A novel of ideas at once serious and comic, The Magic Mountain offers a bird's-eye view of the political, philosophical, and social landscapes of pre-World War I Europe. This program uses provocative dramatizations of key scenes from Thomas Mann's grotesque bildungsroman and employs the character of Mann himself, in a re-creation of a 1939 lecture, as a guide to the story's heights and depths. In addition, Mann's biographer, Nigel Hamilton, inquires...

The Apple Pushers follows five immigrant street vendors who bring fresh fruits and vegetables to the "food deserts" of inner city New York, where finding a fresh red ripe apple can be a serious challenge. These pushcart vendors are part of a New York City experiment to help solve the food crisis and the inner city's skyrocketing obesity rates. Narrated by Academy Award nominee Edward Norton, the film looks at the intersection of food access, immigration,...

Technology is taking the field of biometrics to new levels of accuracy and efficiency. But is the price of such security, achieved by turning over unique bodily information to governments and private companies, too high? And is biometric data really as foolproof as its proponents say? This program travels the globe to showcase examples of high-tech biometrics in action, including electronic recognition of iris patterns, fingerprints, faces, hand vein...

Zeus had a reputation for being a seducer of women. One day he lay with a mortal - Semele, the daughter of the king of Thebes. Their son Dionysus did not immediately join Olympus on account of his dual identity. Dionysus was brought up by nymphs. One day he discovered the vine, and decided to travel the world teaching mankind the art of making wine out of it. He was an errant, wandering God, and was often considered marginal. He left for Thrace, and...

No mortal endured more terrible a tragedy than Oedipus. He was the son of King Laius, King of Thebes, who, as a young man, having abused King Pelops' son, caused his death. The Gods forbade him to have offspring, and decreed that if Laius gave birth to a son, that son would kill him. However, his wife Jocasta did give birth to a son, Oedipus. Laius removed Oedipus from Thebes, and he grew up far away from the city, without knowing his true identity...

For the Canela, peace is more important than justice, and sharing-especially of sexual partners-means survival and prosperity. By putting the good of the tribe first, the Canela have retained their tribal identity for centuries, thanks both to the bonding that occurs through ritualized, extramarital, multiple-partner sex and to their ability to maintain communal harmony via their intricate family relationships. But can they survive the outside influences...

Amorous sparks fly alongside barbed repartee in this hip adaptation of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy. A modern television news studio provides the setting, transforming Beatrice and Benedick-played by Sarah Parish and Damian Lewis-into bickering co-anchors. Meanwhile, Don, a jealous studio tech, tries to sabotage the budding love affair between Claude the sports guy and Hero the weather girl. Screenplay writer David Nicholls cleverly weaves...

The eroticization and physical objectification that are staples of the youth-focused business/media complex give the impression that exploitative, age-inappropriate sexuality is natural, normal, and even necessary. This documentary condemns the hypersexualization of kid culture and exposes the severely damaging effects of hypersexuality on young psyches-female, predominantly, but male as well. Pervasive Internet porn, which serves children as a toxic...

For 21-year-old Muhammad, being a Palestinian attending an Israeli university means passing through checkpoint after checkpoint as he embarks on the hour-and-a-half-long bus ride to his class. He has no friends at school and faces the constant threat of violence. That seems tough enough, but the very act of attending a university on an Israeli settlement divides him against himself. Muhammad's challenging life spills out in this fast and vibrant narrative....

Using video diaries and workshop discussions, today’s teens explore issues of bias and tolerance in their own lives. Giving Voice weaves interviews with this diverse group of teenagers with the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. Equipped with mini-DV cameras, seven young people document their surroundings at school and at home, with friends and family, and share their emotional responses to viewing survivor testimony. In the process,...