Twenty years ago, a young American hiker named Chris McCandless, the accomplished son of successful middle class parents, was found dead in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness and became the subject of the best-selling book and movie “Into the Wild.” Now, PBS retraces Chris McCandless’ steps to try to piece together why he severed all ties with his past, burnt or gave away all his money, changed his name and headed into the Denali Wilderness. McCandless’ own letters, released for the first time, as well as new and surprising interviews, probe the mystery that still lies at the heart of a story that has become part of the American literary canon and compels so many to this day.
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Through a combination of hand-held and hidden camera footage, Lucent explores the darker side of Australia’s pig farming industry, highlighting the day-to-day cruelty accepted by the industry as standard practice.
In 1968, Jackie Collins published her first novel The World Is Full of Married Men to remarkable success and immediate scandal. Over the next decades, Collins would go on to build an empire writing books where female agency came first. Jackie Collins’ women were unapologetic about their needs and their sexual desire, and to her devoted readers, Collins became a symbol of the effortless power that defined her heroines.
A documentary based on the book of the same name by Joe Simpson about Simpson’s and Simon Yates’ disastrous and near-fatal attempt to climb 6,344m Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
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What would it be like if your last name was Hitler? Director Matt Ogens seeks that answer by intimately portraying a diverse group of individuals with that same unfortunate name.
After a disappointing loss during the national championships, local wheelchair basketball team are ready to come back together and give their all in the forthcoming season. In community-supported wheelchair basketball programs across the country, players push each other physically, mentally and emotionally in order to succeed against the odds, struggling with the challenges of dedicating oneself to a sport that does not garner the recognition or resources granted to other professional athletic organizations—wheelchair basketball is all too often regarded as a sort of charity instead of the riveting competitive sport that it is. The Miami Heat Wheels are ready for their second shot at winning the nationals, but lack of funds and personal problems threaten to put an end to the dream before the season reaches its tension-riddled conclusion.
An intimate reflection on life in the digital age and Seán McLoughlin’s journey through the highest highs – chanting crowds, sold out shows, and marriage proposals – and lowest lows – grappling with loneliness in the harsh Irish winter – and the life and wonder in between.
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Although Wikipedia is the 8th most popular website on the Internet today, and it is already the 3rd most widely read ‘publication’ in human history, attracting 100 million unique visitors a month, this great social and academic experiment of our age is riddled with vandals and challenged by skeptics, posing compelling questions about whether Wikipedia’s model can truly achieve its goal. The film intersperses founder Jimmy Wales’ unusual rise to Internet super-stardom among the global implications of Wikipedia. Are entries factually accurate? Biased? Accountable? Does ‘Jimbo’ Wales posses the wisdom to ensure that Wikipedians aggregate knowledge correctly?
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