Category Archives: Program Highlights

PBS ARTS

HOMECOMING: THE KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY

PRESENTS JOYCE DIDONATO

FRIDAY, JULY 20 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM

 

Architect Moshe Safdie’s extraordinary new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts provides the stunning backdrop for a performance-documentary that profiles the Grammy Award-winning Kansas City Symphony, their vibrant artistic director and conductor Michael Stern, and the radiant, celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. A concert wrapped by documentary narratives, this special tracks DiDonato’s nostalgic return to her hometown — and her thrilling Kauffman Center debut — after a triumphant appearance with Plácido Domingo at The Metropolitan Opera in New York.


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FRONTLINE

FAST TIMES AT WEST PHILLY HIGH

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM

Students and teachers from West Philadelphia High School, a public high school serving one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia, defy expectations as they design and build two super-hybrid cars for international competition and compete for the chance to be part of a technological revolution.


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MARKET WARRIORS

MONDAY, AUGUST 20 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

From the producers of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, the hit PBS series and the forerunner of television’s popular antiques and collectibles genre, comes a new adventure for treasure seekers: MARKET WARRIORS

Antiquing in Philadelphia, PA

Tonight follow the pickers as they search for costume jewelry and more at the Phila Flea Market.

 

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MASTERPIECE MYSTERY!

INSPECTOR LEWIS

GENERATION OF VIPERS

SUNDAY, JULY 15 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

Elizabethan tragedy collides with 21st-century technology when a lonely feminist Shakespeare scholar, humiliated in a viral video leaked from a dating site, takes her life in despair. Miranda Thornton had numerous enemies who might have relished her downfall: a property developer, a former student, a jilted romantic hopeful, and an anonymous online gadfly. Determined to assign blame for Miranda’s anguish, Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whately) begins his investigation at the scurrilous video-hosting blog, TheBarker.biz, and before long, he is convinced of Miranda’s murder. But when an Oxford youth connected to the case is violently killed, Lewis and Hathaway (Laurence Fox) fall victim to The Barker’s sensational accusations.


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PBS ARTS

JOHN LEGUIZAMO’S

TALES FROM A GHETTO KLOWN

SATURDAY, JULY 14 @ 7:00PM

Get a behind-the-scenes look at one of the industry’s most versatile actors: John Leguizamo. This profile of the actor/playwright looks at his unorthodox rise to success while capturing his struggles to mount his latest one-man show. From his Colombian and “NuyoRican” roots to his high-profile career in Hollywood, Leguizamo bares his soul.


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POV

POV

GUILTY PLEASURES

THURSDAY, JULY 12 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

 

Every four seconds a romance novel published by Harlequin or its British counterpart, Mills & Boon, is sold somewhere in the world. Julie Moggan’s Guilty Pleasures takes an amusing and touching look at this global phenomenon. Ironies abound in the contrasts between the everyday lives of the books’ readers and the fantasy worlds that offer them escape. Guilty Pleasures portrays five romance devotees who must, ultimately, find their dreams in the real world. An Official Selection of the 2011 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.


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FRONTLINE

ENDGAME: AIDS IN BLACK AMERICA

TUESDAY, JULY 10 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

 

Every 10 minutes, someone in the U.S. contracts HIV. Half are black. Thirty years after the discovery of the AIDS virus among gay white men, nearly half of the 1 million people in the United States infected with HIV are black men, women and children. “If black America was a country unto itself, it would have the 16th worst epidemic in the world,” says Phill Wilson, head of the Black AIDS Institute.

A FRONTLINE special presentation, ENDGAME: AIDS in Black America, is a groundbreaking two-hour exploration of one of the country’s most urgent, preventable health crises. The film traces the history of the epidemic through the experiences of extraordinary individuals who tell their stories: people like Nel, a 63-year-old grandmother who married a deacon in her church and later found an HIV diagnosis tucked into his Bible.


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MONARCHY

THE ROYAL FAMILY AT WORK

INSIDE THE FIRM

MONDAY, JULY 9 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

To handle 4,000 state visits, balls, school dedications, nursing home visits, and charity events, the Queen depends on her husband, her children, cousins, and now a new generation of grandchildren. In “Inside the Firm,” all four of the Queen’s children talk frankly about the roles they were born into and the challenges of royal life.


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MASTERPIECE MYSTERY!

INSPECTOR LEWIS

THE SOUL OF GENIUS

SUNDAY, JULY 8 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

 What is a snark? This is just one of the many unanswered questions Inspector Lewis must ask when botanist Liz Nash accidently unearths the recently buried body of an English professor obsessed with the Lewis Carroll poem, The Hunting of the Snark. Locked in bitter rivalry with his brother, professor Murray Hawes was fixed on solving a legendary riddle hidden in Carroll’s philosophical story of an impossible quest for the unknowable.


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PBS ARTS ~ SUMMER FESTIVAL

ISLAMIC ART

MIRROR OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD

FRIDAY, JULY 6 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

Travel to nine countries and across 1,400 years of cultural history to explore the astonishing artistic and architectural riches of Islam. With the insights and commentary of leading art scholars from around the world, the film delves into the art of religious life in Islamic culture and into the secret world inside the palaces of the elite. From the extraordinary array of metalwork, textiles, paintings and architecture that illuminate the culture, filmmaker Rob Gardner sheds light on the shared histories of western and Islamic societies, revealing more continuity than division. Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon narrates.


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