Last Chance to See

Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire

Japan blossomed into its Renaissance at approximately the same time as Europe. Unlike the West, it flourished not through conquest and exploration, but by fierce and defiant isolation. And the man at the heart of this empire was Tokugawa Ieyasu, a warlord who ruled with absolute control. This period is explored through myriad voices-- the Shogun, the Samurai, the Geisha, the poet, the peasant and the Westerner who glimpsed into this secret world.

The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance

From a small Italian community in 15th-century Florence, the Medici family would rise to rule Europe in many ways. Using charm, patronage, skill, duplicity and ruthlessness, they would amass unparalleled wealth and unprecedented power. They would also ignite the most important cultural and artistic revolution in Western history -- the European Renaissance. But the forces of change the Medici helped unleash would one day topple their ordered world.

Organized Crime: A World History

ORGANIZED CRIME: A WORLD HISTORY travels the globe to get an insider's view of some of the most active, dangerous and diabolical criminal syndicates in existence. The five episodes in this documentary each focus on a different region, examining the conditions that helped create these groups, talking to law enforcement specialists about how they are being fought, and relating true stories of famous cases.

The Roman Empire in the First Century

Two thousand years ago, at the dawn of the first century, the ancient world was ruled by Rome. Through the experiences, memories and writings of the people who lived it, this series tells the story of that time - the emperors and slaves, poets and plebeians, who wrested order from chaos, built the most cosmopolitan society the world had ever seen and shaped the Roman empire in the first century A.D.

Prehistoric Park

A BBC miniseries about Nigel Marvin's quest to bring the extinct dinosaurs through time to Prehistoric Park.

Waco: Madman or Messiah

Followers from around the world travel to Mount Carmel to hear the preaching of David Koresh, a local Texas working-class kid turned prophet of God and leader of the religious group The Branch Davidians.

Die Gentlemen baten zur Kasse

The Private Life of Plants

David Attenborough takes us on a guided tour through the secret world of plants, to see things no unaided eye could witness. Each episode in this six-part series focuses on one of the critical stages through which every plant must pass if it is to survive:- travelling, growing, and flowering; struggling with one another; creating alliances with other organisms both plant and animal; and evolving complex ways of surviving in the earth's most ferociously hostile environments.

Mythos Einstein - Leben und Werk eines Rebellen

On November 25, 1915, Einstein presents his famous General Theory of Relativity. Just a few years later, his revolutionary ideas about space and time are confirmed during a solar eclipse. Overnight, Einstein became a scientific superstar. Einstein skillfully uses his popularity to give a war-torn world what it longs for: his genius, his humanitarian ideals, his unconventional appearance, his civil courage. Einstein's judgment was soon in demand far beyond the field of physics.

In the Company of Men

Documentary about life in the Welsh Guards regiment's Prince of Wales Company, led by Major Crispin Black. Filmmaker Molly Dineen gains unique access to the company as they protect an RUC police station during a tour of Northern Ireland in the mid '90s.

Cinemagic

Aspiring directors Lev Zaretski (a sadist) and Ruslan Romanov (an anime MC) will show you how to properly write a screenplay; cast actors; do a film shoot; and answer questions from annoying film festival attendees.

A Glorious Accident

One of the most interesting shows ever aired on public television was Wim Kayzer's interviews with six leading intellectuals who represented both the mainstream academic (Stephen J. Gould, Freeman Dyson and Stephen Toulmin) and more or less, as it were, "eccentric" outside the box groundbreaking intellectuals (Oliver Sacks and Rupert Sheldrake). Kayzer interviews each of them (and philosopher Daniel Dennett) individually and then has the entire group sit in a kind of round-table seminar that he moderates and lets the ideas fly.

Multiplied

Chris Worthington sets out to document what the future of evangelism looks like. He invites you to get stranded in a West African dust storm, get shot at on the way to a 400,000 person Gospel event, and ultimately discover that it’s no longer about a select few famous evangelists, but about an entire generation of people just like YOU.

Eigentlich wollte ich Förster werden - Bernd aus Golzow

Bernhard Oestreich, called Bernd, son of one of the leaders of the Golzow LPG, did not stay in the countryside, but also turned down the opportunity to graduate from high school in order to study. He should have become a professional soldier. Married with two daughters, Bernd went into big industry, became a laborer and is still as needed today as a foreman at Raffinerie AG Schwedt (Oder) as he once was at VEB Petrolchemisches Kombinat in the days of the GDR. Much has changed in his life, but what has remained is the work in three shifts.

Lebensläufe - Die Geschichte der Kinder von Golzow in einzelnen Portraits

A sequence of nine individual biographical sketches with a prologue and epilogue on Golzow and the long-term observation. Deepening of the preceding chronicle. The Golzow people in the present, from which retrospective views of the previous life and the life conflicts of the individual are given.

Dani, Michi, Renato & Max

A three-part documentary about four young men who were active members of the Zurich youth movement in the early 1980s and died tragically as a result of “accidents” with the involvement of the police. The exuberant Dani and Michi stole a motorbike to go on a joyride; a police car gave chase and caused their fatal crash. Renato, a young junkie raised in orphanages, was shot by the police while driving a stolen car. Max, an innocent bystander at a youth demonstration, was clubbed on the head by a police officer, and later died of complications caused by his head injuries. Taken together, these three incidents reflect the tense and violent atmosphere of the time and the conflict between repressive authority and a young generation desperate for freedom

Die Elbe von Oben

German documentary that combines aerial shots of Germany's second longest river with stories of people who live on and with the Elbe.

Der Verleger

"The Publisher" is about the success story of a visionary man who begins after 1945 with a rickety car and a stack of novels. With his charismatic personality, he convinced the Allies to give him a newspaper license. A radio magazine soon follows, which quickly reaches millions of copies. His greatest publishing invention is a daily newspaper with which he wants to give the common man on the street a voice. But the publisher is not only successful in business, he also knows how to please women.