The final video in this series necessarily focuses on the end of late adulthood, which for human beings is death. Dying and bereavement are experienced very differently in different cultures. This sociocultural context of dying is explored in depth from a variety of perspectives. The pioneer in the discussion of death in our culture is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Her seminal work is presented as a way of conceptualizing the dying process. Bereavement is...

At the scene of the 1864 massacre in the Cheyenne village on Sand Creek, a soldier named Harmonica (Dean Reed) breaks an American flag in disgust. After he saves the life of the Indian girl Fawn, he looks to the Indians for friendship and guidance. Slowly, her brother Hard Cliff overcomes his prejudice toward him and Harmonica ends up marrying Fawn. One day, she is murdered by the white men. Harmonica seeks and finds the perpetrator, but cannot bring...

This production is part of a famous series produced by BBC of all of William Shakespeare's plays. The resulting films, renowned for their loyalty to the text, utilized the best theatrical and television directors and brought highly praised performances from leading contemporary actors.. This play is a splendid satire, with some of Shakespeare's best early poetry with masterly scenes and excellent characterizations.. The play tells how the King of...

In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews...

A French drama that takes a close look at infidelity. Stanislas Merhar and Clotilde Courau are Pierre and Manon, a married couple working in fragile harmony on Pierre’s documentary film projects. When Pierre takes a lover, he treats both wife and mistress with disengagement bordering on disdain. When Manon catches Pierre in the act, she tries to find common ground with her husband. Winner of Best Actress at the **Seville European Film Festival**....

In the English countryside, the life of three couples is disturbed by a character we shall constantly hear about but never see: the enigmatic George Riley. When general practitioner Dr. Colin inadvertently tells his wife Kathryn that his patient George Riley does not have more than a few months to live, he doesn't know that Riley was Kathryn's first love. Both spouses, who are rehearsing a play with their local amateur theatre company, convince George...

The Black Road takes us on a journey deep inside Southeast Asia's hottest conflict - a conflict that may well decide the fate of Indonesia, Australia's closest neighbour and the world's largest Muslim nation. Whilst the people of Aceh fight for political independence, Indonesia wants to keep the gas-rich province firmly under its control.. Filmed over four years by journalist turned filmmaker, William Nessen tells a harrowing story of Aceh’s struggle...

In Faat Kine, Ousmane Sembene, the unquestioned father of African cinema, calls his fellow Africans to a reckoning of the post-independence era at the beginning of a new century. At 77, he sums up 40 years of path-breaking filmmaking with a penetrating analysis of the interplay of gender, economics and power in today's Africa. Sembene accomplishes all this through the deceptively light domestic drama of Faat Kine, a gas station operator born, significantly,...

A feature film about soccer dreams weighs the pros and cons of pursuing ambitions abroad or acceptance of life on the isolated islands of Cape Verde. Fintar O Destino has the distinction of being the Library of African Cinema's first sports film - but a sports film with a decidedly African twist. It is the story, familiar from countless Hollywood movies and therefore easily accessible to American audiences, of an over the hill sports hero who holds...

The first feature film on homosexuality from sub-Saharan Africa. While "coming out" may have become primetime fare in the U.S., this film was met with angry protests when it was shot in the director's native Guinea and has generated heated debate among Africanists here as well. But beyond its controversial topic, Dakan is a contemporary African reinterpretation of the age-old Romeo and Juliet conflict between love and social convention. Director Mohamed...