Do we have the right to end our lives if life itself becomes unbearable, or when we enter the late-stages of painful, terminal illness? The questions, debated for centuries, have only grown more pressing in recent years as medical technology has allowed us to live longer lives, and several U.S. states have legalized physician-assisted suicide. With unique access to Dignitas, the Swiss non-profit that has helped over one thousand people die since 1998, Academy award- winning filmmaker John Zaritsky offers a revealing look at two different couples facing the most difficult decision of their lives-and lets us see for ourselves as one Chicago native makes the trip to Switzerland for what will become the last day of his life.
Grade levels: Senior High (10-12)
-
Frontline: The Suicide Tourist – Home Use
Do we have the right to end our lives if life itself becomes unbearable, or when we enter the late-stages of painful, terminal illness? The questions, debated for centuries, have only grown more pressing in recent years as medical technology has allowed us to live longer lives, and several U.S. states have legalized physician-assisted suicide. With unique access to Dignitas, the Swiss non-profit that has helped over one thousand people die since 1998, Academy award- winning filmmaker John Zaritsky offers a revealing look at two different couples facing the most difficult decision of their lives-and lets us see for ourselves as one Chicago native makes the trip to Switzerland for what will become the last day of his life.
-
FRONTLINE: Black Money – Public Performance
FRONTLINE examines the shadowy world of international bribery, revealing how multi-national companies create slush funds, set up front companies, and make secret payments, all to get billions in business. These practices are facing a new international crackdown. At the center of this is a controversial, ongoing investigation into the British-based multi-national BAE Systems and allegations about billion dollar bribes.
-
FRONTLINE: Ten Trilliion and Counting – Home Use
All of the measures by the feds to stem the tide in the financial meltdown have added hundreds of billions of dollars to our national debt. FRONTLINE reports on how this debt will constrain and challenge the new administration, and on the growing chorus, that without fiscal reform the US government may face a debt crisis of its own in years to come that make the current financial problems look almost painless by comparison.
-
FRONTLINE: Ten Trillion and Counting – Public Performance
All of the measures by the feds to stem the tide in the financial meltdown have added hundreds of billions of dollars to our national debt. FRONTLINE reports on how this debt will constrain and challenge the new administration, and on the growing chorus, that without fiscal reform the US government may face a debt crisis of its own in years to come that make the current financial problems look almost painless by comparison.
-
FRONTLINE: Poisoned Waters – Home Use
FRONTLINE examines the rising hazards to human health and eco-system, and why it’s so hard to keep our waters clean. The coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay-are in perilous condition. Polluted runoff still flows in from industry, agriculture, and massive suburban development, and scientists fear contamination to the food chain, drinking water, as well as a growing list of endangered species.
-
FRONTLINE: Inside the Meltdown – Home Use
FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded. The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG and the $700 billion bailout. It also examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t see, couldn’t stop and haven’t been able to fix.
-
FRONTLINE: Bush’s War – Home Use
9/11 and Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and Iraq, WMD and the Insurgency, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah and the Surge. For six years, FRONTLINE has been revealing those stories in meticulous detail, and the political dramas played out at the highest levels. Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga will unfold in this special definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation’s history.
-
FRONTLINE: My Father, My Brother and Me – Public Performance
In My Father, My Brother, and Me, Iverson sets off on a personal journey to understand the disease that has taken such a toll on his family. Along the way, he meets some remarkable people–a leading Parkinson’s researcher whose encounter with “frozen” heroin addicts led to a major breakthrough; a Parkinson’s sufferer given a new lease on life by an experimental brain surgery; and a geneticist who helped identify some of the gene mutations responsible for Parkinson’s and who is now working on drugs to fix them.
-
FRONTLINE: Inside the Meltdown – Public Performance
FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded. The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG and the $700 billion bailout. It also examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t see, couldn’t stop and haven’t been able to fix.