On May 2, 2008, a Category 4 cyclone made landfall on Burma’s southern coast. Winds of 130 miles per hour raged all night, and storm surge drowned much of the Irrawaddy Delta in over 12 feet of water. Whole villages vanished, at least 130,000 people died, and two million were left homeless, making Cyclone Nargis the worst natural disaster in Burma’s history. Among the survivors were thousands of children orphaned or separated from their parents.

Eyes of the Storm tells the struggles of several orphaned children left to fend for themselves and rebuild their shattered lives in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.  Among others we meet 10-year-old Ye Pyint who is now surrogate father to his younger brother and sister; they live in a makeshift hut in what remains of their village. We follow Min, the 16-year-old who is the sole survivor from his family and is now trying to live as a monk in a Buddhist monastery miles away from his devastated home.

Through the eyes of the Burmese filmmaking team who shot undercover for over 10 months in defiance of the ruling junta’s media blackout, WIDE ANGLE provides a rare window into one of the world’s most secretive countries. The hour-long documentary also features American and British journalists who have reported from Burma and speak of its history and the hopes and fears for its future.

“Recounts the harrowing, heartbreaking stories of North Korean refugees
who escape – or try to – across the border into China”
–Miami Herald

“The kind of suspense Hollywood cannot manufacture”
– Wall Street Journal

About the Film

In the past decade, up to 100,000 defectors have crossed the waters of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers into northeast China to escape from North Korea, the world’s last closed Communist state. In Crossing Heaven’s Border, WIDE ANGLE tells the moving and dramatic stories of a few of them.

Crossing Heaven’s Border reveals the plight of North Korean defectors from the point of view of intrepid South Korean journalists who risk their lives filming undercover for ten months to capture the haunting stories first-hand. The reporters introduce us to a mother working in China as a tour guide to support her six-year-old son who is sick with cerebral palsy and in dire need of medical attention. And we follow the grueling ten-day journey of a teenage girl and a little boy smuggled overland across China and Laos into Thailand, where North Korean defectors can request asylum at the South Korean embassy.

About the Issue

The exodus began in the mid-90s when North Korea was plagued by a famine that killed up to a million people. Most defectors flee from North Korea’s poor border regions into northeast China, where they live in hiding, work illegally and have no access to education or medical care. More than three quarters of the defectors are women, many of whom work in the sex industry. If caught by Chinese authorities, they are repatriated to North Korea, where they face severe punishment: persecution, torture, even execution in prison camps. Only a lucky few reach their ultimate goal: asylum in South Korea.

WIDE ANGLE anchor Aaron Brown further explores the plight of defectors from North Korea in a post-film interview with Debra Liang-Fenton, a human rights expert with the United States Institute of Peace, and the former Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

Zimbabwe is suffering from hyperinflation, chronic food shortages, and a cholera epidemic that has infected almost 70,000 people and killed more than 3,000 since August. Education is in a disastrous state, with 94 percent of rural schools closed as teacher’s complain that their meager salaries don’t even cover the cost of the bus ride to work. Unemployment is estimated at 90 percent. Tsvangirai and his arch-rival Mugabe must now work together to confront the massive humanitarian and economic crisis facing their country.

Underground Zimbabwe, a two-part FOCAL POINT feature, goes undercover with independent journalist and native Zimbabwean Robyn Kriel as she surreptitiously films what life has been like under President Robert Mugabe for activists, journalists, and the millions of Zimbabweans who go to great lengths to get food staples everyday.

In Zimbabwe’s Life Lines, Kriel examines Zimbabwe’s devastating food crisis. She meets with shop owners whose stores are empty and those who try to make a living from Zimbabwe’s thriving black market. In Demonstrating Under Dictatorship, Kriel follows the non-violent street protests of the 40,000 member strong activist group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA).

Photos: Adam Toy

In the summer of 2006, as the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fought off Israelis in Lebanon and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced down President George Bush at the United Nations, a bus full of Iranian pilgrims left Tehran on a journey to the holy city of Karbala, deep inside a shattered Iraq. “Pilgrimage To Karbala” follows this intense journey into the heartlands of Shia Islam, revealing how two ancient crimes — the murder of Muhammad’s grandson and the disappearance of a six-year-old imam became the founding legends of Shiism and increasingly dominate events and attitudes in the Middle East today.

Photos: Adam Toy

BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Kevin Sim directed WIDE ANGLE’s “Beslan: Siege of School No. 1″ about the bloodiest act of terrorism in modern Russia in which Chechen gunmen took over a school and kept more than 1,000 women and children hostage for three days. His other films include “Sacred Ground,” a FRONTLINE episode on rebuilding the Twin Tower site; “Remember My Lai,” also for FRONTLINE; HITLER’S SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL; THE SHAKESPEARE MYSTERY; and COLLEGE GIRLS, a six-part series chronicling a generation of students at Oxford’s last women-only college.

Twenty-five years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the struggle for political reform is the big story. With rare access, WIDE ANGLE films behind the scenes with the young reporters of one of Iran’s leading reformist newspapers. Founded less than a year ago and already Iran’s 4th largest daily, the Shargh newspaper (its name means simply East) has quickly built a loyal readership among Iran’s intellectuals, opinion makers, politicians, and the young. Its photography and design borrow from the New Yorker and London’s Independent; its chief economics editor is 23 years old. With such a youthful staff (the average age is 28), with more female journalists than any other paper, and committed to professional journalism and neutral reporting, Shargh is a lightning rod for censorship. Indeed, its own editors evaluate constantly what stories to print without crossing an indefinable line. Authorities have closed the paper down once already, on the eve of the February 20 election, for printing an open letter from reformist MPs to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei criticizing the disqualification of more than 2,000 reformist candidates.

WIDE ANGLE documents three weeks in the life of this remarkable newspaper, following reporters out on stories ranging from Saddam Hussein’s first appearance in court; to a horrific bus collision that exposes Iran’s abysmal road safety record; to the trial of a professor sentenced to death for criticizing the ruling clerics; to the death of Marlon Brando. The story of these daring journalists, who struggle to report the news without incurring the “blade of censorship” they say is an ever-present threat, offers powerful insight into the complexities of today’s Iran.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. Photo by Alberto Ramella.

About the Film

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders recently ranked Italy at the bottom of the list for countries in the European Union on its press freedom index. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is not only Italy’s richest man, but also the unrivaled owner of a vast media empire. This combination of political power and personal ownership of a large sector of the private media in Italy has provoked questions about the independence of the Italian media. By following the travails of some of the country’s leading critical voices — including Marco Travaglio, one of Italy’s most famous investigative journalists — The Prime Minister and the Press examines Berlusconi’s rise to prominence, and explores what happens to public debate when extreme wealth and political power converge with media dominance. This story is especially timely, coinciding with Italy’s assumption of the Presidency of the European Union in July, 2003.