S6.E8 ∙ The Dying Fields

A cinematic impression of Vietnam, told through the eyes of Vietnamese immigrants.

High School Music Director Karen Carey, puts on a concert every two years at the Sydney Opera House. She insists upon a demanding repertoire, and the participation of all 1200 girls in the school. Not everyone share her passion.

Four years ago, May Davidovich, a young woman born to devout Jewish parents in a small Israeli town, converted to Islam. She was 18. Now 22, May wants a family and children and is in search of a Muslim husband. Her challenge is to find someone who will accept her and her unusual family. May still lives with her devout Jewish mother and her father who believes all Muslims should be removed from the land. Adding to May's complicated family life the difficulty of living in a community that largely disagrees with her choice of conversion to the point of threats against her, and it becomes clear that May is no ordinary woman.

On a stage, actors prepare to perform Edward Petherbridge's vignette play based on R.D. Laing's 1970 book about the common psychological knots and hang ups that make human communication much harder than it needs to be.

Beirut, Philadelphia is an experimental documentary about an inner city neighborhood in North Philadelphia. Part diary film, landscape narrative, and verite, the story interweaves the experiences of four people from Beirut as told by themselves. A rich percussive score punctuates the lyrical images of this harsh landscape.Beirut, Philadelphia is a film that explores the genre and expectations of the documentary form by challenging the ideas of how the inner city is generally portrayed. Using diaries shot by the subjects themselves, urban landscapes, and a resonant percussive score, Beirut is an ode to a place in which the people who inhabit it express for themselves a view of their own world that is deeply personal, poetic, and unforgiving.

Art and science collide as a young actor with cerebral palsy and a dancer embark on a journey that leads to unprecedented physical transformation and challenges the limitations associated with disability.