Pasts

An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.

PBS Frontline takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives. Through sophisticated market research methods to better understand consumers and by turning to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust, marketers are crafting messages that resonate with an increasingly cynical public.

An educational documentary spanning two continents, opening up a much-needed debate about traditional African spiritual systems; their cosmologies, ideologies and underlying ethical principles. Modern science no longer refutes the origins of mankind being in Africa and similarities in the cosmological ideologies of African esoteric systems with those found many established world religions today, suggest that it was not only people that migrated, but also concepts and themes that then provided bedrock for the formation of other systems of belief.

Georgia O'Keeffe appears on camera for the first time to talk candidly about her work and her life in this 1977 documentary.

The thoughts, words, and compelling presence of Gertrude Stein flows richly through this portrait of the author's Paris years from 1905 through the 1930s.

This documentary portrait is the first to celebrate the only American member of the French Impressionist school and the first American woman to become a famous painter. 'Mary Cassatt Impressionist From Philadelphia' is not only a biography of the artist’s life and work; the film sees both in the context of the status of the woman painter in Victorian America in the second half of the 19th century.

A short 1977 documentary about the originator of the ragtime rhythm.

Two young women discuss how they discovered their interest in women. In a straightforward, candid manner, they relate early experiences through which they became aware of being gay. A short 1976 film.

A 1975 documentary short about a strike being conducted by public-housing residents in St. Louis.

A 1971 film study of a Japanese American who lived in a detention camp during World War II.

Short documentary about the Sahara-dwelling Toubou, a tribe in which the women are treated as equals by the men.