Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: September 2014
In August of 1943, the last surviving clandestine radio operator in Paris desperately signaled London for additional weapons and explosives for the French underground. She knew her time was limited. Within a month, she too would be taken.
This is the story of a woman’s extraordinary courage, tested in the crucible of Nazi-occupied Paris. With an American mother and Indian Sufi father, Noor Inayat Khan was an extremely unusual British agent, and her life spent growing up in a Sufi spiritual center in Paris seemed an unlikely preparation for the dangerous work to come. Yet it was in this place of universal peace and contemplation that her remarkable courage was forged.
Sisters
Length: 60 minutes
Project Status: PBS 2013
A film about faith, hope, and love seen through the eyes of five women who have committed their lives to the service of others in the deepest way. How do they experience the presence of God? How did they come to embrace this life and its sacrifices? What happens when they fall in love? What happens when they experience cruelty and death—the loss of a mother, the merciless randomness of a child’s cancer? What is the anchor of their faith? Through the vivid prism of these women’s lives, we experience the profound hopes and yearnings of the human spirit, the risks and rewards of a generous heart.
Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World
Length: 90 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date July 2012
A two-hour documentary about the cultural legacy of the Muslim world. The film takes the audience to locations as diverse as Syria, Spain, India, and Mali to explore the immense richness of Islamic art and architecture—the Taj Mahal in India, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Alhambra in Spain—and an extraordinary collection of cultural treasures and artifacts. Narrated by Academy Award winner, Susan Sarandon.
Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
Length: 1 hour
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast in 2011
Based on the Gallup Organization’s first-of-a-kind opinion poll covering the entire Muslim world. The one-hour film examines questions on every American’s mind: Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists and how do Muslims feel about them? What do Muslims like and dislike about the West? What do Muslim women really want?
Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire
Length: 13 episodes, 60 minutes each
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2008
A thirteen-hour series examining the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. With extensive costumed re-enactments, special effects and stunts, Rome examines the deep-seated causes of the Empire’s decline and eventual collapse.
Barbarians II
Length: 4 episodes, 60 minutes each
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2007
Four new episodes in the popular Barbarians series for The History Channel. With large-scale re-enactments, extensive stunts and special effects, Barbarians II continues the saga of the great barbarian invasions of Europe.
Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2007
A two-hour special exploring medieval Spain during that period of history in which Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in relative harmony until Christian and Muslim extremism brought it to a tragic end through forced conversions and expulsions.
Da Vinci and the Code he Lived by
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2006
A two-hour documentary Marquee Special examining the life and times of the greatest artist and thinker of the Renaissance. With extensive, large-scale costumed re-enactments and location footage of Italy, the special looks deeply into the politics of the time in which Leonardo lived, and the powerful forces that formed him as he made his mark as a painter, military engineer, anatomist, and inventor.
The Plague
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2005
A two-hour television documentary exploring the worst biological disaster in the history of mankind. From Italy to Iceland, the Black Plague cut an incomprehensible swath of destruction: nearly one out of every two persons died. Using large-scale costumed re-enactments, it takes the viewer into a pivotal point in medieval history when medicine was handicapped by the strictures of the church and religious hysteria was rampant.
Barbarians I
Length: 4 episodes, 60 minutes each
Broadcast Network: History Channel
Broadcast Date: 2004
Four one-hour historical documentaries about the invasions and conquests of the great barbarian hoards who laid waste to every civilization that opposed them. Using extensive costumed re-enactments and stunts, the series explores not only the violence and military actions of these peoples, but their tribal lives as well. The series was the History Channel’s second highest rated special.
Arab and Jew: Return to the Promised Land
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2002
David K Shipler returns to Israel to revisit the fundamental conflicts and tensions that have continued to divide this weary land. A follow-up to the 1988 award-winning film Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (based on his Pulitzer Prize winning book). In the intervening years, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have put each other through the twilight peace of Oslo and the increasingly violent twilight war of the second Intifada. Shipler and director Robert Gardner reexamine the deeply symbolic and emotional issues that have been the most difficult to resolve — among them the right of return, the holy city of Jerusalem and the West Bank Jewish settlements.
Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2002
A one-hour documentary film biography of the Nobel Peace Prize winning writer and witness against cruelty and injustice, Elie Wiesel. The film examines the people and events that shaped Wiesel’s life and the psychological landscape that so deeply informs his writing. Narrated by Academy Award winner, William Hurt.
Islam: Empire of Faith
Length: 3 Hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 2001
The three-hour documentary tells the spectacular story of the great sweep of Islamic power and faith during its first 1,000 years from the birth of the Prophet, Muhammad, to the peak of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Historical re-enactments and a remarkable exposition of Islamic art, artifacts, and architecture are combined with interviews with scholars from around the world to recount the rise and importance of early Islamic civilization. Narrated by Academy Award winner, Ben Kingsley.
Warnings From the Ice
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1997
Shot on location in Antarctica, for the NOVA science series, this story examines the huge ice sheets which may be in the process of collapse, ultimately triggering a catastrophic rise in sea level that will inundate the most populous regions of the world. The production battled extreme weather conditions in Antarctica as scientists gathered data that will reveal new insight into the nature of global climate change. Winner of the Science Journalism Award, 1998, from The American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Mesopotamia, Return to Eden
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: NBC
Broadcast Date: 1995
Hosted by actor Sam Waterston, this one-hour broadcast documentary special takes the Bible as a starting place to explore the Mesopotamian civilizations Babylonia, Assyria and Sumer. Shot on location in Bahrain, Iraq and Israel, the program works backwards in time to identify the very roots of civilization. Produced by Time Life Television for NBC’s Lost Civilization series. The series won a Prime-Time Emmy in 1995.
Egypt, Quest for Immortality
Length: 60 minutes
Broadcast Network: NBC
Broadcast Date: 1995
Hosted by Sam Waterston, this one-hour broadcast documentary special examines the lives of ancient Egyptians through the eyes of early discoverers and the modern scientists working to understand how Pharaonic Egypt really worked. Produced by Time Life Television as the opening episode in its Lost Civilization series, broadcast as a prime-time series by NBC in 1995. The series won a Prime-Time Emmy.
Search for the Lost Ark
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: National Geographic
Broadcast Date: 1992
An insightful thirty-minute broadcast documentary developed and produced for the National Geographic Explorer series. It examines the quest for the unattainable: the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Shot on location in Ethiopia, Egypt and Israel, the film profiles a British investigative reporter who believes that he has solved the greatest mystery in the bible. It is a mystery framed in a fragile web of archaeological and biblical clues, examined through the imperfect prism of obsession.
Lost Empire of Tiwanaku
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: National Geographic
Broadcast Date: 1992
A thirty-minute broadcast documentary that unveils the Tiwanaku culture of Bolivia, a pre-Incan civilization considered by the Smithsonian Institute to be one of the three most important archaeological sites in the world. The film examines the ancient culture and its modern descendants, the Aymara Indians, and how the work of an American archaeologist is changing their lives. Produced for the National Geographic Explorer series.
Desert Warriors
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: National Geographic
Broadcast Date: 1991
A thirty-minute broadcast documentary about the largest and most sophisticated practice battlefield in the world: the one-thousand square mile section of the Mojave desert that is the U.S. Army’s National Training Center for desert warfare. Produced for the National Geographic Explorer series.
Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land
Length: 2 hours
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1989
A two-hour television film based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by the acclaimed New York Times correspondent and former Jerusalem Bureau Chief, David K. Shipler. The film explores the relationships, perceptions and tensions between Jews and Arabs living inside the territory controlled by the state of Israel. Recipient of an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Broadcast Journalism Award in the network category.
The Triumph of Memory
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1989
One-half hour broadcast documentary about four European resistance fighters who were sent to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Commentary by Arnost Lustig.
Courage to Care
Length: 30 minutes
Broadcast Network: PBS
Broadcast Date: 1986
A thirty-minute broadcast film about people who risked their lives to rescue European Jews during the Holocaust. Commentary by Nobel Prize winner, Elie Wiesel. Nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary Short Subject, 1986. Winner National Emmy for Directing, 1987.