History
Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama
In Ayodhya, the royal palace of Kosala Kingdom in Ancient India, four princes were born to three queens, each of whom grew to great stature. Banished for 14 years due to court intrigue, Prince Rama retreated to the forest with his beautiful wife Sita. When Rama vanquishes the demons of the forest, he invites the wrath of the demon king ...
Aśoka
2001Aśoka
A young Prince Asoka works to perfect his skills in battle and also deals with family conflict. During a struggle with one of his step-brothers, his mother urges Asoka to escape to stay alive. While away, Asoka meets Kaurwaki and falls in love, but must use his skills as a warrior to protect her. A dangerous and heartbreaking web of ...
Lumumba
2000Lumumba
The true story of the rise to power and brutal assassination of the formerly vilified and later redeemed leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Using newly discovered historical evidence, Haitian-born and later Congo-raised writer and director Raoul Peck renders an emotional and tautly woven account of the mail clerk and beer salesman with a flair for oratory and an ...
Children of Shatila
Many people first became aware of the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon after the shocking and horrific Sabra-Shatila massacre that took place there in 1982. Located in Beirut's "belt of misery," the camp is home to 15,000 Palestinians and Lebanese who share a common experience of displacement, unemployment and poverty. Fifty years after the exile of their grandparents from ...
Shadow Magic
2000Shadow Magic
Beijing, 1902: an enterprising young portrait photographer named Liu Jinglun, keen on new technology, befriends a newly-arrived Englishman who's brought projector, camera, and Lumière-brothers' shorts to open the Shadow Magic theater. Liu's work with Wallace brings him conflict with tradition and his father's authority, complicated by his falling in love with Ling, daughter of Lord Tan, star of Beijing's traditional ...
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is ...
Hey Ram
2000Newton : A Tale of Two Isaacs
As Newton devotes himself to the difficult and solitary path of challenging the existing view of the universe and proving his own theories on celestial movement and gravity, his young scribe Humphrey wavers between pursuing science or following his heart.
Blackadder: Back & Forth
What was a cunning plan from Lord Edmund Blackadder V to fake a time machine on his gullibly incompetent friends, turns out to be the real thing and hurls him and his imbecile underling, Baldrick, through the course of human history.