The University of Sing Sing

Near Light

A young man, convicted murderer, has a chance of redemption when he enters the best Italian university of economics, going back and forth from prison to university every day.

Backpack Full of Cash

Documentary warning about the decline of American public schools as they become more and more privatized.

The Farm: 10 Down

One decade after THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA (Oscar nominated 1999; two-time Emmy winner 1999), we go back inside Louisiana's maximum security penitentiary, to catch up with our characters' lives. While the theme of THE FARM was "to err is human, to forgive divine", we now delve more deeply and find hope for "reconciliation and release". Angola is America's oldest and largest prison, with 5,000 inmates, most of whom have received life -, or death-, sentences for violent crimes, and will never leave Angola. THE FARM continues to provide extraordinary opportunities for learning through storytelling.

The Devil's Island: Journey Into Jungle Alcatraz

Imagine the prison of Alcatraz, only 10 times worse, built on tropical, hellish and deadly islands, lost to the rest of the world. Three tiny castaway islands rise away from the coast of French Guyana, in South America: The Devil's Islands. Now buried under an impenetrable jungle, lay the lost remains of what had been for a hundred years the most storied convict prison in history. There, while most of the prisoners faded into oblivion, a few became legends. Some because they were innocent, as in the scandalous Dreyfus Affair, some because they somehow escaped the islands of nightmare, as did the "butterfly", Henry Charrière, immortalized by Steve McQueen in Papillon. Now 50 years after the prison doors slammed shut for the last time, we explore what's left of the Devil's Islands' unbelievably dark and oppressive realm.

Picturesque India or, In and About Calcutta

Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.

Rise Above the Mark

The purpose of Rise Above the Mark, narrated by Peter Coyote, is to educate the general public about the “corporate takeover” of Indiana public schools and what parents, community members and educators can do to protect their local public schools. Legislators are calling the shots and putting public schools in an ever-shrinking box. WLCSC Board of School Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Rocky Killion, want to secure resources and legislative relief necessary to achieve the school district’s mission of creating a world-class educational system for all children. The school district’s strategic plan will introduce a model of education that puts decision making back into the hands of local communities and public school teachers, rather than leaving it in the hands of legislators and ultimately lining the pockets of corporations.

Unthinkable: The Susan Smith Story

Hear from the prosecutors who handled Susan Smith's case and why authorities doubted her story from the beginning. The boys' father, David Smith, talks about why he believes 30 years in prison isn't long enough for Susan and what he's prepared to tell a SC Board of Pardons and Paroles to keep her behind bars.

Maestras Voluntarias

Ana Deborah Mola and Belkis Lescaille were among the first young teachers who started pilot programs around the island of Cuba in 1960, laying foundation for the massive National Literacy Campaign that would take place the following year.

Spring Fever

A glimpse into a refreshingly different sex education class in the Netherlands.

Out of State

Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.

El-Sisi: Egypt's New Pharaoh

Egypt, nicknamed "the mother of the world" by its people, is unrecognizable. Gigantic construction sites have sprung up in the desert at an exponential rate, including roads, bridges, and megaprojects on the Mediterranean coast. This new Egypt is an illusion: in 10 years, the population has sunk into unprecedented poverty. The regime shows no mercy to the poor. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the new pharaoh, and his army have set up a pyramid-shaped financial system, built on subsidies from major international institutions—including the European Union—and foreign investment. The most populous nation in the Arab world finds itself on the brink of collapse.

Lost Button

A documentary about Goran Ivandic 'Ipe', the drummer of most popular Yugoslav rock band of all time, Sarajevo-based "Bijelo dugme" (White Button). Ivandic's fatal jump from the balcony of hotel Metropol in Belgrade in 1994 sparked much controversy around his fate.

Animated Hero Classics: Louis Pasteur

The great French scientist, struggling with his own limitations from a stroke, is not deterred by scientific criticism nor failed experiments. Pasteur had the courage to look into the unseen world and his perfected vaccines are his gifts to mankind.

Vestindo Histórias

The Children Must Learn

Documentary profiling an Appalachian farming family struggling to scrape out a living. Link­ing education and economic development, The Children Must Learn suggests that better schooling, especially in agricultural techniques, would bring improvement.

Latvian Coyote

An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants

Laïcité, l'exception française - 120 ans, et maintenant ?

The 1905 law proclaiming the separation of church and state is 120 years old. This law affirms freedom of conscience and religious freedom. It is considered the founding text of secularism. Secularism is the subject of endless controversy and debate.

Bullying, our lives after

What if we changed viewpoints? "Bullying, our lives after" highlights the suffering of adults who were once bullied pupils. Ten, twenty or thirty years later, trauma is still present. Following Nathalie, Laurine and Samuel, this movie shows the long-term implications of bullying, pointing out a real failure of the educational institution and a major public health issue.

L'initiation

I Come From

America is the world's largest jailer and our over-burdened corrections system treats individuals as numbers. I COME FROM focuses on incarcerated poets and playwrights who use the power of creativity to change the direction of their lives. Their poems and plays reflect hard lives lived, tough environments negotiated, past mistakes made. This film focuses on six incarcerated artists whose work declares a wish, a will to survive, to grow as human beings and embrace an architecture of change. Recorded at Northpoint, Kentucky Department of Corrections, USA.