What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture of Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world,...

At first glance Brazil appears to be an alluring playground of exciting carnivals, sultry samba, divine football and a vibrantly diverse people. But behind this dazzling facade lies a disturbing story of historys largest-ever slave population. Astonishingly Brazil, a Portuguese colony, received ten-times more African slaves than the numbers transported to North America. This programme looks at those estimated 4 million people with whose blood, sweat...

"In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals...

They came for the hormones and stayed for the healthcare. These are the pioneering patients of the first free clinic in the country for trans folks, 1993 in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. More than a film about a clinic, the filmmakers had access to the unvarnished stories of 12 courageous individuals, who share their life experiences in the "Bad Old Days" decade by decade-- from the closeted 1950s, through the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s-- all illustrated...

Annemarie Jacir's politically charged feature debut is the story of Soraya, a Brooklyn-born woman who travels to Palestine to retrieve her grandfather's savings, frozen in a Jaffa bank account after his 1948 exile. Her status as a dispossessed exile and encounter with contemporary politics provides a rare glimpse in to the Middle East of today.

Hoover street revival is an insightful look into an America most people only read about. Focusing on the experiences and hardships which make up everyday reality for many residents of South Central Los Angeles, Director Sophie Fiennes examines the impact of the charismatic Bishop Noel Jones' (brother of diva Grace Jones) and Grammy-nominated Jonathan Grier's choir upon those who walk through the doors of Greater Bethany Community Church. An engaging...

In October 1969 hundreds of young people, clad in football helmets and wielding lead pipes, marched through an upscale Chicago shopping district, pummeling parked cars and smashing shop windows in their path. This was the first demonstration of the Weather Underground's Days of Rage. Outraged by the Vietnam War and racism in America, the organization waged a low-level war against the U.S. government through much of the 1970s, bombing the Capitol building,...

In a hidden corner of Brooklyn, change is anything but straightforward...Chronicling the changing fortunes of Red Hook, Brooklyn, A Hole in a Fence is a documentary that explores the complicated issues of development, class and identity facing one of New York City’s most unique neighborhoods. It’s the story of a vanished homeless community and the young architect who documented it; of an urban farm run by local kids amidst a landscape of industrial...

As Augusto Pinochet holds Chile in the grip of dictatorship, a fifty year old man obsessed with John Travolta's character from Saturday night fever imitates his idol each weekend in a small bar on the outskirts of Santiago. A stinging allegory for the corruption and egomania of Augusto Pinochet. "An indelible portrait of a sociopath with the soul of a zombie." - The New York Times.