The Inextinguishable Fire

This High Definition, PBS miniseries uses letters, diaries, speeches, journalistic accounts, historical text and military records to document and acknowledge the sacrifices and accomplishments of African-American service men and women since the earliest days of the republic.

For three days in 1971, former US soldiers who were in Vietnam testify in Detroit about their war experiences. Nearly 30 speak, describing atrocities personally committed or witnessed, telling of inaccurate body counts, and recounting the process of destroying a village.

In April 1975 -- despite a ceasefire agreement -- the North Vietnamese communists took Saigon and the world by surprise, mounting an offensive that ousted the South Vietnamese government. This enlightening documentary recounts the last two years of America's military engagement in the country and the U.S. role in Saigon's fall. Interviews with former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese officers provide context.

Martin Shaw takes a fresh look at one of the most famous war stories of them all. The actor, himself a pilot, takes to the skies to retrace the route of the 1943 raid by 617 Squadron which used bouncing bombs to destroy German dams. He sheds new light on the story as he separates the fact from the myth behind this tale of courage and ingenuity. Using the 1955 movie The Dam Busters as a vehicle to deconstruct the raid, he tries to piece together a picture of perhaps the most daring attack in the history of aviation warfare.

Portrait of the spokesman of the student movement and extra-parliamentary opposition Rudi Dutschke, who died on December 24, 1979 from the late effects of an assassination attempt. The film is not limited to the mere biography of the extra-parliamentary politician, but also depicts the political environment as well as the late effects of the student movement. In retrospect, it condenses into a picture of a highly politicized society that had not yet begun its retreat into the private sphere.

Part History Channel, part visual diary, and part mesmerizing abstraction, Allan Sekula’s video, A Short Film for Laos, 2006, takes the measure of day-to-day life in what the narrator describes as “the most bombed place on earth.”…

A US Air Force produced film that follows a group of F-105 pilots as they pass their hundredth mission during the Vietnam War.

Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over.

How does a nation slip into war? Dateline-Saigon profiles the controversial reporting of five Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists -The New York Times' David Halberstam, the Associated Press' Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, and legendary photojournalist Horst Faas, and UPI's Neil Sheehan -- during the early years of the Vietnam War as President John F. Kennedy is secretly committing US troops to what is initially dismissed by some as 'a nice little war in a land of tigers and elephants.' 'When the government is telling the truth, reporters become a relatively unimportant conduit to what is happening,' Halberstam tells us. 'But when the government doesn't tell the truth, begins to twist the truth, hide the truth, then the journalist becomes involuntarily infinitely more important.'

A quarter of a million drug addicts —one of the most serious consequences of the Vietnam War. These addicts were the citizens of the South, and of Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. Shot in 1981 by three Australian women, Changing the Needle was the first in-depth film to be made about Vietnam’s unique approach to drug rehabilitation at a time when few foreign film crews had access to Vietnam at all.

A documentary about militant student political activity at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s.

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

A group of American and Vietnamese fighter pilots gather almost fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Despite their training, aerial combat encounters, and being shot down, these veteran pilots talk as friends with mutual respect.

Sir! No Sir! is a documentary film about the anti-war movement within the ranks of the United States Military during the Vietnam War. It consists in part of interviews with Vietnam veterans explaining the reasons they protested the war or even defected. The film tells the story of how, from the very start of the war, there was resentment within the ranks over the difference between the conflict in Vietnam and the "good wars" that their fathers had fought. Over time, it became apparent that so many were opposed to the war that they could speak of a movement.

Mondo-style docudrama about a war correspondent who comes back home and has a spiritual crisis about his own mortality. Surreal fantasy sequences are mixed with graphic real autopsy footage.

A film about one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, the moment when the radical spirit of the 1960s upstaged the greatest sporting event in the world. Two men made a courageous gesture that reverberated around the world, and changed their lives forever. This film is about Tommie Smith and John Carlos' protest at the 1968 Olympics.

Over the period of 25 years the director met General Võ Nguyên Giáp, a legendary hero of Vietnam’s independence wars, a number of times. She was the first American who entered the home of the “Red Napoleon”. The fruit of this friendship is a film, personal and politically involved at the same time. Travelling across the country and talking to important figures as well as ordinary people, the director finds out more about her roots and offers the audience a unique perspective on Vietnam’s present and past.

Solidaridad Cuba y Vietnam

The story of U.S. fighter pilots shot down over North Vietnam who became POWs for up to 8 and a half years.

A short documentary that explores a blue-collar community’s growing unease with the Vietnam War. It was produced in response to President Nixon’s famous November, 1969 speech when he contrasted the unlawful and vocal anti-war protesters to the respectful “silent majority” who were in favor of remaining in Vietnam to fight communism. This film explores the thoughts and opinions of the “silent majority” represented by the folks living in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago.