S1.E3 ∙ Vanished Civilizations

An elderly Canadian woman, a distant relative of mine, peruses a crumbling, photograph album and I film her. The camera wanders from the photographs to close-ups of her body yielding more than a formal interview normally would, an approach I have used to break with traditional interview film practices in order to gain a heightened sense of time and space. The woman's reflections on the photographs are punctuated by the sound of her carer, who interjects occasionally as he clatters around the apartment. The film sequence is cut short by the sound of a telephone ringing. Filming my relative describe who is in the photographs, which I was doing initially for sound and not for picture, I found that the camera had captured something much more touching. It made me think of what are photographs for, what do we do with them all? In many ways this is precisely what most people end up doing, just pointing to people to say their names, and then, when another photo comes along, there they are again.

Why are the old trees on campus wrapped with red ribbons? Where are there bricks in the trees? This is a story about school children fighting to save trees. They will apply for funding from the local government. They will negotiate with the police station next door.

One man. One video camera. Infinite possibilities. Everyone has a story and on America's back roads, where America lives, those stories are found. A former television reporter, armed with a video camera and a map, hits the road and meets... you name it... the toll booth worker... the waitress at the diner... the Boston couple collecting seaweed from the shore for the 'gahden'... the grocery checkout guy in Dale, Indiana... Engaging and real. The view from the back roads is one most of us never see. The point of view of the people there is the fascinating part of Every Mile Of it.

I Can Tell the World follows an interracial choir committed to the preservation and performance of music born in slavery. As these diverse men and women share their stories of transformation, we learn how the experience of shared song can help heal a nation still wounded by racism. In addition to following choir members, the documentary includes rarely seen performances by Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson and the observations of African American scholars.

Mike is a young university student lives with his sister Jacy after their family separated and they decided to live in another country. Mike goes to university and his sister has to take care of him and the house as well as working in a small restaurant as a waitress. They are happy to live together but they have some struggles with their lives. One day Mike passes out in the apartment stairs unexpectedly while his sister's arrives home. She takes him to the hospital and it is there that Jacy learns the truth.

Huston Smith is best known for his scholarship on the world's religions, being the father of inter-religious studies in America. But on December 27, 2009, Ken Dychtwald, noted psychologist, gerontologist, and visionary thinker on the subject of the Age Wave that is upon us, interviewed Smith with the objective of getting not his academic view, but rather his personal view, of the aging process. Dychtwald brought out the warmth, depth, common sense, and wonderful humor of Huston Smith, shedding further light on Smith's perspective from the age of ninety about age and the approach of death. Smith has been a pioneer and role model in the fields of religion and philosophy for the Baby Boomer generation. He now serves as an enviable model for aging.