Social & External
John Pilger unearths the hidden agenda behind the NHS crisis.
With The Marshall Project and the Pulitzer Center, a look at one immigrant mother’s struggle to keep her children safe and housed, with her husband detained by ICE in a facility where COVID is spreading. Also in this two-part hour, Love, Life & the Virus.
‘Voices from the Shadows’ shows the brave and sometimes heartrending stories of five ME patients and their carers, along with input from Dr Nigel Speight, Prof Leonard Jason and Prof Malcolm Hooper. These were filmed and edited between 2009 and 2011, by the brother and mother of an ME patient in the UK. It shows the devastating consequences that occur when patients are disbelieved and the illness is misunderstood. Severe and lasting relapse occurs when patients are given inappropriate psychological or behavioural management: management that ignores the severe amplification of symptoms that can be caused by increased physical or mental activity or exposure to stimuli, and by further infections. A belief in behavioural and psychological causes, particularly when ME becomes very severe and chronic, following mismanagement, is still taught to medical students and healthcare professionals in the UK. As a consequence, situations similar to those shown in the film continue to occur.
Inside the dramatic search for a cure to ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). 17 million people around the world suffer from what ME/CFS has been known as a mystery illness, delegated to the psychological realm, until now. A scientist in the only neuro immune institute in the world may have come up with the answer. An important human drama, plays out on the quest for the truth.
Beijing, China, 2020. Empty streets, mandatory masks, checkpoints, the entire state apparatus used to impose severe restrictions on population movements. An entire country quarantined to fight a fierce epidemic…
One of America's best-known and most respected doctors offers a sensible approach to eating: He emphasizes enjoyment over deprivation, and long-term health benefits over short-term weight loss. Dr. Weil assures us that there is no confusion among nutrition experts about the optimal diet for health, body weight, and longevity. Understanding inflammation to be the root cause of many chronic illnesses, he gives science-based recommendations to help combat specific health concerns, all as part of an anti-inflammatory diet. On the subject of dietary supplements, he talks about what's perilous and what can help.
In an era of throw-away ease, convenience has cost us our well-being. Plastics have been found inside our bodies— in our colons, our brains, and even in mothers’ developing wombs. Scientists around the country are sounding the alarm, but without public buy-in, there is little that can be done. How much evidence do we need before we decide to take action?
United in Anger: A History of ACT UP is an inspiring documentary about the birth and life of the AIDS activist movement from the perspective of the people in the trenches fighting the epidemic. Utilizing oral histories of members of ACT UP, as well as rare archival footage, the film depicts the efforts of ACT UP as it battles corporate greed, social indifference, and government negligence.
Little Johnny Jones, to be born in the next year, is shown growing to a ripe, healthy old age, thanks to the efforts of his local public health officers. But without them, he might be one of the 5% or so that dies in the first year. The price for the public health service: about 3 cents a week. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.
Dialoguing directly with the trilogy of documentaries “Images of the Unconscious”, made between 1983 and 1986 and based on clinical cases and therapies with a humanist approach and artistic expression, conducted by the pioneering psychiatrist Nise da Silveira (1905-1999) – screenwriter of that film –, here is presented, in two parts, an interview with the doctor, a student of Carl Jung and a pioneer in the application of non-violent treatments for psychiatric patients, given to director Leon Hirszman, in 1986. The conversation is divided in two parts: the first, "The emotion of dealing", the second, "The egress".
Behind the scenes of news coverage during the pandemic. Follow the work of the professional press in a fight against denialism.
FAT: A Documentary 2 is the sequel to the international sensation that delves deeper into the lies and myths surrounding the age old question: "What should I be eating?"
Fed Up blows the lid off everything we thought we knew about food and weight loss, revealing a 30-year campaign by the food industry, aided by the U.S. government, to mislead and confuse the American public, resulting in one of the largest health epidemics in history.
Different experts make a stand against today's putatively criminal and harmful health system, focusing on Anthony Fauci and his role in the shaping of the AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics.
Letter Beyond the Walls reconstructs the trajectory of HIV and AIDS with a focus on Brazil, through interviews with doctors, activists, patients and other actors, in addition to extensive archival material. From the initial panic to awareness campaigns, passing through the stigma imposed on people living with HIV, the documentary shows how society faced this epidemic in its deadliest phase over more than two decades. With this historical approach as its base, the film looks at the way HIV is viewed in today's society, revealing a picture of persistent misinformation and prejudice, which especially affects Brazil’s most historically vulnerable populations.
Every day, we eat and breathe tiny plastic residues. What effects does this insidious contamination have on our bodies? Rigorous and lucid, this scientific investigation gathers the most recent discoveries and sounds the alarm.
DIS-EASE is a feature-length documentary about how we imagine disease, and how that affects what we do when we encounter illness, outbreaks, doctors, treatments, and disability in real life. It dives deep into the weird, wild archives of medical imaging, public health messaging, and pop-culture outbreak narratives to understand how ideas have moved between science, science fiction, and political ideology over the past century. (Yes, this is a film that covers both antibiotic resistance and the persistence of zombie apocalypse films.) Ultimately, DIS-EASE is a provocation to re-think how we define both the "public" and "health" in public health - who is included, what counts as care, and what it means to be sick or well in a world perpetually on the brink of collapse.
We have had too much medicine for too many years. The time to act is now. How one doctor's fight against corporate greed led to an ancient, life-changing solution for heart disease.
Amidst radical changes in nicotine use globally, one filmmaker's journey through the confusion & fear leads to a startling discovery about Earth's most hated stimulant. Society may be changed forever.
