Wide Angle

Midwives are being trained in advanced lifesaving surgery in Mozambique.

The film "Japan's About-Face" is a remarkable window into the shifting role of the military in post-war Japanese society. WIDE ANGLE has acquired exclusive access to the National Defense Academy, Japan's "West Point."

The film Heart of Darfur captures the desperation of daily life in remote villages, crowded refugee camps, and in El Fasher, the once sleepy capital of North Darfur that is now home to 100,000 refugees and 10,000 U.N. personnel.

In the summer of 2006, as internal battles fracture the Palestinian Territories, WIDE ANGLE provides a glimpse inside the conflict as it spirals out of control. Gaza E.R. follows doctors, nurses, and staff at Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, as they struggle in the face of turf wars between Hamas, rival faction Fatah, and powerful families with competing agendas.

WIDE ANGLE goes behind the scenes at Arab television channel MBC in Cairo for an inside look at the hit all-female talk show, KALAM NAWAEM. The film provides a nuanced portrait of four Arab women harnessing the power of transnational satellite TV to boldly and effectively push social reform.

WIDE ANGLE travels to the royal headquarters of the United Arab Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah as HH Sheikh Saud solicits top European architects to carry out his grandiose dream of a new capital city in the middle of his desert kingdom.

A report on boxing in Cuba, including a visit to the Havana Boxing Academy to observe fighters as they work out and train for future fights.

"The People's Court" takes viewers inside the courtrooms and law schools of China to provide an unprecedented and unexpected portrait of its rapidly growing legal system. The documentary follows itinerant judges, law students, a human rights lawyer, and ordinary Chinese citizens seeking justice as the country tackles the massive task of establishing a legal framework for its new market economy. Poised to surpass the United States as the largest economy in the world, China faces mounting domestic and international pressure for a fair and transparent framework of laws. This experiment to introduce justice and the "rule of law" to a nation still firmly controlled by the Communist Party has global implications.

For years, Turkey has been run by a stridently secular business and political elite struggling to align itself with the Western world, while its pious Muslims have been pushed to the political and economic fringes. But now, even the most devout Muslims are embracing Western-style capitalism and commerce.

One day, Danish artist and pilot Simone Aaberg Kærn reads in her morning paper the story of a 16-year-old Afghan girl who dreams of becoming a fighter pilot. Flying 3,000 miles from Denmark to Kabul in her rickety canvas-covered plane, Kærn vows to find young Farial and make her airborne dream come true.

WIDE ANGLE cameras are on location in Morocco as history is made. In May 2006, an imam academy in the city of Rabat holds a graduation ceremony. But the class of 2006 includes 50 women pioneers, among the first contemporary group of women to be officially trained as religious leaders in the Arab world.

"Mixed Blessings" looks at Ireland's dramatic transformation from a poor nation of rolling green fields, farmers' pubs, and devout Catholics to an urbanized, secularized and giddily flush society. In this program, WIDE ANGLE visits the city of Limerick.

With unprecedented access to the lives of these self-proclaimed “homeboys,” "18 with a Bullet" uncovers the inner workings of a gang whose transnational membership numbers in the tens of thousands and which has captured the attention of U.S. law enforcement.

“Gutted” charts the final voyages of a family-owned Scottish fishing boat that has been decommissioned to accommodate European Union cod quotas, despite being only seven years old. Fishermen and their supporters, who call themselves the “Cod Crusaders,” accuse British politicians of turning their backs on them. “We're being sacrificed on the altar of Euro Union,” says one fisherman. “We could be the first island in the history of the world that doesn't have a fishing industry,” says another.

"Border Jumpers" takes us inside the human drama at the Botswana-Zimbabwe border, profiling illegal immigrants threatened with arrest and deportation, and a journalist who reports on growing fears among Botswana's citizens that their 1.7 million people could be overrun by Zimbabwe's troubled 12 million.

"Future for Lebanon" takes viewers to the oldest democracy in the Middle East as voters go to the polls in a new era. From the beaches of Beirut to the radical rallies of Hezbollah, WIDE ANGLE explores political change in one of the pivotal nations of the Arab region -- change from within, not imposed from the outside.

Some call it "Russia's 9-11." The siege of School No. 1 in the Russian town of Beslan on September 1, 2004 was the bloodiest act of terrorism in Russia since Chechnya declared independence in 1991. As the trial of the only terrorist who survived the siege begins, this wrenching film examines the three-day ordeal that saw Chechen gunmen hold more than 1,000 hostages, most of them children.

This episode of WIDE ANGLE chronicles the life of the Vatican in the days between the announcement of Pope John Paul II's death and the election of the new pope by a conclave, the group of more than 100 cardinals who gather in Rome's Sistine Chapel for this historic vote.

As Afghanistan struggled to adopt a new constitution, WIDE ANGLE filmed behind the scenes at the December 2003 loya jirga. The documentary profiles two aspiring Afghan delegates who face political opposition and physical intimidation as they literally risk their lives to participate in the future of their country.

WIDE ANGLE explores the ban on Muslim headscarves in French schools in the town of Dammarie-les-Lys, a racially diverse, working-class community on the outskirts of Paris, where young Muslim women face a choice to obey the ban - or flout it.

WIDE ANGLE presents the story of a unique marathon that is staged annually in the hope of drawing attention to the plight of the Sahrawi people.

“Ladies First” explores the role of Rwandan women in building bridges between Hutus and Tutsis 10 years after the genocide that killed 800,000 people in 100 days. Director Gini Reticker and producer Deborah Shaffer were co-producers of the Oscar-nominated 2003 documentary “Asylum,” about a woman who flees Ghana to avoid genital mutilation and runs into trouble with U.S. immigration.

“The Russian Newspaper Murders” explores the tenuous state of freedom of speech in Russia as it investigates the murders of two editors of the same newspaper in 18 months in 2002 and '03. The paper, the Togliatti Observer, was known for investigating links between organized crime and public officials. “We have to balance on the edge all the time,” says deputy editor Rimma Mikharova, “otherwise we might not be around to write the next article.” In Moscow, the pressures facing the fiercely indpendent Novaya Gazeta (whose editor, Dimitri Muratov, is seen interviewing Mikhail Gorbachev) are more subtle---but not much. Here, a Gazeta reporter must investigate the beating of one of his colleagues. Following the film: an interview with Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In a series of unique, powerful, and revealing interviews from inside Israeli prisons, this film examines the minds of Palestinian suicide bombers. Three failed suicide bombers, one recruiter, and one bomb builder captured by Israeli security forces speak openly of their training, motivation, operational methodology, and profound belief in the idea of entering paradise by becoming a martyr killed in the cause of Islam.

“Time for School” follows first graders in places around the world where free and compulsary education is not available to all children. Countries visited include Kenya, Benin, Brazil, Romania and India.

The film reveals the stark contrasts among the lives of South Africans almost ten years after the demise of apartheid. The clock is still clearly ticking to do even more to improve life for the black majority -- or face the consequences.

The Prime Minister and the Press examines Silvio Berlusconi's rise to prominence, and explores what happens to public debate when extreme wealth and political power converge with media dominance.

WIDE ANGLE travels with Evo Morales to the stunning highlands of Bolivia as he fights to expand the amount of coca that can be legally grown by farmers. The pitfalls of a drug-based economy -- and the difficulty of finding suitable replacement crops to support peasant families -- are all part of the story.

WIDE ANGLE explores the role of the Angolan military, the only functioning arm of the state, in its bold attempt to combat the AIDS pandemic. The challenges it faces offer an arresting portrait of a nation at a crucial moment in history.

WIDE ANGLE follows Salman Ahmed as he journeys to the tolerant, ancient city of Lahore and the fundamentalist stronghold of Peshawar to reveal the internal religious and political conflicts of nuclear-armed Pakistan.

WIDE ANGLE goes behind the scenes of Al-Jazeera's broadcast headquarters in the Arabian Gulf state of Qatar during its nonstop coverage of the war in Iraq. Watched by millions of people in the Arab world, the first Arabic all-news network had continuous access to events in Iraq.

With the departure of the Taliban, the current opium crop in Afghanistan is among the largest ever. How will the world's drug control authorities deal with this fact of Central Asian life? And how will the United States resolve a dilemma that pits the war on terror against the war on drugs?

In December 2001, the Argentinian government defaulted on $155 billion in public debt. Since then, this once-wealthy country has gone through five presidents and watched its currency fall by more than 70 percent. How do people survive in a broken economy?

"Land of Wandering Souls" follows a group of workers who are laying a high-tech fiber optic cable that will link Cambodia to the rest of Asia and Europe. This film provides a haunting glimpse into the lives of these indigent workers as they encounter the painful remnants of the past and labor to bring Cambodia into the modern age.

The ruined cityscape of Grozny, Chechnya and the scarred roads and fields of the countryside bear witness to a conflict that has been marked both by brutal occupation and terrorist resistance. This film is a journey that leads the viewer behind the lines on both sides, and into the hearts of civilians and soldiers alike.

Once the home of the "iron ricebowl" and social equality for all, today China has joined the ranks of the World Trade Organization. This extraordinarily candid film introduces viewers to the unemployed, the working poor and the nouveaux riches alike.

One of the world's least-known societies, Iraqi Kurdistan, is under ongoing genocidal attack by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. British filmmaker Gwynne Roberts shot inside Iraqi Kurdistan for five years to prepare this unique report on a group who may play a crucial role, equivalent to that of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, in any military attempt to overthrow Saddam's bloody regime.