Programs

TVO's acclaimed series of social issue documentaries acquired from around the world. The films are controversial, hard-hitting and provocative. Some are bizarre. All are exceptional.

Raw and intimate interviews with ex-convicts who come across as the most gentle souls you could ever meet-apart from the stabbings and armed robberies-talk about their lives in prison and their struggles to adapt to life on the outside. In jail, the guards and the system try to break them down. To survive, they harden their spirit and live by the prison code: don't make eye contact, don't rat on your fellow convicts, don't talk to the guards, don't be an asshole. After 40 years in prison, never having held a job, most find life out of prison harder than life in it. The hardness they've cultivated to survive as convicts crumbles as they reveal the horrific tales of abuse that set the wheels in motion for some very tough lives.

The on-screen conversations, fights, and intimate secrets of a seemingly typical husband and wife living in Toronto in the 1960s made them one of the decade's best-known average couples. By filmmaker Allan King.

Alex Bell is a proud, single, adoptive mother of eight special needs kids, seven with Down's Syndrome. Over the years, Alex has fought ground-breaking battles with social services to be allowed to parent these children. She actively encourages her children's natural parents to maintain contact with the kids and has created a warm, loving home for her children.

Rediscovering an obscure 70s English folk-pop artist who wrote some of the most melancholic music in the world. Only now, decades after his death at age 26, is his music known.

Perpetually unkempt, Chief Inspector William "Jack" Frost doesn't always go by the book, which puts him at odds with his superiors. But the well-meaning detective knows the streets and usually has an angle on a crime that others may not see. Based on the novels by R.D. Wingfield.

Emotionally bereft after his separation from Anne Hathaway and the death of his son Hamnet, William Shakespeare composed his sonnet sequence, hinting at an extra-marital affair with a "dark lady" and a brooding obsession with a "lovely boy." A Waste of Shame, which takes its title from Sonnet 129, convincingly reconstructs real-life factors that could plausibly provide the background to the sonnets.

Is water a human right or a commodity to be bought and sold? Filmmaker Brian Woods examines the dramatic impact of the battle for water ownership on the lives of four disparate groups of people in Bolivia, India, Tanzania and in the heart of the planet's richest nation, the U.S.A.

A gripping blend of true-to-life situations, moral dilemmas and intriguing characters; each episode centres on a person accused of a crime and awaiting a verdict; each story is told in a series of flashbacks, with the verdict serving as the final scene. Created by BAFTA and Emmy winning writer Jimmy McGovern, with an all-star cast.

TVO's Gemini award-winning series of Canadian documentaries, leads the way in provocative and controversial programming that advances the art of non-fiction storytelling. The series features the best commissioned films from Canada's independent filmmakers.

A pioneering project that tries to find homes for those whom no one wants to adopt: children with disabilities, older children, sibling groups and children from ethnic minorities.

In Kyle's world everything is a danger, but he can't communicate his fears. His days consist of endless traumas and tantrums. Nicola's fierce determination to break into her autistic child's world places an intolerable strain on her marriage. Into this setting comes a golden retriever named Thomas. Nothing has prepared Nicola for the doors that Thomas unlocks.

Canadian independent producers speak about their documentaries.

Alexandria was once the biggest and most influential city on the planet, founded by Alexander the Great and home to Cleopatra, Archimedes and the largest library in the world. How did this shining beacon of civilization and knowledge meet its classical demise? Historian Bettany Hughes looks at Alexandria past and present, unearthing archaeological gems and following in the footsteps of Hypatia, the city's last great female philosopher and guardian of the great Library of Alexandria - whose murder would bring down the curtain not just on an era but on the ancient world as a whole.

Alice Neel reinvented the genre of portraiture by expressing the inner landscape of her varied sitters. She painted Communist Party leaders, her neighbours in Spanish Harlem, and art world personalities like Andy Warhol, Annie Sprinkle, Bella Abzug and Allen Ginsberg. Her body of work serves as a social document of New York and North America in the 20th century.

ALL YOU NEED IS KLAUS is a journey into the incredible life of Klaus Voormann. Respected as one of the finest bass guitarists of all time, Voormann is best known for his association with the most popular and most influential band in rock 'n roll history, The Beatles. ALL YOU NEED IS KLAUS also features Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Carly Simon, and Randy Newman, Joe Walsh and Simon are also interviewed in the film with Simon recounting Voormann's influence on her biggest hit, ,You're So Vain., In 1960, Klaus Voormann met The Beatles, who at the time were completely unknown, in Hamburg, Germany, where he was an art student. Three years later, when Klaus moved to London and lived with George Harrison and Ringo Starr in their apartment, The Beatles had already become the embodiment of a new youth culture. In 1965, Voormann, who was working as a graphic designer at the time, was asked by John Lennon to create the album cover for their latest album. The highly influential piece of cover art for ,Revolver,, earned Klaus a Grammy Award. That same year, he became the bassist for the Manfred Mann Band and, in 1969 for John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. Klaus Voormann was on the frontlines of the pop era's meteoric rise and played on all the Beatles' solo albums.

Canadian independent producers speak about their documentaries.

Canadian independent producers speak about their documentaries.

Allan King talks about his career as a filmmaker. What motivates him to cover the topics he does and what he hopes to achieve with his work.

This eloquent and dynamic documentary is based on the autobiographical book A Tale of Love and Darkness. Directors Masha Zur Glozman and Yonathan Zur delve into the persona of Oz, picking up on the energy generated by his elegant response to the friction between the personal and political aspects of his life, they offer a rare window of opportunity to experience the world through the literary gaze of this great Israeli author; a man of whom it has been said, knows Israeli society inside and out, especially since he is an outsider, in a very profound sense, of all worlds. This is a journey that follows in the footsteps of the biographical, political and philosophical issues he has personally encountered and impacted on his life. ,A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops, - Amos Oz

The longest chain of mountains on the planet is still growing. It lies along the edge of South America like an immense dragon. At its head, fire; on its back, savage spines; and at the tip of its tail, glaciers. For the plants and animals that live here, it's just the way the world is.

Filmmaker Shelley Saywell probes a disturbing trend of increasing violence among young girls. The film also looks at a number of programs for anger management and self-esteem building.

Quietly resisting her mother's attempts to fashion her into a good Indian girl, Meena befriends Anita, a recent arrival to her Yorkshire mining village. A leggy 14-year-old blonde, Anita has a rebellious streak caused partly by a turbulent home life and partly by racing adolescent hormones.

Director Barbara Leibovitz goes behind the scenes and on location with an artist who is as famous as her subjects, showing the passion she brings to every assignment, and a more personal dimension: Annie Leibovitz as sister, daughter and mother of three.

ANPO: Art X War tells the story of Japan's historic resistance to U.S. military bases in Japan through an electrifying array of artwork created by Japan's foremost artists. The film articulates the insidious, lasting impact that the U.S. military presence has had on Japanese lives, and the creative processes that artists have devised to transmit the spirit of resistance.

Danish filmmaker Janus Metz's gripping documentary feature "Armadillo," named for a base in Afghanistan where soldiers from Denmark are fighting against the Taliban, already has created controversy in his homeland. The film depicts six months in the posting of a handful of young soldiers and includes a frightening sequence in which a patrol faces a Taliban ambush. The hellish skirmish ends with a Danish hand grenade killing several insurgents. The soldiers move in and with the danger still grave they take no chances, firing round after round into the fallen enemy. Still high on adrenaline and relief, their debriefing involves boasting and laughter. The documentary's coverage of the incident has embroiled the Danish military in questions about appropriate behavior in combat situations. That reality adds to the shocks and tension of "Armadillo," along with the fact that the director and cinematographer Lars Skee were clearly risking their lives to get the story. While the men are Danish, there is a universality to their story and a vitality in the filmmaking.

"If I have learned only one thing from my travels around the world it is that no garden is an island. Context is everything.' Monty Don visits each continent in a landmark series on gardens of the world. We are introduced to the unique floating gardens of the Amazon and the colourful alpine flower meadows of Norway, modest domestic gardens in Havana and Bali, Monet's world-famous Giverny and the Dutch tour-de-force Het Loo, the formal magnificence of Renaissance Italian water gardens, the tropical planting traditions of Thailand, and the intriguing fusion of indigenous and colonial garden cultures in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Each garden is placed in context, horticultural preconceptions are abandoned and Monty is constantly surprised by the unexpected locations where gardens thrive. A vivid account of travel, adventure, beauty and the pursuit of knowledge.

Presenter and artist Neil Buchanan aims to stimulate children's creativity by using inexpensive, easy-to-find materials to make one of a kind pieces of art.

Three-part series in which Andrew Graham-Dixon explores German art, examining the country's unique national style and 500-year cultural legacy.

The trials and tribulations of an eight-year old aardvark, his persistent sister DW, his best friend Buster the Rabbit, and a lovable cast of sidekicks and schoolmates.

The work of modern artists not only influences the environment in which they live, but often draws its inspiration from that environment. The programs in this series present examples of interesting individuals in the artistic community. Their essential statement is that people should become more aware of the world around them. The aim of the series is to introduce senior students to some of the innovators in the field of creative arts. Students are helped to understand the artist and the concept of art in its broadest sense, and will be motivated to experiment, either singly or in groups, with the ideas and media shown.

Follow historian Amanda Vickery as she unlocks the secrets of the Georgian home by investigating the lives of the people who lived in them.

David Attenborough returns to the island of Madagascar on a very personal quest. In 1960 he visited the island to film one of his first ever wildlife series, Zoo Quest. Whilst he was there, he acquired a giant egg. It was the egg of an extinct bird known as the 'elephant bird' - the largest bird that ever lived. It has been one of his most treasured possessions ever since. Fifty years older, he now returns to the island to find out more about this amazing creature and to see how the island has changed. Could the elephant bird's fate provide lessons that may help protect Madagascar's remaining wildlife? Using Zoo Quest archive and specially shot location footage, this film follows David as he revisits scenes from his youth and meets people at the front line of wildlife protection. On his return, scientists at Oxford University are able to reveal for the first time how old David's egg actually is - and what that might tell us about the legendary elephant bird.

_{For background information and resources on this program, visit BBC Two's Attenborough and the Giant Egg page}