Starting from the opening scene My Cultural Divide questions the logic of the hardcore political activist, and wonders aloud whether ethical consuming actually does anything good for the workers behind the machines.
Because of family connections director Faisal Lutchmedial makes his way into some of the worst factories in Bangladesh, and talks frankly with the workers inside about their job and living conditions.
Accompanied by his ailing mother, Lutchmedial takes us on a very personal journey to bridge the gap between his heritage in Bangladesh and his life in Canada.
He connects his politics with his humanity, and weaves together a story that is both thought provoking and touching.
He wrote his name in blood on the sidewalks of New York and made himself the Boss of all Bosses.
Arriving in America at the age of nine and embarking upon a life of crime at age 14, Charles “Lucky” Luciano rose through the ranks of the New York Mafia like a pistol shot.
By the age of 34, he was running the Sicilian mob like a U.S. corporation diversifying the rackets, organizing the gangs and running his own political candidates.
Examine Lucky’s 30-year career as CEO of Murder, Inc. through rare interviews and extensive archival footage. Mob insiders recall the history-making meetings held in Luciano’s Waldorf-Astoria headquarters.
And naval records reveal how his top-secret war efforts earned him parole from a 50-year sentence.Journey into the dangerous world of La Cosa Nostra for the definitive portrait of one of the most notorious criminals in history.
Ayehu, Almaz, Zewdie, Yenenesh and Wubete suffered through prolonged, unrelieved obstructed labor in a country with few hospitals and even fewer roads to get to them. Although they survived the often-fatal childbirth experience, they were left with a stillborn baby and feeling, as Ayehu tells us, that “even death would be better than this.”
The obstructed labor has left each of them incontinent. We discover Ayehu, 25, living in a makeshift shack behind her mother’s house where she has hidden for four years, shunned by siblings and neighbors alike. She hesitantly begins her journey on foot, but once she arrives at the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, she realizes for the first time that she isn’t the only person in the world suffering from this problem. At the hospital we meet Almaz, a woman also in her 20s who was abducted by her now-husband in a village market and has suffered from double fistula for three years.
Zewdie, 38, has five children longing for their mother to be well. Though abandoned by her husband, Zewdie is supported by the strong extended family that surrounds her. As for Wubete and Yenenesh, both 17, early marriage and their small physical stature (the result of undernourishment and heavy labor) determined the tragic outcome of their first pregnancies.
For these two girls a cure is not simple. We’re with them as they struggle with disappointing news and later as their youthful determination triumphs. We follow each of these women on their journey to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where they find solace for the first time in years, and we stay with them as their lives begin to change.
The MS13 gang, aka Mara Salvatrucha 13, is one of the most violently dangerous gangs in the United States – and one of the most organized.
The MS13 gang has cliques, or factions, located throughout the United States and is unique in that it retains is ties to its El Salvador counterparts.
With cliques in Washington DC, Oregon, Alaska, Arkansas, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Oklahoma, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Canada, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and several other South American countries, the MS13 gang is truly “international” and on the verge of becoming the first gang to be categorized as an “organized crime” entity.
This documentary about MS13 shows the live of MS13 gang-members, their lives and their believes.
Dispatches exposes the myths and misconceptions that surround a condition said to affect 10 per cent of the population. The Dyslexia Mythargues that the common understanding of dyslexia is not only false but makes it more difficult to provide the reading help that hundreds of thousands of children desperately need.
Drawing on years of intensive academic research on both sides of the Atlantic, Dispatches challenges the existence of dyslexia as a separate condition; but in doing so, reveals the scale and pain of true reading disability.
The programme examines the chasm between evidence and educational practice and shows that, after hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in the teaching of reading, the number of children encountering serious problems has hardly changed.
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trialis an award winning NOVA documentary on the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which concentrated on the question of whether or not intelligent design could be viewed as science and taught in school science class. It aired in on PBS in November 2007 and features interviews with the judge, witnesses, and lawyers as well as re-enacted scenes (no cameras were allowed in court).
The documentary was praised by Nature, and described as accurate by the National Center for Science Education. Variety magazine also gave the documentary a positive review, and said it was one of the year’s most important television projects, that “should be shown not just in every U.S. high school but in houses of worship as well.”
In contrast to the positive reception the film has been given, creationist and intelligent design supporters have criticized the documentary. The Discovery Institute produced a website critical of the broadcast. Answers in Genesis claimed the evidence for evolution presented by scientists in Judgment Day was fallacious. The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) also claimed the film was not balanced. WKNO-TV, the local PBS affiliate in Memphis decided not to air the documentary because of the “controversial nature” of the subject, but has since promised to broadcast it in 2008.
The actor investigates the boom in piracy on the world’s oceans, traveling to some of the planet’s biggest trouble spots to discover the problems faced by potential targets and those trying to protect them.
He begins in London, where he discovers the economic impact of hijackings on global trade, before joining a Royal Navy anti-piracy ship in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia.
Than he explores the impact of piracy in Nigeria, where more people are killed in raids than anywhere else in the world. He discovers the devastating effects that pirates are having on the area’s fishing fleet, with almost 300 workers killed over the past few years, and how attacks on oil tankers at the port of Lagos are threatening the country’s economy.
Highest murder rate in the world for a country not officially at war. Ross visits Kingston, the most violent area in all of Jamaica, and speaks to gang members there.
A study carried out by A. Harriott shows that the homicide rate in Jamaica is four times higher than the world rate, with the city of Kingston having the highest rate in the world at 109/100,000, followed by Washington D.C. , at 67/100,000. According to this researcher, there is a direct relationship between the rate of murder and the rates of other violent crimes-robberies, rapes, etc. In Jamaica, historically, most murders were crimes of passion.
In 1963, in 64% of the murder cases, the victims were known to the offender, and domestic violence accounted for 28% of all homicides, while in 1993, this declined to 16%. This does not mean that cases of domestic violence are on the decline, it means that the murder rate – especially since the increase in the number of illegal guns on the island – is going up.
Ross uncovers the extent to which the Nazi, or National Socialist, groups are gaining power in Russia: it would seem that at best the police turn a blind eye to racism, at worse actively endorse it. And Ross meets one Member of Parliament who openly promotes Nazi ideology. Ross joins one Neo Nazi group during their training and through a series of tests -which include him being set on fire – he gains their trust. They invite him back to their secret headquarters where he meets some seriously disturbing individuals and uncovers the heart of their violent organization.
Orange Country, California, regarded as the birthplace of American skinheads. The recent amalgamation of various factions has led to the creation of the Orange County Skinheads where Ross gets to grips with the impact of this group on a concerned community.
In Poland, he follows Neo-Nazi football hooligans who have become one of the most feared gangs in Europe. Young men with few prospects use violence as a means of escape, and Ross experiences first hand just how dangerous it can be when he’s tear-gassed at a football match.
This series tells the true stories that would be any traveller’s worst nightmare – when a holiday in paradise becomes a journey into hell that ends up in prison abroad.
Through graphic dramatic reconstruction, each film tells the story of someone who’s been arrested and thrown into a foreign prison. It could be for smuggling drugs, falling foul of local corrupt policemen or for being duped into carrying illegal goods through customs.
In all cases, the films follow the sinking sense of horror from the build up to the moment of arrest, their journey through an incomprehensible legal process, the coming to terms with the details of life in a hellhole jail, and the devastating fall out with their family and friends.
the documentary film vault 