Season 20

How do you measure the distance from an African village to an American city? What does it mean to be a refugee in today's "global village?" Rain in a Dry Land provides eye-opening answers as it chronicles the fortunes of two Somali Bantu families, transported by relief agencies from years of civil war and refugee life to Springfield, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia. As the newcomers confront racism, poverty and 21st-century culture shock, the film captures their efforts to survive in America and create a safe haven for their war-torn families. Their poetry, humor, and amazing resilience show us our own world through new eyes. A co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS). (packaged to 86:46)

If the refugee is today’s tragic icon of a war-torn world, then Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, a reggae-inflected band born in the camps of West Africa, represents a real-life story of survival and hope. The six-member Refugee All Stars came together in Guinea after civil war forced them from their native Sierra Leone. Traumatized by physical injuries and the brutal loss of family and community, they fight back with the only means they have – music. The result, as shown in Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, is a tableau of tragedy transformed by the band’s inspiring determination to sing and be heard. A Diverse Voices Project co-production. (packaged to 86:46)

What does a family have to endure to create a future for itself? In April 2000, Alex White Plume and his Lakota family planted industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota after other crops had failed. They put their hopes for a sustainable economy in hemp’s hardiness and a booming worldwide demand for its many products, from clothing to food. Although growing hemp, a relative of marijuana, was banned in the U.S., Alex believed that tribal sovereignty, along with hemp’s non-psychoactive properties, would protect him. But when federal agents raided the White Plumes’ fields, the Lakota Nation was swept into a Byzantine struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights and common sense. A co-presentation with Native American Public Telecommunications. (packaged to 56:46)

Revolution ’67 is an illuminating account of events too often relegated to footnotes in U.S. history – the black urban rebellions of the 1960s. Focusing on the six-day Newark, N.J., outbreak in mid-July, Revolution ’67 reveals how the disturbances began as spontaneous revolts against poverty and police brutality and ended as fateful milestones in America’s struggles over race and economic justice. Voices from across the spectrum – activists Tom Hayden and Amiri Baraka, journalist Bob Herbert, Mayor Sharpe James, and other officials, National Guardsmen, and Newark citizens – recall lessons as hard-earned then as they have been easy to neglect since. A co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS ) and American Documentary | P.O.V. in association with WSKG. (packaged to 86:46)

A decade ago, after an epiphany at a New York restaurant, Richard Ogust began dedicating his time and resources to rescuing endangered turtles – confiscating hundreds bound for Southeast Asian food markets. When the filmmakers catch up with the 50-year-old writer, he is sharing his Manhattan loft with 1,200 turtles, including five species extinct in the wild. But his growing “ark” and preservation efforts are threatening to exhaust him, both mentally and financially. With luminous images and a haunting musical score, The Chances of the World Changing documents two years in the life of a man who finds himself struggling to save hundreds of lives, including his own. (packaged to 86:46)

In the 1990s, at the height of the prison-building boom, a prison opened in rural America every 15 days. Prison Town, USA tells the story of Susanville, California, one small town that tries to resuscitate its economy by building a prison – with unanticipated consequences. Weaving the stories of a laidoff mill worker turned guard, a struggling dairy owner and an inmate’s family stranded in Susanville, the film sheds light on an industry that is transforming the social and economic landscape of rural America. A co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and KQED/Truly California. (packaged to 86:46)

Thirty years after making a celebrated student short about a four-year-old child of free spirits living in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district at the height of the 1960s, Ralph Arlyck attempts the kind of revelation only documentary film can provide. In Following Sean, he goes in search of the impish, barefoot kid who delighted or horrified audiences, reflecting the hopes and fears of a turbulent, utopian era. In discovering what has become of Sean, Arlyck finds a complex reality—and experiences pure cinematic surprise. As the filmmaker comes to grips with his own midlife conflicts, Following Sean may reveal as much about Arlyck and his generation as it does his subject. A co-presentation with KQED/Truly California. (packaged to 86:46)

In Arctic Son, the clash of tradition and modernity puts a Native father and son at odds in the village of Old Crow, 80 miles above the Arctic Circle. Stanley, Jr., raised in Seattle, is drifting deeper into drinking and partying. Stanley, Sr., a remote, philosophical figure to his son, keeps the ways of his Gwitchin ancestors alive by hunting, fishing and living by his wits in the harsh arctic environment. After a lifetime apart, the two are reunited in the raw, quiet beauty of the Canadian Yukon in a story that captures the dialogue between a father and son from vastly different worlds. (packaged to 86:46)

Nestled below the rugged peaks of the Northern Rockies in Montana—as iconic a representation of America’s “purple mountain majesties” as one can find—lies the worst case of community-wide exposure to a toxic substance in U.S. history. In the small town of Libby, many hundreds of people are sick or have already died from asbestos exposure. Libby, Montana takes a long working day’s journey into a blue-collar community, and finds a different reality—one where the American Dream exacts a terrible price. (packaged to 86:46)

Los Angeles is now the country’s center for apparel manufacturing, but many of its factories bear an eerie resemblance to New York’s early 20th century sweatshops. Made in L.A. follows the remarkable journey of three Latina immigrants working in L.A.’s garment factories and their struggle for self-empowerment as they wage a three-year battle to bring a major clothing retailer to the negotiating table. This intimate film offers a rare and poignant glimpse into this “other” California, where immigrants in many industries toil long hours for sub-minimum wages, fighting for an opportunity in a new country. A co-production with the Independent Television Service (ITVS). A Diverse Voices Project co-production. A co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting. (packaged to 86:46)

How far would you go to stop a war? The Camden 28 recalls a 1971 raid on a Camden, N.J., draft board office by “Catholic Left” activists protesting the Vietnam War and its effects on urban America. Arrested on site in a clearly planned sting, the protesters included four Catholic priests, a Lutheran minister, and 23 others. The Camden 28 reveals the story behind the arrests – a provocative tale of government intrigue and personal betrayal – and the ensuing legal battle, which Supreme Court Justice William Brennan called "one of the great trials of the 20th century." Thirty-five years later, the participants take stock of the motives, fears and costs of their activism – and its relevance to America today. (packaged to 86:46)

The agonies of present-day Africa are deeply etched in the bodies of women. In eastern Congo on the Rwanda border, vying militias, armies and bandits use rape as a weapon of terror. Lumo Sinai was just over 20 when marauding soldiers attacked her. A fistula, common among victims of violent rape, rendered her incontinent and threatens her ability to bear children. Rejected by her fiancé and cast aside by her family, Lumo awaits reconstructive surgery. Lumo is her story, tragic for its cruelties but also inspiring for the struggle she wages and the dignity she displays, with the help of an extraordinary African hospital, to overcome shame, fear, and the affliction that robs her of a normal life. (packaged to 56:46)

In one of documentary cinema’s more remarkable enterprises, 49 Up makes its U.S. broadcast premiere as the seventh in a series of films that has profiled a group of English children every seven years, beginning in 1964. Renowned director Michael Apted (Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorky Park, Gorillas in the Mist) has doggedly pursued the series as the children have grown into adults, navigating the divide between childhood dreams and adult realities. 49 Up revisits questions of love, marriage, career, class and prejudice – discovering unexpected turns in individual lives, and surprising views of the Up film series itself. (packaged to 146:46)

Tony Kushner, whose epochal Angels in America won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, has emerged as one of the country’s leading playwrights – and one of its fiercest moral critics. In the film Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, Oscar-winning director Freida Lee Mock (P.O.V.’s Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision) followed Kushner for three tumultuous years, from Sept. 11, 2001 to the 2004 presidential election, to delve into the passions that keep him reaching for the great American play. Actors Marcia Gay Harden, Meryl Streep, Tonya Pinkins and Emma Thompson, directors Mike Nichols and George C. Wolf, and writer/artist Maurice Sendak are seen collaborating with Kushner on such landmark works as Angels in America; Caroline, or Change; and Homebody/Kabul. (packaged to 116:46)