MY PERESTROIKA

SATURDAY, JULY 2 @ 7:30PM

My Perestroika is an intimate look at the last generation of Soviet children. Five classmates go from living sheltered childhoods to experiencing the hopes of Gorbachev’s reforms and the confusion of the USSR’s dissolution, to searching for their places in today’s Moscow. With candor and humor, the punk rocker, single mother, entrepreneur and married teachers paint a picture of the challenges, dreams and disappointments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain. Through first-person testimony, vérité footage and vintage home movies, this beautifully crafted documentary reveals a Russia rarely seen on film.

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POIROT

THE CLOCKS

FRIDAY, JULY 1 @ 7:30PM & 12:30AM

A lovely young stenographer, Sheila Webb, is greeted at a job not by her client but by an eerie assembly of clocks all frozen at the precise same moment in time and, behind the couch where she sits waiting, a corpse. Horrified, she scrambles screaming into the street, straight into the arms of Naval Lieutenant Colin Race.

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MAHLER: LEGACY

THURSDAY, JUNE 30 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

In 1897, after months of intrigue and negotiation, during which Mahler converted to the Roman Catholic faith, he was installed as the Music Director of the Vienna Opera House. This was arguably the most prestigious job in the music world, at the end of the 19th century.
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BLACKBEARD’S LOST SHIP

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22 @ 6:00PM

Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard, was the most notorious pirate of his day. At the height of his rein, he commanded a fleet of four ships and a crew of 400 men. They were ruthless seafaring raiders who terrorizing vessels in American waters. In 1718, Blackbeard even blockaded the city of Charleston, crippling its economy. Eventually he was caught and beheaded by a posse from the Royal Navy. Now, 300 years later, a marine archaeology team believe they have found his sunken flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, off the North Carolina coast. The remains of the shipwreck are helping solve the most enduring mystery surrounding the infamous pirate captain – did he accidentally run his ship aground, or was it a deliberate plot to betray his crew and cheat them out of their share of the plunder?

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KINGS OF PASTRY

TUESDAY, JUNE 21 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

When Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker, award-winning filmmakers of The War Room, Startup.com and Don’t Look Back, turn their sights on the competition for the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, the country’s Nobel Prize for pastry, you’re in for a treat. In Kings of Pastry, 16 chefs, including Jacquy Pfeiffer, co-founder of Chicago’s French Pastry School, whip up the most gorgeous, delectable, gravity-defying concoctions and edge-of-your-seat drama as they deliver their spun-sugar desserts to the display table. The inevitable disasters and successes prove both poignant and hilarious.

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A HOUSE DIVIDED

PART VI: BLIND WITH WEEPING

MONDAY, AUGUST 1 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

Elected President only to see the nation fracture in two, Lincoln led a confused and frightened people through the most terrible war in their history. At the same time, his own household mirrored the fissures that split the nation: the great emancipator was married to the daughter of a slave owner from Kentucky. Mary Todd Lincoln was an aristocratic southerner who met Lincoln when he was still a backwoods politician lacking in experience and sophistication. Although she remained fiercely loyal to her husband and the Union cause, two of her brothers fought for the South. Their marriage was long and turbulent, and knew many trials, including the loss of two children. “Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided” weaves together the lives of the two Lincolns, drawing us into their long-vanished world.

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THREE ACT TRAGEDY

FRIDAY, JUNE 24 @ 7:30PM & 12:30AM

When an elderly Cornish vicar suddenly drops dead at a party, everyone looks to fellow guest Hercule Poirot to solve the murder. But the Belgian super-sleuth sees no foul play, correctly predicting that analysis of the clergyman’s glass will yield nothing more than the remains of an excellent dry martini.

Before long, however, Poirot is summoned back to England from his boredom among the palms and irksome children of Monte Carlo. Another death among the same revelers has occurred, this time, indisputably, murder.
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BOXING GYM

THURSDAY, JUNE 16 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

The sport of boxing is the controlled expression of one form of violence. Boxing is a sport which demands a skillful application of the disciplined use of a ritualized violence either in the service of self defense, sport (amateur or professional), or some aspect of personal development such as strength or image. Boxing is complicated and full of contradictions. It can be bloody, hurtful and cruel, yet requires dedication, discipline, focus, a grueling work ethic, sacrifice, conditioning and ferocious demands on the body and mind. The demands that boxing imposes on the body are similar to the discipline and concentration required of dancers as illustrated in “Ballet” and “LA Danse.”

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MICHELANGELO REVEALED

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15 @ 6:00PM & 9:00PM

More than five centuries ago, Michelangelo Buonarroti was the darling of the Catholic Church. The Papacy commissioned him to create many of its most important pieces, including the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. He spent his life glorifying the Church, etching Catholic ideals into masterpieces that defined religion for the masses. Yet when he died, his body was secretly shepherded off to Florence, and the Church was denied the opportunity to honor him with a grand funeral in Rome. Historians have long wondered about the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, but now, art historian Antonio Forcellino believes he has pieced together evidence of a deep rift between the Church and the esteemed artist. The cause: Michelangelo’s belief in Protestant ideals, and his involvement with a clandestine fellowship trying to put an end to the decadence and corruption of the Clergy and reform the Church from within.

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DOPING FOR GOLD

SATURDAY, JUNE 18 @ 6:00PM

In the 1970s, female East German athletes came from nowhere to dominate international sport. But behind their success lay a horrifying secret. Doping for Gold reveals the truth behind the biggest state-sponsored doping program the world has ever known, creating a timely perspective on today’s many sports drug scandals.

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