Summary: “I have found my mission in Kyrgyzstan,” says French horse expert Jacqueline Ripart. In remote areas of the Tian Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan, Ripart hopes to find descendents of the small, tough horses with which Genghis Khan once conquered Central Asia - if they are not already extinct. Under Soviet rule, the Kyrgyz horse was bred with larger Russian strains to produce meat for slaughter....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Situated near an oasis in Niger’s Ayar Mountains, the remote settlement of Timia is home to small-scale wheat growers. Once a year, after the harvest is done, members of the Kel Ewen clan federation - a subgroup of the Tuareg nomads - will venture into the merciless Tenere desert to trade their wares. Almost 600 kilometers lie between the paradise-like gardens of Timia and the village of Bilma,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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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
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Summary: In spite of mounting ecological damage, the Amazon Basin continues to nurture age-old stories and beliefs. This documentary illustrates the importance of indigenous narratives to those who dwell near the city of Iquitos, Peru, and view their natural surroundings in mythical terms. Concerning a young man who has recently gone missing in the forest, the film depicts his mother's attempts to find...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: As online gaming companies position themselves to tap an entertainment market that is projected to explode, researchers question the safety of deeply immersive virtual worlds. In this program, MIT psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle; David Greenfield, author of Virtual Addiction; Richard Garriott, creator of Ultima Online; Brad McQuaid, co-creator of EverQuest; representatives of Sony...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The Amish rarely allow themselves to be photographed or filmed, yet several members of the isolated religious community agreed to appear in this eye-opening documentary. Filmed on location in Pennsylvania and Ohio Amish country, the program goes beyond stereotypes and common misconceptions, presenting a fully human portrait of a misunderstood people. Interviews with Amish men and women-some...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Pickup basketball is democracy in action. This program-an astute study of sports sociology-tracks a mixed group of serious amateurs through an eight-month period, studying player culture, hierarchy, and interaction as they manifest in a setting that has no place for referees. Age, gender, race, injuries, and multigenerational families of players are also considered, as are the game rules and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Dissecting the phenomenon of altruism-as well as its mirror image, the instinct of self-preservation-is perhaps best accomplished with real-world case studies. This program does so as it documents the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami. Following four independent relief workers in the hardest-hit areas of Sri Lanka, the film captures scene after scene in which the most idealistic and pragmatic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: How do people get what they want? The most primal aim of economics is to find answers to that blunt but telling question-something at which Steven D. Levitt has proved particularly adept. In this ABC News program, Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, coauthors of the best-selling book Freakonomics, reason out points of convergence between beauty pageant contestants and crack dealers, abortion and...
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
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Summary: An ideal discussion-launcher for sociology courses, this program examines cultural and psychological aspects of what is now an archetypal suburban experience: shopping at the mall. Visiting "cathedrals of consumerism" throughout North America-from the Southdale, Minnesota, progenitor of the enclosed retail mall to the absurdly spectacular Grand Canal Shoppes and Desert Passage in Las Vegas-the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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
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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
View online at AVOD
Summary: Sometime during the close of the 20th century, free play vanished from the lives of American children. Today, a riptide of structured, highly competitive activities fills their waking hours, heightened by parental ambition and anxiety. This program examines the world of scheduled play-dates and ultra-organized sports, searching out the causes and implications of the hyper-managed childhood....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
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
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Summary: In 1950, only two of the world's urban centers boasted populations of eight million or more. Today, dozens of cities contain at least that many people, with dozens more pushing to join the list. This program surveys the emergence and development of the megacity-both as an intellectual concept and as a physical phenomenon that is altering the face of the planet. The film examines present-day...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: The "Summer of Love" is remembered today through a haze of nostalgia, hindsight, and hype. But how was the emergence of the youth counterculture actually covered at the time? In this program, selections from the NBC News archives offer an insightful look at the beginning of a cultural shock wave that is still being felt and debated today. Reporter Aline Saarinen offers a reality check as she...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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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: This program examines the Deadhead subculture: What kinds of people are attracted to this culture, and what attracts them to it? What social forms do Deadheads resist? What forms shape their behavior? What separates them from the mainstream? The program also examines the workings of a subculture from within.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
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: 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: Will standard English, as it was known in the 20th century, disappear? Will English continue as the global tongue, or will its numerous varieties become, as offshoots of Latin did, a host of mutually unintelligible languages? This classic PBS program features new varieties of English that have transcended British and American influence. The program focuses on some of the most successful...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Marx divided the industrial world into two antagonistic classes: the bourgeois and the proletariat. In today's society, this simple dichotomy fails to capture the many segments of a global marketplace. From the communal hunter/gatherers and agrarian cultures; to ancient empires and medieval fiefdoms; to the technocrats, executives, laborers, and others of the stratified modern world, this...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006