Tariq Ali

A road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents.

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world—except the United States. This documentary takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.

A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.

Specially commissioned by the British Film Institute and Channel 4, this pseudo-biography shows how Aristophanes became the father of political satire and why his theatrical innovations are still staples of the contemporary theatre.

Theo Angelopoulos recalls the defining moment in 1964 that led to him to live his entire life in Greece, and explores the concept of borders in his work - as the limits of existence, of life and death, of language and communication. “Narrowing down the borders narrows the communication, stretches the differences, magnifies oppositions, magnifies reasons for war, magnifies the refugees, magnifies the internal exile... In reality a civil war leaves behind wounds which cannot easily be healed and they revive, like ghosts, or like recurrent nightmares, during the long nights which have dogged Greek society for years.”

The deep North-South divide in Italy is explored through the eyes of northern anti-fascist writer and painter, Carlo Levi, who is exiled by Mussolini to a remote village in Southern Italy. Levi falls in love with the ancient traditions of Southern peasant culture and becomes a passionate advocate, fighting for justice for the impoverished South.

The tumultuous events surrounding the sub-continent's partition in 1947 into India and Pakistan are re-imagined in Ken McMullen's complex and visually striking film. A lunatic asylum in the city of Lahore becomes a mirror image of events in the outside political world, with the same actors playing both inmates and rulers. Adapted by Tariq Ali and McMullen from famous Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto's short story 'Toba Tek Singh', Partition speaks for the countless millions that the usual British Raj films sweep out of sight. Released to mark the 60th anniversary of the partition of the Indian sub-continent, this is the film's first-ever release on DVD.

Presented by the late literary critic Edward Said, this thirty-seven minute 1992 documentary reflects on director Gillo Pontecorvo's youth and politics in an attempt to understand his approach to filmmaking.

The Koran is one of the most important works ever written. For almost one billion people worldwide, it is the Holy Scripture, the word of God and his prophet. For others, it is a historical artifact that has left an indelible imprint on the world. DECODING THE PAST: SECRETS OF THE KORAN probes the heart of the work that many outside Islam find mysterious. This feature-length program examines the history of the verses and their implications for modern times, as well as the striking similarities and differences between the Koran and the Bible. Trace the influence of the Koran from the Golden Age of Islam to the modern rise of jihadism, and hear from top Islamic scholars and holy men as they share their insights into the work that lies at the foundation of one of the world's great religions. THE HISTORY CHANNEL provides the perfect guide to understanding the fundamental work that has shaped the Muslim faith for over 1,400 years, and will long continue to influence modern history.

Dramatisation of part of Wilson Harris' novel "Da Silva's Cultivated Wilderness".

Gerard Sekoto was a pioneer of 20th century urban black art. Self taught as a painter, he was the first to reflect South African township life in all its colour, richness and struggle, before travelling to Paris to study and enhance his unique reputation as an artist.

Drama based on the life and thought of Spinoza, who was born in sixteenth century Amsterdam to a family of Jewish refugees from Portugal. He lived in an age of turmoil, when the Dutch Republic and the English Commonwealth had polarised the entire continent. His scepticism enraged the Jewish elders and led to his excommunication.

Christopher Hitchens investigates whether Mother Teresa of Calcutta deserves her saintly image. He probes her campaigns against contraception and abortion and her questionable relationships with right-wing political leaders.

A Channel Four special presentation of the Royal Court Theatre 1989 production, London. with Paul Bhattacharjee, Nabil Shaban and Fiona Victory. "Iranian Nights" was a play written and produced as a direct response by writers and artists to the notorious Feb 14 1989 Fatwa (a sentence of death) from Iran's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, placed on Salman Rushdie for his novel "The Satanic Verses", regarded by fundamentalist Muslims as blasphemous.

At the height of the Vietnam War, a group of intellectuals begins a series of hearings in the People’s Palace in Stockholm. (Filmform)

Current affairs programme, featuring interviews and investigative reports on a wide variety of subjects.

World in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.

Drama series centring the establishment of a feminist publishing house from the 1970s to the 1990s.

"Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words" is a 2011 BBC television documentary mini-series created in partnership with The Open University. It explores the impact of 20th-century cultural, political, and scientific icons by mining rare radio and television archives to let these prominent figures speak directly through their own recorded broadcasts.