S4.E11 ∙ SPACE STRAW

A documentary that follows the money behind the rise of the Tea Party.

Sepideh wants to become an astronaut. She spends her nights exploring the secrets of the universe, while her family will do anything to keep her on the ground. The expectations for a young Iranian woman are very different from Sepideh's ambitions, and her plans to go to university are in danger. But Sepideh holds on to her dream! She takes up the fight and teams up with the world's first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari.

When an 18-year-old adoptee from the U.S. returns to China to live with her birth family for a summer, this is no mere summer vacation, but a quest to find history, meaning and identity. Determined to piece together the fragments of her mysterious past, Ricki embarks on a journey to understand the past so she can know who she is now, unraveling complex relationships and events against the backdrop of culture, politics, gender and ethics.

Blurring borders between documentary and fiction, this film portrays a few moments from the lives of three men from Belo Horizonte: a transsexual prostitute and academic, a Hare Krishna soccer fan and a would-be writer.

What does it mean to be oneself? What is a price to be paid for achieving such a state?