As a child in Burkina Faso, Yacouba was sent away from home to study the Qur'an, where he and his classmates were almost starving. The young boys would trek across miles of wilderness, only to fall and beg at a straw hut for meagre rations. It is from this harsh background that the young farmer became determined to develop techniques that would bring exhausted soil back into production. His efforts have outdone the work of the world's leading scientists and technological advances costing millions of pounds. They may also yet prove crucial to the future of the world's rapidly growing population and global food demands.
As a child in Burkina Faso, Yacouba was sent away from home to study the Qur'an, where he and his classmates were almost starving. The young boys would trek across miles of wilderness, only to fall and beg at a straw hut for meagre rations. It is from this harsh background that the young farmer became determined to develop techniques that would bring exhausted soil back into production. His efforts have outdone the work of the world's leading scientists and technological advances costing millions of pounds. They may also yet prove crucial to the future of the world's rapidly growing population and global food demands.
2010-06-02
7.5
A look at man's relationship with Dirt. Dirt has given us food, shelter, fuel, medicine, ceramics, flowers, cosmetics and color --everything needed for our survival. For most of the last ten thousand years we humans understood our intimate bond with dirt and the rest of nature. We took care of the soils that took care of us. But, over time, we lost that connection. We turned dirt into something "dirty." In doing so, we transform the skin of the earth into a hellish and dangerous landscape for all life on earth. A millennial shift in consciousness about the environment offers a beacon of hope - and practical solutions.
A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.
In celebration of Asian Heritage Month, HBO presents a collection of perspectives from a diverse group of Asian Americans.
Reims, France, 1969. Paul Coutard is a 30-year-old sports journalist at daily newspaper Le Champenois. Charming, childish and a womanizer, he does exactly what he pleases. Then one day, his boss forces him to plan the newspaper’s annual fair together with Emmanuelle Bruno, the discreet and beautiful executive assistant. Paul has the crazy idea to organize a women’s football match for the first time. With Emmanuelle’s help, the project grows to unexpected proportions, as does their romance.
Once known for his intellectual prowess, a retired professor (Anupam Kher) begins experiencing memory gaps and periods of forgetfulness. But while he tries to laugh it off, it soon becomes clear that the symptoms are a sign of a more serious illness, prompting his grown daughter (Urmila Matondkar) to move in as his caretaker. Meanwhile, as his mind regresses, he recalls a traumatic childhood memory involving the death of Mahatma Gandhi.
Forester, a ruthless oil baron, wants to create a war between the native American tribes and the white men. Old Shatterhand, Winnetou and their sidekick Castlepool try to prevent this.
A married doctor lands in trouble when his flirtatious ways lead a woman to fall for him.
To earn extra cash, Mickey helps couples break up — but life gets complicated when he falls for Tinni, a career woman with an independent streak.
Just when Lola, 18 years old and transgender, learns that she can finally have surgery, her mother, who is her only financial support, passes away. Abiding by her mother’s last wishes, Lola and her father, who are permanently in conflict and have not seen each other for two years, undertake a journey all the way to the Belgian coast. They realize the outcome of the journey may not be the one they were both expecting...
Eddie, a struggling animal trainer and single dad suddenly finds himself the personal wrangler for a large and lovable St. Bernard whose fabulous movie "audition" catapults the dog to stardom. However, a trio of unscrupulous ne'er-do-wells have plans to kidnap the famous dog and hold him for ransom.
When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.
In answer to an orphan boy's prayers, the divine Lord Krishna comes to Earth, befriends the boy, and helps him find a loving family.
An unemployed factory worker takes a job as a hit man to make ends meet.
The powerful evil wizard Tarabas gets knowledge about a prophecy that a king's child will defeat him. So he sends out his army of dead soldiers to kidnap all royal children. When the soldiers attack Fantaghiro's castle to steal the babies of her sisters, the battle seems to be lost until she discovers the secret to defeat the solders but by doing that she loses Romualdo. Now Fantaghiro must find the evil wizard Tarabas and convince him to break the spell and bring back Romualdo.
After thirty years in the big corporation, Ugo Fantozzi retires. Suddenly, he needs things to do in everyday life and he tries a number of activities: helping Pina shopping; babysitting grand-daughter Uga; a trip to Venice; learning golf. He then fakes documents to get a new job, but in the end he becomes a hypochondriac and doesn't even take a long-awaited chance with Miss Silvani.
Arnaud, a 25-year-old man, enters the campaign team of a candidate for the French presidential election as assistant to the Director of communication. While discovering the techniques, intricacies and rivalries of the electoral campaign, he will feel fascination for this world, as well as for its attractive director, Agnès.
Dr. Génessier is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane, who outsiders believe is dead. Dr. Génessier, along with accomplice and laboratory assistant Louise, kidnaps young women and brings them to the Génessier mansion. After rendering his victims unconscious, Dr. Génessier removes their faces and attempts to graft them on to Christiane's.
Roberto Benigni adapts the classic children's tale by Carlo Collodi for the big-budget family-oriented comedy Pinocchio.
A woman tries to win back her husband when she discovers he's keeping a model for a mistress.
A tour of the arid, inhospitable region of the southern California desert known as Death Valley, originally named because of the many travelers in the 1840s who died of thirst, starvation and/or exposure trying to cross it.
This feature-length biography traces the journey of Heidi Baker, a modern day Mother Theresa, as The Baker’s pursuit of the presence of God has transformed a poverty-stricken and war torn Mozambique through love in action. Shot on the run over a period of 20 years, in 10 countries and on 4 continents in war zones, brothels, and Ivy League campuses, from Hollywood to Mozambique, this film chronicles the power of one life fully yielded to God and the truth that love wins.
The French researcher Bertrand Monnet visits pirates in Nigeria and Somalia to learn how they make money from oil theft and kidnapping.
Wildlife activists and investigators put their lives on the line to battle the illegal African ivory trade, in this suspenseful on-the-ground documentary.
Christof Wackernagel, best known in Germany as an actor and former member of the Red Army Faction ("RAF") lives in Mali. In his compelling portrait, Jonas Grosch shows a man who simply cannot stand still if he senses injustice. The courage to stand up for one’s beliefs coupled with vanity? However one chooses to look at it, it is easy to imagine what made him connect with the "RAF". With his irrepressible will for freedom, Christof Wackernagel gets entangled in the horrors of day-to-day life in Africa.
An intimate view of the panorama of African wildlife, giving a sense of what it is really like to be there, and in a dramatic climax makes a poignant plea for conservation. Filmed in Zaire, Kenya and Tanzania, the film takes the viewer from deep inside an anthill, to the majestic giraffes suckling their young. African storms, dung beetle ritual dances, duels for supremacy, feeding time, and playtime all end as the animals disappear one by one while the sound of a rifle shatters the existing magic of life. Winner of the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject, 1976.
A study of the behavior of monkeys in the African jungle.
A short documentary about Father Christmas' annual six-day trek through the Australian desert aboard the Tea and Sugar Train.
Ibogaine is a plant extract that stops drug addiction. In this documentary, a 34-year-old heroin addict undergoes ibogaine therapy with Dr Martin Polanco at the Ibogaine Association, a clinic in Rosarito, Mexico. In Gabon, where use of the iboga root is traditional, a Babongo woman's tribe uses the plant to help her recover from a depressive malaise. Director Benjamin De Loenen interviews people formerly addicted to heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, who share their perspectives about ibogaine treatment.
In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.
Namib, an incredible spot is home to the highest sand dunes on Earth, along with 3500 species of plants of incredible diversity, all adapted to the arid climate. Elephants, antelopes, lions, giraffes and rhinoceros roam freely in the Namib with neither fence nor enclosure, as if at the dawn of time. Management of the protected areas has been entrusted to the local people and in particular to the Himba, the dominant tribe of the desert. Underground there are hidden treasures, diamonds, uranium and iron. From the beginning of the 20th century the Namib has attracted miners from all over the world, with an increasing appetite. Today, new mining projects threaten the ecosystem of the region. Olivia crosses the desert from the South to North, sharing the difficult everyday lives of the people of the desert. Exploring this rich but fragile garden of Eden, she attempts to understand why the survival of the desert is so important to the people and animals that live there.
Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.
Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.
At the border between Navarre and Aragon we find the moors known as the Bardenas Reales, characterized by the dust and the omnipresence of the northern wind. This is a portrait of a land, but also a journey through Pilar’s memories. It is a glance at the past but also the present, and about how everything has changed, for better or worse.
Secrets and mysteries lose power when they are spread too widely. This is what the villagers discover when they invade an old man's vision-inspired shrine to the namelessly holy.