Monthly Archives - October 2016

‘Dervishes of Kurdistan’ and other titles from Films Media Group now available on NJVID

‘Dervishes of Kurdistan’ and other videos from Films Media Group are the latest titles digitized by NJVID team this week. The content includes topics such as China’s economy, education, inerracial marriage and more. These titles can now be licensed by any NJVID member for streaming access. The complete titles in this list are:

 

  • Dervishes of Kurdistan: Disappearing World –  The village of Baiveh, in Iran’s rugged mountain frontier with Iraq, is home to a group of Kurds who belong to the Quadiri dervishes, a mystical cult of Islam. This program examines the role that religion plays in their daily lives – through ceremonies like the Zikr, in which the dervishes work themselves into an ecstatic trance, able then to endure electric shocks and pass skewers through their flesh without apparently hurting themselves.
  • Sherpas: Disappearing World – Sherpa Tenzing, the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953, came from the Nepalese village of Thami. Sherpas have since become famous as mountaineer guides, but little is known of their daily village lives and the fierce individualism that characterizes them. This film looks at the contrasting lives of three brothers from Thami.
  • China or Bust! Chasing Success in the World’s Fastest-Growing Economy – There are fortunes to be made in China today—but fortune-seekers from overseas face immense challenges. This program offers three engaging business case studies,
    each following a Western entrepreneur who grapples with Chinese business practices and culture. Tony Caldera’s cushion business has been ruined by Chinese imports, but he hopes for a turnaround by building a factory here. Peter Williams is about to embark on the toughest challenge of his life: selling an energy-saving device to the Chinese. Finally, there’s Vance Miller, who gained notoriety for selling cheap Chinese kitchens in Britain. Now he’s in China, determined to overcome setbacks.
  • Interracial Marriage  – Two generations ago it was a recipe for social ostracism; a generation ago the tongues wagged; and now there are some once totally clannish ethnbksic groups with a 60% rate of intermarriage. This program examines how and why couples of different colors, religions, and ethnic roots are drawn to one another, how their differences affect their marriages, how they deal with their friends, and how their parents make peace with the children-in-law they wish were of their own race or background.
  • Best Kept Secret –  JFK High School, located in a run-down area in Newark, New Jersey, is a public school for all types of students with special education needs. Janet Mino has taught her class of young men with autism for four years. When they all graduate, they will leave the security of the public school system forever. Best Kept Secret follows Ms. Mino and her students over the year and a half before graduation. The clock is ticking to find them a place in the adult world- a job or rare placement in a recreational center – so they do not end up where their predecessors have, sitting at home, institutionalized, or on the streets.

All titles can be licensed from Films Media Group at cdedrick@infobaselearning.com

‘The Silver Screen Revolution’ and other titles from Films Media Group now available on NJVID

‘The Silver Screen Revolution’ and other videos from Films Media Group are the latest titles digitized by NJVID team this week. The content includes topics such as alcohol effects on health, workplace technologies and more. These titles can now be licensed by any NJVID member for streaming access. The complete titles in this list are:

  • Hard Truths about Alcohol –  How do individual drinking habits affect health and well-

    being? Divided into two segments, this program first examines the growing trend of binge drinking in women and then provides insight into the physical benefits and risks of moderate drinking. Kathleen Parks and Kate Miller of the Research Institute on Addictions define binge drinking and explain its negative consequences. Then, experts such as Dr. Peter Shields of Georgetown University discuss the health risks, like breast cancer, and the health benefits to the cardiovascular system of moderate drinking. Contains scenes of social drinking.

  • The Silver Screen Revolution: American Cinema 1960–1980 – Rejecting Hollywood’s traditions, young American filmmakers in the 1960s forged a new cinema that held sway for two decades. This program revisits that period through detailed interviews with directors Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) and Lee Schatzberg (The Panic in Needle Park) and production designer Dean Tavoularis (The Godfather trilogy, Apocolypse Now). Scorcese talks at length about the upheaval of the Vietnam era and the challenges of getting Mean Streets made; Schatzberg, in conjunction with legendary producer Dominick Dunne, describes how studio management changes affected Panic; and Tavoularis shares recollections from his long collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola.
  • The Changing Workplace: Technology and Globalization –  This video focuses on how technology has changed work, and outlines basic concepts of how and where work can happen. Students are introduced to the principles of global business and the skills essential to stay employable in a global economy.

  • NOW with Bill Moyers: Karen Armstrong on Religious Fundamentalism –   “If you were God, would you do away with religion?” With that question, Bill Moyers launches into a discussion with Karen Armstrong, one of the world’s foremost commentators on religious affairs and author of Islam: A Short History. In this program, they seek to understand the psychosocial impact of religious fundamentalism, which frequently elevates God at the expense of personal freedom. Over the course of their dialogue, they also cover the concept of sacredness, the relationship between religion and psychology, and the profound connections among the three religions of the Book—all within the context of Ms. Armstrong’s own spiritual journey from disenchantment to peace.
  • NOW with Bill Moyers: John Esposito on the Struggles of Islam –  In this program, Bill Moyers and Georgetown University’s John Esposito – author of Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam and editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World – focus on Islam in Asia, where the vast majority of all Muslims live. The conflict within Islamic countries among religious fundamentalists, radical extremists, and the moderate mainstream is considered, along with American geopolitical concerns in the war on global terrorism. Human rights abuses in Indonesia and East Timor, the operation of al Qaeda, and a distinction between holy war and jihad are examined as well. “Can we fight terrorism without it becoming a worldwide clash of cultures?” asks Moyers.
All titles can be licensed from Films Media Group at cdedrick@infobaselearning.com

‘Lost Generations’ and other titles from Bullfrog Films now available on NJVID

‘Lost Generations’ and other videos from Bullfrog Films are the latest titles digitized by NJVID team this week. The content includes topics such as children’s health, religious freedom and more. These titles can now be licensed by any NJVID member for streaming access. The complete titles in this list are:

  • Lost Generations – The Holdsworth Memorial Hospital in Mysore, India, has maintained records of the sizes of all the babies born in its maternity department since 1934, allowing health researchers unique access to a large cross section of the population now in middle age. Worryingly, the data shows that adults born with low birth weight are more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease in later life — while another long-term study of 8-year-old children demonstrates clear links between fetal growth and retarded development later in life. Dr. Caroline Fall is an epidemiologist from Southampton University in the UK, who is in charge of coordinating global research into the long-term effects of low birth weight on health and development.
  • An Act of Faith: The Phelophepa Health Train – Lillian Cingo has one great luxury in her life — a mini whirlpool to soak her sore feet. It’s a small self-indulgence for a woman who spends all day on her feet, from dawn to dusk. Lillian’s job is, literally, to keep her hospital on track. She’s the manager of the Phelophepa health train that spends nine months each year touring the poorest, most remote areas of South Africa. This Life program catches up with the train in the province of KwaZulu Natal, where there’s just one doctor for every 4,000 people. With a full contingent of volunteer doctors, dentists, optometrists and health educators on board, the “Good Clean Health Train” delivers quality health care to deprived rural communities.
  • In the Light of Reverence –  Across the USA, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religion. Every year, more sacred sites – the land-based equivalent of the world’s great cathedrals – are being destroyed. Strip mining and development cause much of the destruction. But rock climbers, tourists, and New Age religious practitioners are part of the problem, too. The biggest problem is ignorance. This title tells the story of three indigenous communities and the land they struggle to protect: the Lakota of the Great Plains, the Hopi of the Four Corners area, and the Wintu of northern California.
  • From Docklands to Dhaka –  Sam Everington is an MD in Bromley-by-Bow, one of the poorest districts of London. 40% of his patients are from Bangladesh. Sam passionately believes community health involves not just treating illness, but working with local people on jobs, housing, and education. But with far worse poverty back in Bangladesh, Sam has always wondered whether lessons learned in London will work across the globe. In this video Sam travels to Bangladesh for the first time to try and find out.

  • India Inhales –  Every day in India, another 55,000 children start smoking — compared to the 3,000 children who take up the habit in the US, where numbers are falling. Tobacco is one of India’s favorite pastimes: Indians spit it, chew it, smoke it, roll it everywhere, throughout the continent. And, inspired by advertising for Wills cigarettes which sponsors the Indian cricket team, children believe that smoking improves cricketing techniques. Hardly surprising, then, that with declining markets in the West, and 50% of India’s population under the age of 25, the major tobacco companies are increasingly targeting India as their new growth market. This video explores the cynicism of the major global tobacco companies’ campaigns in India, and the work of the activists who have pledged to try to stop them — and halt the soaring increase in cancer cases in India that result from smoking.
All titles can be licensed from Bullfrog Films at Elizabeth@bullfrogfilms.com