundation, this program features...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: A novel is a "map of contradictions," says German-Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann-an arena of clashing viewpoints, each with its own persuasive logic. This program presents an interview with Kehlmann in which he discusses his literary goals and his search for fertile soil in the dichotomous history of Western Europe. Specific topics include personal freedom, cultural and religious tolerance,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Admiringly called "a kind of Zionist Orwell" by Newsweek, Amos Oz is arguably the best-known Israeli intellectual in the world. This program profiles the controversial Oz through a mix of monologue, interview, and biography, revealing his acute understanding of family life and fanaticism. Economical in his use of language, Oz depicts the people of Israel, the country's political tribulations,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This program spotlights a diverse group of Indian writers invited to participate in the Belles Etrangeres, a French literary festival. Featured authors include award-winning Bengali novelist and social activist Mahasweta Devi; Kannada novelist U. R. Ananthamurthy, former president of the Sahitya Akademi; Hindi stylist Krishna Baldev Vaid; Malayalam writer M. Mukundan; Marathi Dalit writer...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Filmed at locations throughout Spain, this program offers a literary retrospective of one of the leading poets of the Generation of '98, Antonio Machado. Machado scholar Jose Carlos Gallardo and Manuel Nunez Encabo of the Antonio Machado Foundation provide insightful commentary on the poet's life and works, including Soledades, Nuevas Canciones, Juan de Mairena, and his masterpiece, Campos de...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Chinua Achebe is president of the town council in his village in Nigeria, a role that brings him more headaches than honors. He's also a storyteller who hears the music of history, weaves the fabric of memory, and sometimes offends the Emperor as well. His first novel, Things Fall Apart, took the world by storm. Achebe disagrees with the notion that literature should be divorced from the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Things Fall Apart has been translated into 50 languages, has sold over 8 million copies, and is considered one of the 20th century's literary masterpieces. This program analyzes the impact Chinua Achebe and his writings have had on world literature, as well as his influence as an editor and a spokesman for a generation of African writers. Dr. Achebe, noted professors Abiola Irele and Gerald...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Articulating his profound and compelling worldview, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano imbues this program with a poetic sensibility and an unconstrained intellectual curiosity. Ruminations on prehistoric gender roles, global warming, and the twilight of socialism underscore Galeano's notion of disabled memory-his term for the reshaping of history according to one's fears and prejudices-as well...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In March of 2006, the Spanish novelist, journalist, and sociologist Francisco Ayala celebrated his 100th birthday. This program provides students of literature with a compelling look at the writer's life and work. Rarely viewed archival photos and footage are combined with insightful commentary from literary scholars, including Antonio Sanchez, professor of literature at the University of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Gary Snyder and Daisy Zamora have each, in their own way, engaged in battle. In this program, the staunch defender of the natural world and the combatant in the Nicaraguan civil war wield their preferred weapon, language, which in their hands has the power to change the way people feel, think, and act. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006