Point du Jour (Firm)

We live in an era when we are obsessed and bombarded by data-whether we love it or loathe it. The average person now takes more photos in a month than the whole planet did 50 years ago. Visit a rock concert and there are more camera flashes than lighting effects, more cell phones clicks than musical notes. Endless new fitness, health, and biofeedback apps are overwhelming us with vast amounts of raw personal information. Some experts think we all...

Iranian TV is officially known as the "Voice and Vision of the Islamic Republic," but with the majority of air-time dedicated to religion, people have their own name for it-"glass wool," a wry reference to the great number of clerics' beards seen through the screen. This film examines television in Iran, with observations from journalists and activists on the divide between government-sanctioned broadcasts and what viewers really want to watch. Satellite...

Over the course of six weeks in 1937-38, Imperial Japanese forces massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and prisoners of war as the Empire of the Rising Sun turned China's capital, Nanking, into a veritable Hell on Earth. This program seeks both to expose and to understand that shocking outrage against humanity through the testimonies of the last surviving Japanese veterans and the recollections of Chinese eyewitnesses. Rarely seen...

Russian viewers of all ages are very fond of Zvezda, a channel dedicated to old-fashioned Soviet-era films and TV shows. With its ties to the military, Zvezda runs plenty of footage of tanks, but none of the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. By contrast, REN is an uncensored, independent channel that features controversial current affairs programs, and unlike the state-run stations, does not require the Kremlin's approval of its broadcast decisions. Speaking...

Much of our understanding of climate change and the precarious state of the Earth's polar ice is due to the work of French glaciologist Claude Lorius. This program documents several of his missions to Antarctica and his primary innovation: heavy-hydrogen analysis of drilled ice core samples. Detailed interviews with Lorius and with several of his colleagues are interwoven with astonishing, rarely seen archival footage-steeping viewers in the lore...

Medical technology bestows a diagnostic power with thorny consequences: depending on what the test results reveal, parents and doctors can decide whether or not to let a pregnancy run its course. By following three couples dealing with high-risk pregnancies at a hospital in France, this program gets inside the complex decision-making process used by doctors and obstetrics specialists, as well as how they present their recommendations to the parents...

Is there a light at the end of the Balkan conflict's long, dark tunnel? Or does Kosovo represent an end game for the hatred between ethnic Serbians and Albanians? This program searches for answers as it travels through the bleak, war-torn region, presenting the expertise of politicians, activists, peacekeepers, and ordinary citizens. With animated maps that clarify focal points in the struggle over Kosovo, the film sheds light on regional history,...

This documentary studies the cultural landscape of Benin through the lens of that country's television programming. TV shows include… Sports Events, News Reviews, Entre Nous (Between Us), Le Grand Journal du Bien (The All-Is-Well News), Midi Pile (Twelve on the Dot), Music Videos, Christ dans vos Maisons (Christ in Your Homes), Au Delà du Réel (Beyond the Real), Nécrologie (Obituary Column), Rubi, Les Inséparables (The Inseparable Ones).

This documentary studies the cultural landscape of Angola through the lens of that country's television programming. TV shows include: Ponto de Reencontro (Meeting Point); Reconstrução (Reconstruction); Ecos e Factos (Echoes and Facts); Angola em Movimento (Angola on the Move); Conversations Between Neighbors; Gala à Sexta-Feira and Janela Aberta (Open Window); Jovemania (Youthmania); Sed de Viver (Thirst for Life); Comba (Funeral); 113.

Beginning at Port Said, Egypt-a busy gateway from the Middle East into Africa-this program explores the many national and cultural identities found along the eastern face of the continent. Journeying down the Suez Canal, through the Red Sea, and into the Indian Ocean, the program documents apparently healthy relations between Sunni Muslims and Orthodox Christians in Massawa, Eritrea; khat distribution and addiction in the Republic of Djibouti; the...