Social & External
Recounts the tumultuous history of Cuba, a nation of foreign conquest, freedom fighters and Cold War political machinations.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Mao Tsetung established a system of labor camps for systematic repression, known as Laogai, an abbreviation for "Reform Through Labor". In such camps, forced labor and physical and mental torture were used to bring about a so-called mental reform, re-education in the spirit of the Chinese Communist Party. Millions of Chinese were affected. Many were executed. In hundreds of camps, the Party took advantage of the prisoners' free labor to build the economy. Self-criticism and denunciation were often the only way to escape martyrdom. Successive waves of purges culminated in the Cultural Revolution, which saw massive human rights abuses, political assassinations, massacres, and exiles in remote parts of the country. Using unreleased archive footage, the documentary tells the story of the invention, development and improvement of China's totalitarian system of surveillance and repression up to the present day, never told before.
Michael Wood embarks on a great historical adventure, exploring the stories, people and landscapes that have helped create China's distinctive character and genius over four thousand years.
Explores history through the stories of three major Russian cities: St Petersburg, Volgograd – the former Stalingrad, and Moscow.
China's history of the last 200 years seems like a boomerang, returning to the West what it once unleashed. The series reveals how devastating the struggles for identity and power have been for the population since the fall of the "Middle Kingdom," and how closely these tragedies are intertwined with our own. Great hopes were placed in a wide variety of visions for the future—and each time, bitter disappointment ensued. From the decline of the empire to its resurgence as a superpower, China's history is both a dream and a nightmare, in which human life is of little value.
Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking Phantom India the most personal film of his career. And this extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery, as well as occasional outrage, intrigue, and joy.
Four episodes, each featuring a "person of interest" — Roger Milliss, Michael Hyde, Gary Foley and Frank Hardy — exploring their previously secret ASIO intelligence file.
An immersive 360-degree narrative telling the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.
A colorful, true docudrama about Catherine the Great - a young girl who transforms herself from an obscure German Princess into Russia's most powerful regent.
The imperial mausoleum of the Tang Dynasty is located on the mountain. It builds magnificently in a fan-shaped around Chang'an City. Together with Chang'an City and other palaces, it forms the highest level and density heritage site and treasure for Tang Dynasty. However, as time goes by, there are few heritage building left on the surface of the ground, which makes us even more lament.
A detailed account of the two millennia of intolerance and persecution suffered by the Jews, from antiquity to the present day.
The Lost World of Communism is a three-part British documentary series which examines the legacy of Communism twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Produced by Peter Molloy and Lucy Hetherington, the series takes a retrospective look at life behind the Iron Curtain between 1945 and 1989, focusing on three countries in the Eastern Bloc - East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Through film and television footage and the personal recollections of those who lived in these countries, the series offers a glimpse of what daily life was like during the years of Communist rule. The Lost World of Communism debuted on BBC Two on Saturday 14 March 2009 at 9:00pm. There is also a book which accompanies the series.
This 9-episodes documentary series extensively examines the history of Poland in the 20th Century, telling the story through archival films, newsreels, interviews, and readings from novels and poems.
The story of an empire: From its founding in 1922 to its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union was shaped by revolutionary idealism, but also by oppression and decay. The USSR evolved from Stalinist terror through the Thaw under Khrushchev to political processes such as glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev. Finally, in 1991, it collapsed.
Tracing Xi Jinping's defining moments, how he's exercising his power and the impact on China and relations with the U.S.
What it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy. A series of films by Adam Curtis.
Three years in the making, this comprehensive study of the Soviet dictator blends documentary footage and interviews with experts and surviving witnesses.
An account of the Eastern Front, epic in scale and savagery, as Soviets experienced it and Stalin commanded it.
An in-depth look at the history and pop cultural significance of horror films.
Motoring programme featuring reviews of and reports about cars of all types.
Infographics and archival footage deliver bite-size history lessons on scientific breakthroughs, social movements and world-changing discoveries.
A worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made and the story of international cinema through the history of cinematic innovation.
This compelling series investigates the motives and m.o. of female murderers. While males are often driven by anger, impulse and destruction, women usually have more complex, long-term reasons to kill.
Horizon tells amazing science stories, unravels mysteries and reveals worlds you've never seen before.
TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.
Morgan Freeman presents his quest in order to find how most religions perceive life after death, what different civilizations thought about the act of creation and other big questions that mankind has continuously asked.
Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The older version featured historical figures such as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, or long-dead entertainment figures such as Will Rogers or John Barrymore. The A&E series has placed the emphasis on such people as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Freddie Mercury, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Eric Clapton, Pope John Paul II, Gene Tierney, Selena, Diego Rivera, Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, Hamlet, Betty Boop, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures that in 1999, A&E spun it off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.
MegaStructures is a documentary television series appearing on the National Geographic Channel in the United States and the United Kingdom, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, France 5 in France, and 7mate in Australia. Each episode is an educational look of varying depth into the construction, operation, and staffing of various structures or construction projects, but not ordinary construction products. Generally containing interviews with designers and project managers, it presents the problems of construction and the methodology or techniques used to overcome obstacles. In some cases this involved the development of new materials or products that are now in general use within the construction industry. MegaStructures focuses on constructions that are extreme; in the sense that they are the biggest, tallest, longest, or deepest in the world. Alternatively, a project may appear if it had an element of novelty or are a world first. This type of project is known as a Megaproject.
Doctor Who Confidential is a documentary to complement the revival of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Each episode was broadcast on BBC Three on Saturdays, immediately after the broadcast of the weekly television episode on BBC One. The running time of the first two series was 30 minutes, being extended to 45 minutes in the third. BBC Three also broadcast a cut-down edition of the programme, lasting 15 minutes, shown after the repeats on Sundays and Fridays and after the weekday evening repeats of earlier seasons.
A series of standalone documentaries powered by the unparalleled journalism and insight of The New York Times, bringing viewers close to the essential stories of our time.
Explore the surprising things we know (and don’t know) about why people are the way they are through expert interviews, rare footage from historical experiments, and brand-new, ground-breaking demonstrations of human nature at work.
Have you ever wondered how the products you use every day are made? How It's Made leads you through the process of how everyday products, such as apple juice, skateboards, engines, contact lenses, and many more objects are manufactured.
The documentary takes viewers through Janet Jackson's life and career, contain never-before-seen footage, and feature home videos from the legendary artist. Jackson discusses her controversial 2004 Super Bowl halftime show performance with Justin Timberlake, her father Joe Jackson, the death of her brother Michael Jackson, and more.
Oliver Stone's re-examination of under-reported events in American history.
This two-part documentary pulls back the curtain on Russian collusion in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
A portrait of celebrated filmmaker David Chase: his life, his career and his groundbreaking work on the HBO original series The Sopranos.
Explore American cinema through the decades and the cultural, societal and political shifts that framed its evolution.
20/20 is an American television newsmagazine that has been broadcast on ABC since June 6, 1978. Created by ABC News executive Roone Arledge, the show was designed similarly to CBS's 60 Minutes but focuses more on human interest stories than international and political subjects. The program's name derives from the "20/20" measurement of visual acuity. The hour-long program has been a staple on Friday evenings for much of the time since it moved to that timeslot from Thursdays in September 1987, though special editions of the program occasionally air on other nights.
