In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains — the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl." This American Experience film presents the remarkable story of the determined people who clung to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease — even death — for nearly a decade. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers who stayed overcame an almost unbelievable series of calamities and disasters.
At the height of the 1930's Dust Bowl, a scarecrow must leave his post and find a way to save the only family he's ever known. But facing the outside world proves to be a challenge when your face is a burlap sack.
Viennese surgeon Dr. Braun and his daughter Leni come to a small town in North Dakota as refugees from Hitler. When the winds of the Dust Bowl threaten the town, John Phillips leads the townsfolk in moving to greener pastures in Oregon. He falls for Leni, but she is betrothed to the man who helped her and her father escape from the Third Reich. She must decide between the two men.
Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.
A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.
In 1930s Oklahoma amid the region's horrific dust storms, a woman is convinced that a sinister presence is threatening her family.
"ASCO: Without Permission" is a genre-defying film that profiles the extraordinary, Los Angeles based, Chicano art group of the 70's-80's, ASCO, who merged activism and art as they challenged representation in the art world, Hollywood and the news media. Unrecognized in their time, they are now being considered amongst the most important artists of the 20th century. Utilizing a wholly original approach to filmmaking where nonfiction and fiction are interconnected through collaborative film works made with the next generation of Latinx artists, "Without Permission" reimagines what is possible today in cinema and art while celebrating an iconoclastic group that was far ahead of its time.
In this 30-minute interview, Oprah Winfrey sits down with director Ava DuVernay to discuss her Oscar-nominated film, historical cycles of oppression and the broken prison system.
Train to Adulthood is a coming-of-age story about three youngsters who find an escape from life's ordeals by working on the Budapest Children's Railway. While they enjoy playing at being responsible adults on the Train, at home they are forced to mature abruptly.
Life is a great mystery, much larger than what would have us believe. By listening desires of their discoveries and their inner doubts, three young decided to start a trip on the surface of the Earth.
Recently released top secret files from the early 2000's expose the lies told to the American people by senior US government in this PBS documentary, which outlines the real creators of ISIS.
Three men embark on a journey in search of meaning and happiness in the autumn of their lives: Bob swaps his safe home for a camper van and tries to find himself in the barren Californian desert; Steve, drag queen and stand-up comedian, is fed up of England and makes amends with his past in Benidorm; Yamada rediscovers his smile by reading stories to children in Tokyo.
A look at the life and work of Spanish filmmaker Mario Camus (1935-2021).
Six blind people around the world are given a camera and asked to take photos of whatever they like.
In powerful images, alternating between documentary observation and staged sequences, and dense soundscapes, Luiz Bolognesi documents the Indigenous community of the Yanomami and depicts their threatened natural environment in the Amazon rainforest.
1960s Chicago, a baby is kidnapped from a hospital. Fifteen months later, a toddler is abandoned. Could he be the same baby? In a tale of breathtaking twists and turns, two mysteries begin to unravel and dark family secrets are revealed.
As a teenager in the '90s, Soleil Moon Frye carried a video camera everywhere she went. She documented hundreds of hours of footage and then locked it away for over 20 years.
A handful of prisoners in WWII camps risked their lives to take clandestine photographs and document the hell the Nazis were hiding from the world. In the vestiges of the camps, director Christophe Cognet retraces the footsteps of these courageous men and women in a quest to unearth the circumstances and the stories behind their photographs, composing as such an archeology of images as acts of defiance.
An exhaustive explanation of how the military occupation of an invaded territory occurs and its consequences, using as a paradigmatic example the recent history of Israel and the Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from 1967, when the Six-Day War took place, to the present day; an account by filmmaker Avi Mograbi enriched by the testimonies of Israeli army veterans.