Roger Weisberg is the director of Critical Condition, which aired on POV on September 30, 2008 and is streaming in its entirety online until November 11, 2008. After the broadcast, many viewers wrote with questions for Roger. Read on for Weisberg’s responses to some of the questions he received. Margo asks: What can I and […]

For those of you coming to this entry post-broadcast, Soldiers of Conscience is available on the POV website through November 30, 2008. Watch it now and return here afterward to enter your comments on the film. Soldiers of Conscience is not a film that tells an audience what to think, nor is it about the […]

With Soldiers of Conscience, filmmakers Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg confront the question of what it means for a person to kill another human being. As told through the eyes of both active military personnel and conscientious objectors, the film presents a dramatic window on the dilemma facing individual U.S. soldiers in the current Iraq […]

Sixteen-year-old “Cindy” Yu Shui, the daughter of an illiterate farmer, dreams of pursing her education and becoming a scientist, despite her family’s poverty. But as the rising waters of the Yangtze River begin to displace her family’s hut, she leaves home to take a job on a cruise ship on the Yangtze River, washing dishes […]

Up the Yangtze takes a close look at the effects of the construction of China’s Three Gorges Dam, which is altering the landscape and the lives of people living along the fabled Yangtze River. Filmmaker Yung Chang shows us both the bigger picture — the transformation of the river by the biggest hydroelectric dam in […]

In conjunction with the September 30, 2008 broadcast of Critical Condition, POV has partnered with NewsHour to learn more about health care in America, and what presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are proposing for medical coverage. Susan Dentzer, the editor of Health Affairs journal and the host of NewsHour‘s Rx for Change, answered […]

Joe, Karen, Hector and Carlos are just four of the 47 million Americans who do not have health insurance. Their harrowing stories of battling critical illnesses without health insurance are portrayed in Roger Weisberg‘s film Critical Condition, which dramatizes how being uninsured can cost someone his job, health, home, savings and even his life. Critical […]

Veteran filmmaker Roger Weisberg, who also made the 2006 POV film Waging a Living, turns his lens on uninsured Americans in Critical Condition to give us a powerful, eye-opening look at the health care crisis in America. In an election season in which health care reform has become one of the nation’s most hotly debated […]

How much would you sacrifice to survive? When filmmaker Joanna Rudnick tested positive for the BRCA gene (the “breast cancer gene”), she knew the information could save her life. She also knew that she was not only confronting mortality at an early age, but would have to make heart-wrenching decisions about the life that lay […]

When Chicago filmmaker Joanna Rudnick tested positive for the “breast cancer gene” at age 27, she set out to make In the Family. Although she had no intention of “starring” in her own movie, she couldn’t find a young, unmarried woman with the mutation who hadn’t had surgery and was willing to be filmed. Joanna […]

Did you know that select POV films are available in their entirety online? If you didn’t get a chance to catch Calavera Highway this past week, you can watch the full film on our website. But hurry! The film stops streaming on Tuesday, September 23rd. Calavera Highway follows Armando and Carlos Peña, two brothers who […]

The seven sons of Rosa Peña, a migrant worker and single mother, were raised in the Texas border towns of Hidalgo County, the poorest county in the United States. She worked hard, had two husbands — she chased off the second one with a knife when he beat one of the boys — and instilled […]

For her film Calavera Highway, filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña turned her camera to her husband Armando and the rest of his family as they deal with the death of their mother, Rosa, and their complicated family history. Her co-filmmaker, Evangeline Griego, collaborated with her, and they filmed Armando and his brother Carlos on a journey across […]

September 15 – October 15 is Hispanic Heritage month! Started in 1968 (as Hispanic Heritage Week), the now month-long observation recognizes the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the United States. September 15th is the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Gautemala, Honduras and Nicaragua; Mexico and Chile also celebrate their independence days in […]

Did you know that there are an estimated 54 million people with disabilities living in the United States? That nearly 70 percent of working-age adults with disabilities are unemployed? And that fewer than 25 percent of people with disabilities who could be helped by assistive technology are using it? POV’s Freedom Machines, which first aired […]

We were excited to find out that POV Interactive has been named a Parents’ Choice Recommended award winner. We’ve always known that POV is a great resource for kids who want to learn more about a particular subject through our documentaries and our website, but it’s always nice to get a pat on the back, […]

Elizabeth Farnsworth, along with Patricio Lanfranco, directed The Judge and the General. After the film aired on POV, viewers wrote in with questions. Read on for Elizabeth’s responses. Sarah asks: To what extent do you believe that the members of the Chilean military were aware of what was going on during Pinochet’s reign, in terms […]

The Judge and the General explores the criminal investigation of General Augusto Pinochet, who led a military regime in Chile for nearly 20 years. In 1973, Pinochet led a military coup that ousted the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. In the service of his anti-Communist crusade and with U.S. help, Pinochet’s military and intelligence community […]