Summary: This program contrasts indigenous, community-based culture with market economics driven by multinational corporations. The film assesses the growing conflict between Burlington Resources, an American oil company licensed to prospect in regions of Ecuador, and the self-sufficient Achuar people of that country, who believe the oil industry will destroy their environment and non-materialistic way...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Noma is an acute oral infection that attacks young, malnourished children. If left untreated-which, tragically, is often the case in Africa-it devours bone tissue and permanently disfigures its victims. This unflinching program studies the impact of the pitiless disease and will help viewers assess the ability and readiness of the international community to combat the suffering. Graphic scenes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Poverty, unstable government, and disadvantages in trade have virtually eliminated food security in Malawi. This program explores the African country's struggles on both a personal and national level, interviewing frustrated civil servants and impoverished citizens, and reflecting widespread despair over WTO policies and the government's inability to subsidize the agriculture of its own people....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Scientists expect the island nation of Tuvalu to disappear into the sea during the next few decades. If that is true, what will become of the country's citizens and its unique South Pacific culture? Should the traumatic task of evacuation begin now, and if so, to where and under what circumstances? This program grapples with those questions by interviewing key figures in Tuvalu's government and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: As climate change lays waste to the Niger River, the great Malian city of Timbuktu increasingly resembles a desert landscape. The same is true for much of land-locked Mali, which could, in a worst-case scenario, find itself without water altogether. Incorporating discussions of poverty, population growth, and other issues, this film examines the impact of desertification on two of the nation's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Close to the Russian border, far removed from Mongolia's polluted and overcrowded capital city of Ulaanbaatar, an ancient herding culture fights to maintain its identity-and its survival. This program examines the nomadic communities of the Mongolian plains and their resistance to change, despite growing pressure on many herders to modernize and migrate to urban areas. Viewers meet some who...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Nicaragua, a growing awareness of domestic violence and its consequences has spurred grassroots activism. This program documents the efforts of two groups, the Xochitl-Acatl Center and the Association of Men Against Violence, both of which confront gender and sexual abuse. Arguing that economic and political oppression influence male tendencies to exercise physical authority within the home,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When an 11-year-old Paraguayan boy named Silvino Talavera died from pesticide poisoning in 2003, his name became a rallying cry in the fight against intensive soya production. This program recounts the tragedy and the legal, political, and economic impact of "agritoxins" in Latin America. Opening with a poetically filmed reenactment and moving on to feature key players in the story, the film...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Swept to power in 2006 on a wave of social unrest, Bolivian President Evo Morales has vowed to shift the balance of power in favor of his poorest constituents. This program examines the wealth generated from Bolivia's natural resources-precious metals in particular-and highlights Morales' efforts to redirect revenues away from what he sees as neoliberal interests. Noting Morales' indigenous...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: As in the case of coffee, sugar, and other cultivated products, the floral industry would collapse without a steady supply of cheap labor. This program goes inside the world of Colombia's flower growers, in particular those who work the hardest for the lowest pay. Profiling two women with varying experiences, the film reveals both the tenuous nature of life on the industry's bottom rung - Hilda...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Coffee is second only to oil as the world's most valuable traded commodity, but small-scale producers rarely profit from it. This program reveals the hardship and uncertainty faced by coffee farmers in Guatemala, and how many are taking steps to obtain better prices and build better lives. Analyzing the country's traumatic history and the lingering effects of its civil war, the video sheds...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Poverty in Africa reminds us that abundant natural resources don't automatically translate into widespread economic wealth. This program brings home the disturbing reality of daily life in Angola-marked by ramshackle houses, open sewers, and a question that grows louder every day: who benefits from the country's vast oil resources? Outlining the nation's colonial and Cold War traumas, the film...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines India's immense child labor problem and the fight against it. The video contrasts this nation's status as the world's largest democracy with the fact that, inside its borders, 80 million children work physically exhausting jobs for minuscule wages. Incorporating interviews with Shanta Sinha, founder of the organization known as MVF, the video illustrates how the group...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Due to its entanglement in America's Vietnam war, Laos is frequently cited as, per capita, the most bombed country in the world. This program shows how a conflict that officially ended over three decades ago still kills and maims innocent civilians. Viewers meet several families decimated by unexploded munitions, or "bombies" in the local vernacular, that were dropped between 1964 and 1973. As...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This film explores how Indris Seid Yimer and Emyet Assen Woraki's lives have been transformed since 1984, when their Wollo area community was engulfed in a famine described by BBC journalist Michael Buerk as "the closest thing to hell on Earth." Featuring contributions from entrepreneur Samuel Alemu and financier Ermyas Amelga and showcasing the UNESCO World Heritage site in Lalibela.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2012
View online at AVOD
Summary: For over 24 years, East Timor (now known as Timor Leste) endured a crushing occupation inflicted on them by neighboring Indonesia on the pretext of the fight against communism. The war was brought to a controversial conclusion in 1999. However, trauma from that period lives on as evidenced by the testimonies of Nelson Belo, Gregorio Saldanha, and Pascal Oliveira, survivors of the infamous 1991...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2012
View online at AVOD
Summary: Vietnam, one of the few Marxist-Leninist states, is still standing. The Communist Party of Vietnam faithfully represents the rights and interests of the working class and the nation. Just over thirty years after the country was devastated by war, leaving between one and two million dead, its economy is storming ahead. In 1993, poverty levels were at 58%; now that figure has dropped to 12%.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Elderly Nana Chinegowe is left to care for her three orphaned grandchildren. Other than occasional casual work as a day laborer, she has no mean to support them and they often go without food. This film tells the story of Malawi's ultra poor, and investigates the Millennium Development Goals of reducing maternal mortality, hunger, and poverty.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011