Summary: Presented by sculptor Antony Gormley, this program was created to complement the 2002-3 exhibition of Aztec culture at London's Royal Academy. Many of the incredible works loaned to the exhibit are shown, along with sculptures and artifacts filmed in Mexico City and at important Aztec sites. Leading scholars and curators explore how the nomadic Aztecs drew inspiration from earlier cultures. The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: With the arrival of the conquistadors, many ancient Mesoamerican rituals were absorbed into Christian holidays. This program examines a collection of sacred, social, and artistic traditions that survived European assimilation and now compose one of Mexico's most important annual festivals. The film follows the travels and experiences of a young Purepecha artisan, her grandmother, and their...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: The 20,000-year-old caves of Altamira are among the greatest and the least known of the monuments of prehistory. Closed to visitors to prevent disintegration through pollution, the caves are known only through a replica located in the Archaeological Museum in Madrid. This tour of Altamira shows the cave paintings in their extraordinary power as they depict the daily life of Magdalenian people...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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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: 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
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Summary: In this program, John McWhorter, author of The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language; Lyle Campbell, of the University of Utah; Brian Joseph, of The Ohio State University; and population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza examine factors that contributed to the diversification and spread of languages, including early migration, the introduction of agriculture, and genes. Language...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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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: Historically, the arts in Africa were largely communal and unrecorded. But much has changed over the past century, and this program takes a look at art in sub-Saharan Africa as it exists today through profiles of Senegalese rap groups Alif and Wageble and the rap collective Fight and Forget, who use their music as a form of political activism; Senegalese sculptor Babacar Niang, whose workshop...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Was there a "big bang" in human language and cognitive development, or did speech and abstract thought evolve slowly-perhaps across 200,000 years or so? Surveying prehistoric burial sites and other archaeological finds, including what might be the world's oldest work of art, this program attempts to locate the junction of creativity and communication at which human intelligence was born....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: In Zanzibar they play it at the end of weddings, in Romania at the end of funerals, in Mexico as a protest song, and in Germany as a sailor's lament. Written a century and a half ago by Sebastian Iradier and first performed in Cuba, "La Paloma"-the most frequently played song in the world-has circled the globe like a dove to touch listeners' hearts with longing. Drawing upon insightful expert...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Steve Jones travels from Israel's Plains of Armageddon to Africa's Great Zimbabwe to solve the age-old riddle of what happened to the fabled lost tribes of Israel. Genealogists use DNA to trace the connection between a Samaritan tribe and non-indigenous Jewish groups, and to trace the ancestry of Mormons, who claim to be descended from a lost tribe. In Africa, a tribe shows anthropological...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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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: Perhaps the world’s most famous epic poem, Homer’s The Odyssey follows Odysseus as he undertake a twenty-year journey to return home from battle to reclaim his wife and kingdom. This episode of Clash of the Gods relates the tale of adventure, filled with legendary beasts, vengeful gods, and seductive sirens. Experts discuss that astronomical clues and new geological evidence suggest that the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This program marks the beginning of Michael Wood’s quest as he ventures into the world of an exotic and mysterious woman of power. Immortalized in the Hebrew Bible, the Muslim Koran, and in many Christian traditions, the tale of the Queen's journey to meet King Solomon has been told and retold for nearly 3,000 years. Wood's fascinating voyage starts on Easter night in Jerusalem, taking him...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Traveling the world, photographer Phil Borges documents endangered cultures with the hope that he can help preserve them by photographing and interviewing members of them. In this TEDTalk, Borges shows rarely seen images of people from the mountains of Dharamsala, India, and the jungles of the Ecuadorean Amazon, as he tells their stories. In addition, Borges talks about his initiative to link...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This episode of Clash of the Gods presents the real story behind our most renowned modern myth - that classic story of good vs. evil, fought in the world of Middle Earth. We enter creator J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical world of hobbits, orcs, and wizards, and uncover the real life influences that shaped his epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings. Intriguing connections and parallels are drawn from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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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: Many anthropologists believe that Australia's indigenous traditions make up the oldest surviving culture in the world. At the heart of this culture is a robust oral tradition and a belief system based upon reverence for the land, and for the spiritual dimension known as the Dreamtime. Composed of several different groups, each with a distinct set of customs and traditions, the Australian...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Writing is a relative latecomer to the history of language. This program tracks its emergence in Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica and its spread down through the millennia via conquest-usually violent, sometimes benign-and colonization. The creation of creoles and pidgins resulting from the interaction of specific populations is also addressed, and speculation is made about the first things...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This program explores one of the oldest stories in all of Greek mythology. Michael Wood traces the route of Jason and his famous boat, the Argo, from Greece to Turkey and modern-day Georgia. It begins in the town of Volos in Greece-where King Pelias feared Jason a contender to this throne and sent him on the impossible mission to the kingdom of Colchis on the Black Sea to retrieve the magical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: In sub-Saharan Africa, traditionally minded people view everything as being touched by the supernatural-including what might seem, to Western eyes, to be simply athletic or recreational activities. This program explains the deeper meaning of the donga, ritualized stick-fighting bouts of the Surma culture; sacred Senegalese wrestling, an ancient village tradition that has met with immense...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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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: No storytelling medium is more powerful than the modern movie-but the ability to inspire and entertain by combining words and pictures is hardly a recent phenomenon. This program reveals the age-old roots of the cinematic narrative form and their evolution over the centuries. Beginning in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh, the film points to the Epic of Gilgamesh as one of the earliest...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Dark mysterious creatures, tales of vampires are told in many different cultures around the world. This revealing documentary explores the fear and intrigue that these undead beings stir. Origins of the Vampire also presents the surprising truth about real-life cases through history. From Vlad the Impaler’s 16th century Transylvania to Bram Stoker’s stories of the 19th century to today’s movies...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1993