S1.E6 ∙ Cutting Coal

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.

The Idea of North is part filmed docudrama, part fantasy, part forerunner of music television. Based on the radio play by Glenn Gould, North's montage of words, images and music tells a universal story of the quest for our last frontier. A young man boards a train going North. It is a real train on a scheduled run, yet also a train of mind and mythology. As the journey unfolds, he chats with a seasoned guide, and passes his time in reading, watching the rugged landscape and speculating about his fellow travelers. He encounters four of them in his imagination, sharing their memories and the challenges that transformed their lives in the North. Together, they describe the final playing-out of man's two dreams: Eldorado and Utopia, both unattainable. At the journey's end, he descends to meet his future, walking away from the camera until he disappears into the North, perhaps forever.

A gun toting 83-year old woman refuses to sell her house to the power plant next door but the plant has moved ahead their 20 million dollar deal to buy out most of Cheshire and bulldoze all the homes. What happened in this Ohio River town overrun by one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the world? A story of money, power, corporate dominance of American life and the increasingly difficult choices we face surrounding the environment, Cheshire, Ohio makes us think twice about home.

Gao Kao is the entrance examination of the Chinese education system. Only who passes it can go to university.

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.

I spent weeks filming in Marseille's Quartier nord, a district of the city mainly known in the media for its drug trafficking, gang shootings and kalashnikovs. There, I met an amazing person, named Yvan Sorel. He runs a MMA (Mixed martial Arts) club in the middle of this neighbourhood. Day after day, all on his own, with no support from the state, which gave up on this area a long time ago, he fights to keep the children and teenagers on the right path. It's a film about violence, education, moral values, faith and dignity.