Alfred and Lisa decide to divorce after only a couple of months of marriage. Alfred takes a few days off to clear his head, riding through Berlin and meeting strangers; although he ultimately returns to Lisa, but the ending remains open. In East Germany's closest counterpart to early Godard, Jürgen Böttcher grasps the life of 20-year-olds in Prenzlauer Berg with social and regional exactness and translates it into a universal language. Born in '45...

From Tanzania and Zambia to Ivory Coast and Ghana belief in witchcraft continues to terrorize women: the denunciation, brutal beating, the banishment to an unknown village without family or friends. In Northern Ghana alone there are estimated to be more than 5000 ‘witches’ confined to ‘witches villages,’ part sanctuaries, part prisons. Witches in Exile is the first film to tell their story and the story of the human rights struggle to find...

Their voices are suppressed, prohibited and censored. But world-famous bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Zeng Jinyan and Farnaz Seifi are unafraid of their dictatorial regimes. These fearless women represent a new, networked generation of modern rebels. In Cuba, China and Iran their blogs shake the foundations of the state information monopoly, putting them at great risk.

Sometimes distasteful practices are most effectively criticized with a good sense of humor. Meet Modou, a young, courageous and determined talibé - a pupil in a Koranic school - who manages to escape from his corrupt and abusive teacher to find a better life in contemporary Dakar, Senegal.

Journey into the world of the Roma - a people who through the ages have been both romanticized and vilified in popular culture, politics and art, and who have endured centuries of intolerance and persecution. Visiting 11 countries and interviewing dozens of Roma artists, historians, musicians and Holocaust survivors, this revealing film documents their culturally rich but often difficult lives, taking us back to ancient times and forward to the little-known...

This disease takes away the beauty of your face. It eats up your hands and feet and makes us ugly. Other diseases eat up your insides, but they leave you looking beautiful outside." "People in the villages think it is caused by Naga spirits. So they sacrifice chickens and goats and do prayer pujas. That's what they did for me too. My parents didn't know." Since antiquity, leprosy has struck fear into human beings. Seen as contagious, mutilating and...

October 2003, Georgia: in this post-soviet Republic weakened by civil war and the succession of several territories in the early 1990's, a democratic opposition movement protests the outcome of the election, claiming fraud. Under the leadership of the charismatic Mikhail Saakachvili, also known as Micha, the establishment is swept away in a mere few weeks. An inside glance at a successful revolution, one that remained non-violent and served as an...

The story of an idealistic young politician's rise and fall in a small town, "Tableau Ferraille" ("scrap heap") paints a picture of a corrupt post-colonial elite. Tableau Ferraille offers an intimate view of how modernization, at least as practiced in today's Africa, corrodes traditional communities and retards grassroots development. Like such past Senegalese masterpieces as Ousmane Sembene's Xala and Djibril Diop Mambety's Hyenas, it deplores a...

This series looks at the last five decades of African American history through the eyes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., exploring the tremendous gains and persistent challenges of these years. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, scholarly analysis and rare archival footage, the series illuminates our recent past, while raising urgent questions about the future of the African American community--and our nation as a whole. The final hour brings the story up...

The Caretaker and The Mayor are two powerful short films that explore contemporary immigration issues in the U.S. through intimate portraits of relationships between recent immigrants, and those who came to the U.S. generations ago. The Caretaker is a short film about the relationship between an immigrant caretaker and an elderly woman in the last months of her life. Joesy, a Fijian immigrant, works long hours providing live-in care for 95-year-old...