How did the willful daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator become Monsanto’s worst nightmare? The seeds of Vandana Shiva tells the remarkable life story of Gandhian eco-activist Dr. Vandana Shiva: how she stood up to the corporate Goliaths of industrial agriculture, rose to prominence in the ecological food movement, and is inspiring an international crusade for change. In her colorful sari and large scarlet bindi, Dr. Shiva is an arresting presence: She galvanizes crowds, advises government leaders, fields constant calls from the media--then retreats from big-city buzz to work alongside small farmers across the developing world.
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Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan. From shiny pride parades to playfully perverse underground parties, this documentary pictures people living brazenly unconventional lives in the sunlight, the shadows, and everywhere in between.
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What is the best way to ease someone's pain and suffering? In this beautifully animated RSA short, Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities.
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Is the technology we carry in our pockets distracting us from pursuing our life goals? Have we woken up to the scale of the attention-capturing and persuasive powers being held by a small number of big tech companies? In this RSA short, James Williams warns of the dangers that digital distraction poses to us individually and collectively. If we're serious about protecting human agency and democracy, he argues, it's time we started defending our freedom of attention.
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Big tech firms are now some of the richest and most powerful entities on the planet--and we're starting to see the effects of this extreme concentration of power in the shocking ways these platforms have been used to manipulate our elections, violate our privacy, and threaten the social fabric of our societies. But it hasn't always been like this: not so long ago, much of Silicon Valley operated on an optimistic, altruistic ethos, aiming to make information free and the world better connected. What happened? In this RSA short, economic analyst Rana Foroohar explores how big tech lost its soul and how we might protect ourselves from the darker sides of digital technology.
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We live in the age of the algorithm--mathematical models are sorting our job applications, curating our online worlds, influencing our elections, and even deciding whether or not we should go to prison. But how much do we really know about them? Former Wall Street Quant Cathy O'Neil exposes the reality behind the AI and explains how algorithms are just as prone to bias and discrimination as the humans who program them.
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Episode three. The homeless, tempest tossed (1942-). The first reports of the killing reach the United States. A group of dedicated government officials form the War Refugee Board to finance and support rescue operations. As the Allies advance, soldiers uncover mass graves and liberate German concentration camps, revealing the sheer scale of the Holocaust. The danger of its reverberations becomes apparent.
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Episode two. Yearning to breathe free (1938-1942). After Kristallnacht, Jews are desperate to escape Hitler’s expanding reach. Americans are united in their disapproval of Nazi brutality but divided on whether or how to act even as World War II begins. Charles Lindbergh speaks for isolationists while FDR tries to support the European democracies. The Nazis invade the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust begins in secret.
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Episode one. The golden door (beginnings-1938). After decades of open borders, a xenophobic backlash prompts the United States to pass laws restricting immigration. In Germany, Hitler finds support for his antisemitic rhetoric and the Nazis begin their persecution of Jewish people, causing many to flee to neighboring countries or America. FDR and other world leaders are concerned by the growing refugee crisis but fail to coordinate a response.
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Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein's three-part, six-hour documentary series examines how the American people and leaders responded to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, and how this catastrophe challenged America's identity as a nation of immigrants and the very ideals of democracy.
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The only documentary about the geisha of Yoshiwara. "Being the last geisha in Yoshiwara, the only licensed pleasure quarter in megalopolis Edo, which became present-day Tokyo, means she stood at the end of a 400-year-old lineage of women entertainers. From childhood she trained daily in the traditional arts of music and dance, and though she had to sacrifice the kind of domestic bliss most Japanese girls longed for, she built an incredibly full, fiercely independent career before, during and after WWII, 'all for the best'. The Madame is sharp--sharper than most of the men she performs in front of--and we're lucky to have her and the age she outlived together on film"--Robert Campbell, Professor of Japanese Literature, University of Tokyo.
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For the last 35 years artist-activists Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge have been engaging issues of social justice through their extraordinary staged photography. This documentary explores their stunning body of work and witnesses the artists in action--creating provocative new images about the environment, the rights of workers, and the current global financial crisis. An intimate view of subjects who shun celebrity, Portrait of resistance is about two artists who challenge the way we see our world.
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