You hear so much conflicting information in mass media. Much of the news is scary. Crime rules the cities, almost everything that tastes good is bad for you, the environment is filled with noxious chemicals, cancer runs amok, and icebergs will soon start to melt. Just what can you believe? How can the results of an opinion poll, a research study, or any set of data be manipulated to bend the truth? (Learning Seed, USA)

There is a growing buzz around the potential for science and technology to create significant "human enhancement" applications, such as bionic limbs, improved memory or cognition, or the ability to choose specific characteristics for our offspring. The possibilities stir the imagination and excitement of many, while for others the rhetoric and current research into human enhancement signals alarms of a new eugenics. And yet, for most non-scientists, this sounds like the realm of science fiction, a world awash in mystery and misunderstanding. Featuring disability studies scholar Dominika Bednarska; disability justice educator Patty Berne; exoskeleton test pilot Fernanda Castelo; bionics engineer Hugh Herr; NPR radio host John Hockenberry; biochemist and ability studies scholar Gregor Wolbring; robot scientist Rodney Brooks; futurist Jamais Cascio; bioethicist and policy advocate Marcy Darnovsky; brain-computer interface study participant Tim Hemmes; philosophy professor Cressida Heyes; transhumanist James Hughes; reproductive rights advocate Sujatha Jesudason; disability lawyer Silvia Yee. With cameo performances by some of the world's leading integrated dance companies, featuring disabled and non-disabled dancers and artists, including the Anjali Dance Company, Antoine Hunter (of Sins Invalid and Urban Jazz Dance Company), AXIS, Candoco, Dancing Wheels, GIMP, Kounterclockwise, Lisa Bufano, Marc Brew, Remix Dance Company, and Sue Austin/Freewheeling. Through a dynamic mix of verité, dance, archival and interview footage, Fixed challenges notions of normal, the body and what it means fundamentally to be human in the 21st century. Awards: Harris Jury Prize for Best Film, Cincinnati ReelAbilities 2015 Best Feature Documentary, Picture This FIlm Festival 2014 Keynote at the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Association Annual Conference 2014 Keynote at 2nd Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy, and Ethics 2014 Exploratorium 2014 Keynote at Future Past: Disability, Eugenics & Brave New Worlds, SFSU 2013 Academia Film Olomouc 2014 Institute for the Future Ten Year Retreat 2014 NY Reel Abilities Film Festival 2014 Ethnografilm Festival, Paris 2014 Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival 2014 Keynote at Society for the Study of Nanoscience & Emerging Technologies, Northeastern 2013 United Nations Association Film Festival 2013 Cyborg Ethics Film Festival, Edinburgh 2013.

Using screen adaptions of Frankenstein, 20,000 leagues Under The Sea, The Time Machine, and The Martian Chronicles, this program illustrates some major themes of science fiction. Students see how this literay form has developed in our century, and why is it so popular. Examples are discussed in terms of their psychological, religious and philosophical contributions.

Investigates how elements of a novel, short story or play are retained, altered, or deleted in the translation to film. Examines commercial considerations that affect the choice of literary sources and shows why producers choose Broadway musicals, best sellers and other popular genres. Use such cinematic works as "The Birth Of A Nation" and "The Informer" to help illustrate how the elements of a novel, short story or play are retained, altered or deleted in the translation to film. 

Guided reading has long been recognized as a dynamic process that supports children's skills as readers in all genres, yet fiction accounts for over ninety percent of the texts we select for these small-group encounters. If children are to be empowered, life-long readers, who read for many different purposes, they need concentrated, small-group encounters with informational texts. In this series, Tony Stead works with third-grade teacher Lisa Elias Moynihan and first-grade teacher Lauren Benjamin to explore guided reading instruction with early emergent, developing, and fluent readers, using a variety of informational texts. After an introduction, three in-depth programs look at what happens before, during, and after the reading, accessing students' prior knowledge; overcoming text challenges; introducing the focus of the lesson; sharing and reflecting and, most importantly, determining if the students have understood what they read. About the author: Tony Stead became a teacher because he wanted to make a difference in children's lives. And he is certainly doing that through his publications, teaching, and work with teachers all over the world. A native of Melbourne, Australia, Tony earned his master of education degree from the University of Melbourne and worked for fourteen years as a K-6 teacher in five different school settings in Melbourne. He believes that professional development should be "hands-on, relevant, reflective, engaging, empowering." He encourages teachers to "take off the teacher hat and replace it with that of the learner," and to celebrate success, no matter how small. Tony is the author of Reality checks, Is that a fact? and the videos Bridges to Independence and Time for Nonfiction.

First we read Nancy Drew, girl detective. Then what? Women of Mystery explores the writing lives of three authors (Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller) who started a literary revolution and, in the process, captured readers' imaginations around the world. With V.I. Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone and Sharon McCone, the female private eye entered the scene of detective fiction. Diving into the wilderness of the unknown, she saw what no one else had seen and told a new story. Women of Mystery includes dramatizations that capture familiar characters and themes from the novels, engaging scenes with each author exploring her heroine's home turf, and intimate interviews that reveal the complex relationship between author and heroine. The film is the perfect way to inspire lively discussion in classrooms, public libraries and book groups. "The biggest changes in the detective fiction genre over the past quarter-century occured when American women like Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton and others entered the field and the convention of Heroic Man rescuing Helpless Maiden had to be overhauled." - Marilyn Stasio, editor and reviewer of the New York Times' Crime column (9/22/13)

Set in 1917 in a small Australian outback town and against the backdrop of a nation at war, Let the Balloon Go is a poignant story of a boy and his family. Young John Sumner has contracted polio and wears a leg brace. He also suffers mild epilepsy. While his brothers fight in the war overseas, John fights a much more personal battle - the battle for his own freedom. His over-anxious mother is afraid to let him play games and climb trees like other children. But John makes a determined effort to break free of his mother's domination and to win respect as an individual. With best mate Wombat the dog in tow, he causes mischief about town and proves he is capable of high adventure. Along the way we meet the pompous Police Constable Baird, bumbling Acting Fire Chief Gifford, and the town eccentric, Major 'Tiddly' Fairleigh, all caught in hilariously comic situations. Based on the novel by world-renowned author Ivan Southall, this story of letting go is straight from the heart of Australia.

A fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band. The South African production and distribution company African Films followed up the success of Zonk! with Song of Africa. This is a fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band which then goes to the city to compete with other bands, and comes out on top. As in the earlier films, the impact of American jazz and popular music is enormous. Like African Jim and Zonk!, Song of Africa draws on the best talent from the townships. Director Emil Nofal and director of photography Dave Millin ensure high production values, making it an above-average B-movie. Directed by Emil Nofal.

This historical satire, based on Heinrich Mann's world-famous novel, Der Untertan, is ranked by film critics among the 100 Most Significant German Films of all time. In Mann's biting critique of conservative Wilhelmine Germany, written during WWI, Diederich Hessling learns an important lesson for an ambitious man: one must first serve power to gain power for oneself. From then on, his modus operandi is to bow to superiors and kick underlings.

Giorgio Mangiamele is one of the most under-estimated figures in Australian cinema history. Soon after his arrival in Australia in 1952 as a migrant from Italy, he began making films at a time when feature film production in Australia was almost non-existent. His films were seldom seen in Australia, although one - CLAY (1965) - was applauded overseas as an official selection in the Cannes Film Festival. They have been virtually unavailable since. All of these films reveal Mangiameles keen eye for visual poetry and the strong humanism of his concern for his characters. These qualities are amplified in his first completed feature film, CLAY, which explores the alienation, not of migrants, but of a man on the run from the police who is taken in by an isolated community of artists. His emerging love affair with a young sculptor leads to tragedy. The intensity of Mangiameles breathtaking vision recalls the work of Jean Cocteau and other French romantic poet/filmmakers, and signifies the appearance of a major art cinema talent, imbued with European cinema culture, who tragically never found an opportunity to find full expression of his vision after this one extraordinary feature.

This is a heavily fictionalized account of Zulu life in 1927. Made by an Italian team that included the famous anthropologist Lidio Cipriani, it weaves genuine enthnographical elements into a fantasy of love, witchcraft, and betrayal. Directed by: Attilio Gatti.

An advanced race of giant lobsters from outer space land on Earth "sunny side up," but no one knows why. An utter failure of communication with these galactic crustaceans catapults the world towards Armageddon bisque! World peace is at stake! What can save us? A little straight talk, perhaps? With tongue planted firmly in cheek, director and writer Janet Perlman untwines the classic 1950s B-movie motif to weave a thoroughly madcap, animated parable pitting the virtues of clear language and good communication against bafflegab evil-doers. Does a contract have to be unreadable? Must political speeches be meaningless? Can assembly instructions be self-evident? Dire consequences await the foolhardy practitioners of Orwellian doublespeak and just plain gobbledygook. Beware to all contract contortionists, purple prosaists and speech spinners. The jig is finally up. Resistance is futile!