American Promise spans 13 years as Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, middle-class African-American parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., turn their cameras on their son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, who make their way through one of the most prestigious private schools in the country. Chronicling the boys' divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation at Manhattan's Dalton School, this provocative, intimate documentary presents complicated truths about America's struggle to come of age on issues of race, class and opportunity

American Promise

Geeta Gandbhir

Season 27

Listening Is an Act of Love: A StoryCorps Special

Season 26 opens with "Homegoings," which profiles Harlem funeral director Isaiah Owens, the son of a South Carolina sharecropper whose fascination with burials began as a boy, while also examining the traditions of African-American funerals. Owens' fascination with burials dates to his childhood: He buried matchsticks at age 5, then progressed to actual dead things, including chickens, dogs and even a mule. He moved to NYC at age 17 to learn the craft and, in time, opened his own funeral home.

Homegoings

Special Flight is a dramatic account of the plight of undocumented foreigners at the Frambois detention center in Geneva, Switzerland, and of the wardens who struggle to reconcile humane values with the harsh realities of a strict deportation system. The 25 Frambois inmates featured are among the thousands of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants imprisoned without charge or trial and facing deportation to their native countries, where they fear repression or even death. The film, made in Switzerland, is a heart-wrenching exposé of the contradictions between the country's compassionate social policies and the intractability of its immigration laws.

Special Flight

Herman Wallace has spent more than 40 years in a 6’ x 9’ prison cell. He works with artist Jackie Sumell to imagine his "dream home," questioning justice and punishment in America.

Herman's House

Three teens in a Southern California town wrestle with questions of love and friendship along with adult realities of financial uncertainty.

Only the Young

The modern-day love story of a guy from small-town Illinois who reaches out to a beautiful New York City art student from Korea. They meet in the only place that such different people might ever find each other—online.

xoxosms

High Tech, Low Life follows two of China’s first citizen-reporters, bloggers who are fighting censorship to document the underside of the country’s rapid economic development.

High Tech, Low Life

A 4-year-old, a teenager and an adult, all on the autism spectrum and at pivotal moments in their lives, work with their perceptual and behavioral differences in a "neurotypical" world.

Neurotypical

For the first time, Israeli military and legal professionals who devised the legal framework behind the occupation are interviewed about this system, which mirrors the country’s toughest moral quandaries.

The Law in These Parts

Oscar®nominee 5 Broken Cameras depicts life in a West Bank village where a security fence is being built. The film was shot by a Palestinian and co-directed by an Israeli.

5 Broken Cameras

Seven players with 620 years between them compete in the Over 80 World Table Tennis Championships. Ping Pong is a meditation on mortality and a joyous tribute to the human spirit.

Ping Pong

The World Before Her is a tale of two Indias: In one, a small-town girl competes in the Miss India pageant. In the other, a militant woman leads a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls.

The World Before Her

A Newark, N.J. public high school teacher races against the clock to find a place in the world for her students with autism before they graduate and "age out" of a unique and caring support system.

Best Kept Secret

Brooklyn public school I.S. 318, serving mostly minority students from working-class families, has won more than 30 national chess championships, the country’s best record.

Brooklyn Castle

In 1964 a group of 7-year-old children were interviewed for the groundbreaking documentary Seven Up. Michael Apted has been back to film them every seven years since. Now they are 56.

56 Up

Celebrate the transformative power of listening with this animated special from the oral history project StoryCorps, which captures intimate conversations among everyday people.

The home for the world's boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action.

American Promise

Seasons39

Season 26 Episodes16

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