A FLEA MARKET DOCUMENTARY

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM

A Flea Market Documentary is a new PBS special and an all-American celebration of open-air shopping across the country.

On any weekend, there may be no better place to find out what makes America great than at a flea market. A Flea Market Documentary is an unabashed celebration of the unusual people and the enticing things that can be found in parking lots, fairgrounds, drive-ins, sidewalks, and wherever else someone has posted a sign saying “Flea Market.”

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FROM CANNON’S CREEK TO JACOB’S PILLOW

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 @ 7:30PM & 12:30AM

Neil Ieremia began dancing after years of rheumatic fever left him weak and homebound. Studying dance while growing up in a time when second-generation Samoans were raised with “a rugby ball in one hand and a beer can in another,” says Ieremia, wasn’t easy but he persevered.

“Staying at dancing school was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” he says. “It was just soul-destroying for a young proud Samoan/New Zealand Creek boy to be chuckled at and not quite get it. . . this ballet. My body wasn’t built to do that. I can’t put my thighs together. Have you seen the size of them? I dare you to find a Samoan man that can.”

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A WORLD UNITED

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

After the initial days of celebration following the opening of the Wall, the fate of the two Germanys hung in the balance. Would a new chapter of instability doom Gorbachev’s era of reform and deepen the divide between east and west?

The spiraling events prompted an unparalleled diplomatic effort from one-time enemies. Interviews with George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl offer unusual and intimate details about the inner workings of government at the highest levels and how relationships among world leaders guided the completely unanticipated series of events that resulted in a new Europe in less than a year changing the course of modern history.

Martin Naumann

Protesters outside the Nikolai church, Leipzig.

Other major players from all sides provide insightful and often surprising perspectives, including then-Secretary of State James Baker, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Soviet Affairs Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and West German National Security Advisor Horst Teltschik.

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A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIAL

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

The stress response: in the beginning it saved our lives, making us run from predators and enabling us to take down prey. Today, human beings are turning on the same life-saving physical reaction to cope with 30-year mortgages, $4 a gallon gasoline, final exams, difficult bosses and even traffic jams — we can’t seem to turn it off. So, we’re constantly marinating in corrosive hormones triggered by the stress response.

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MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5 @ 7:30PM & 12:30AM

Live From Lincoln Center, produced by Lincoln Center’s John Goberman, makes the world’s greatest artists accessible to home viewers in virtually every corner of the United States. It remains the only series of live broadcast performances on American television today. Approximately six major Lincoln Center performances are televised to a national audience of millions each year. In addition to its thirteen Emmy Awards and fifty-three Emmy nominations, Live From Lincoln Center has won two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Grammy Awards, three Monitor Awards, a Television Critics Award, and many others.

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ZEN – RATKING

SUNDAY, JUNE 24 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

There’s a new boss on the murder squad, Ernesto Hueber, and to his position he’s brought an ironclad Code of Conduct, an antagonistic relationship with the powers that be and a bitter contempt for Zen. No “fraternizing” with coworkers and no freedom to define and skirt his own boundaries means certain noncompliance for Zen. Between his growing relationship with Tania and a new morally ambiguous case handed to him by the Ministry, Zen now must navigate the potential minefields of the girlfriend, the boss and the law.

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SKY ISLAND

SATURDAY, APRIL 27 @ 11:30AM

In Northern New Mexico, a range of mountains rises up from the high desert: a wild, rugged land of the Faraway Nearby. The volcanic Jemez are isolated from all other mountain ranges — an island in the sky, surrounded by a desert sea.

In Sky Island, environmental filmmaker John Grabowska (Ribbon of Sand, Crown of the Continent) profiles this captivating landscape and humankind’s place within it, examining the global warming effects that have already dramatically impacted the high desert and alpine ecosystems. This exploration of identity, place and perception features breathtaking cinematography, narration by acclaimed actress Meryl Streep, readings by Pulitzer Prize winner N. Scott Momaday and a sweeping orchestral score by Academy Award winner Todd Boekelheide.

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THE POT REPUBLIC

TUESDAY, JULY 26 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

FRONTLINE’s primetime monthly newsmagazine returns with three new stories, leading with a timely report from the frontlines of marijuana legalization in California. The bulk of the marijuana consumed in the United States used to come across the border from Mexico, Canada and elsewhere. Now, more than half of it is believed to be home grown in California, where an enormous black market has emerged under the cover of the state’s medical marijuana law. With more than a third of all states now experimenting with some form of legalization and decriminalization — and several California counties attempting to openly regulate pot production — FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting team up to investigate the country’s oldest, largest and most wide-open marijuana market. Is the federal government now moving to shut it down?

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ZEN

CABAL

SUNDAY, JULY 24 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

The dashing Roman detective Aurelio Zen is stuck in the hot seat when an important aristocratic family’s disreputable son falls to his death from a bridge over the Tiber River. The powerful Ministry, to insulate itself against scandal, puts Zen on the case and demands his swift dismissal of the death as suicide. But the beautiful prosecutor Pirlo, exuding power and no shortage of allure, presses for a probing investigation…and a little something with Zen on the side.

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BIBLIOBURRO, THE DONKEY LIBRARY

TUESDAY, JULY 19 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

Biblioburro is the story of a librarian — and a library — like no other. A decade ago, Colombian grade-school teacher Luis Soriano was inspired to spend his weekends bringing a modest collection of precious books, via two hard-working donkeys, to the children of Magdalena Province’s poor and violence-ridden interior. As Soriano braves armed bands, drug traffickers, snakes and heat, his library on hooves carries an inspirational message about education and a better future for Colombia. His simple yet extraordinary effort has attracted worldwide attention — and imitators — but his story has never been better told than in this heartwarming yet unsentimental film.

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