Last Watched

"Anthropology and Sociology"  Sort by

The Great Levelling

   2010    Technology
Twenty years on from the invention of the world wide web, this major new series takes stock of its profound impact – how, for better and for worse, the digital revolution is reshaping our lives. Dr Aleks Krotoski explores the meaning of a phenomenon that is transforming everything, from how we learn to how we shop, vote and make friends. With a quarter of the planet connected so far, this series examines what is in store for the remaining 75 per cent of the world's population as they come online." In the first part series, Aleks charts the extraordinary rise of blogs, Wikipedia and YouTube, and traces an ongoing clash between the freedom the technology offers us, and our innate human desire to control and profit. Dr Aleks Krotoski looks at how it is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives. Joined by some of the web's biggest names - including the founders of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, and the web's inventor - she explores how far the web has lived up to its early promise.
Series: The Virtual Revolution

The Last Repair Shop

   2023    Culture
Winner of the Best Documentary Short Award, the film tells the story of four unassuming heroes who ensure no student is deprived of the joy of music. It is also a reminder of how music can be the best medicine, stress reliever and even an escape from poverty.
Since 1959, Los Angeles has been one of the few United States cities to offer and fix musical instruments for its public school students at no cost. Those instruments, numbering around 80,000, are maintained at a Los Angeles downtown warehouse by a handful of craftspeople. The film profiles four of them, each specializing in an orchestra section, as well as students whose lives have been enriched by the repair shop's work. The film concludes with a performance by district alumni.

The March of Freedom

   2018    Culture
Morgan Freeman will take viewers on a global journey to meet with people from all cultures whose lives are shaped in surprising ways by different fundamental forces, this time exploring themes that unite us all. Each episode will explore a single fundamental force or topic, including love, belief, power, war and peace, rebellion and freedom.
In the first episode, Freeman travels around the world in search of a greater understanding of the concept of freedom. From solitary confinement and forced labor camps, to social taboos and laws that hinder speech and expression, freedom seems to be a constant struggle. As individuals and as entire nations, we are confronted with the question: Will we all ever be truly free?
Series: The Story of Us

The Mountains

   2011    Culture
From lush cloud forests to bare summits that take your breath away, the higher you climb the tougher life gets on a mountain. Human Planet explores the extraordinary ways in which people survive at extreme altitudes where nature becomes utterly unforgiving. In the Altai Mountains in Western Mongolia the vast open spaces make hunting for animals almost impossible, so the locals have forged an astonishing partnership with golden eagles which can do the hunting for them. On the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia we join a young boy locked in a dramatic battle with fearsome gelada monkeys which are hell-bent on raiding his family's meagre grain harvest. In the Himalayan state of Nepal - the roof of the world - we witness a rarely seen ceremony: a sky burial. In a land where there is little wood to burn for cremation, and where burying the dead is virtually impossible, the dead are fed to vultures in the ultimate reverence of nature.
Series: Human Planet

The Other Side

   2015    Culture
In an invisible territory at the margins of society lives a wounded community who face the threat of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Disarmed veterans, taciturn adolescents, drug addicts trying to escape addiction through love; ex-special forces soldiers still at war with the world; floundering young women and future mothers; and old people who have not lost their desire to live. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, renowned documentarian Roberto Minervini opens a window to the abyss of today's America.

The Power of Love

   2018    Culture
Can love change the world? Morgan Freeman is on a global quest to understand how this primal force binds us together as a species. From orphanages to battlefields, from arranged marriages to life on the streets, Freeman sees how love can be found in unexpected places and how this force inspires us all.
Series: The Story of Us
Walking with Cavemen

Walking with Cavemen

2003  History
Blue Planet II

Blue Planet II

2017  Nature
Conquistadors

Conquistadors

2002  History
Mind Field Season 1

Mind Field Season 1

2017  Medicine