Accent on the Offbeat

A contrarian and wickedly funny man, this PBS American Masters special explores Gore Vidal's extraordinary life and work, joining him at his cliff-side villa in Ravello, Italy.

This intimate portrait of the legendary conductor Seiji Ozawa focuses on the Japanese master and teacher's career, his advocacy of modern composers and the behind-the-scenes world of the symphony orchestra.

Six of George Balanchine's finest stars, Maria Tallchief, Mary Ellen Moylan, Melissa Hayden, Allegra Kent, Merrill Ashley and Darci Kistler pay a moving tribute to the legendary choreographer and tell how he shaped them as dancers and influenced their lives.

"Frances Steloff: Memoirs of a Bookseller" is a wonderfully dynamic portrait of an American cultural heroine. Now 100 years old, Frances Steloff was the founder and force behind the renowned Gotham Book Mart of New York City, a center for avant-garde literature and literati since 1920. She began with only $100 and thirty books and she modestly recalls her role in the bookstore's past.

After a deadly plane crash strands four young siblings deep within the Colombian rainforest, a dramatic rescue mission unfolds, uniting Indigenous trackers and the military in a race against time. For the first time ever, this documentay offers the exclusive account of this incredible true story directly from the children themselves and the rescuers who scoured the Amazon rainforest for a grueling 40 days and nights to find them.

She came to the New York City Ballet as a teenager from Ohio and captured the heart and soul of the great Mr. B, inspiring the seminal ballets of her era and setting off a star-crossed love triangle as fevered and bizarre as anything in THE RED SHOES. As the greatest ballerina of her time looks back on her amazing career in Anne Belle and Deborah Dickson's intimate portrait, the on-stage triumphs and backstage turmoil come to vivid life.

Documentary about conceptual artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude's attempt to "wrap" the Pont-Neuf in Paris.

Our medical system is geared toward healing patients. But what if there's no cure available? This moving, intimate documentary uses three cases to explore how hospice care prepares both terminally ill patients and their families for a gentle, safe passage. While patients are given comfort, companionship, dignity and peace, families are prepared for their inevitable loss.

This heartbreaking documentary depicts the extreme poverty of an African-American family and their Mississippi Delta school district. LaLee's Kin takes us deep into the Mississippi Delta and the intertwined lives of LaLee Wallace, a great-grandmother struggling to hold her world together in the face of dire poverty, and Reggie Barnes, superintendent of the embattled West Tallahatchie School System. The film explores the painful legacy of slavery and sharecropping in the Delta.

From inside Bolivia's craziest prison a cocaine worker, a drug mule and his little sister reveal the countries relationship with cocaine.

Explores the marriage of a young couple with Down syndrome, and the family who strives to support their needs.

Created from footage captured during the filming of the PBS series Carrier, explores the struggle waged by three men in various stages of fatherhood to serve their country while living and working in the harsh environment of an aircraft carrier, and constantly thinking of the loved ones they left behind.

An intensely personal exploration of an explosive issue -- abortion in America. Wrenching first-person narratives from seven decades of women, each one facing an unplanned pregnancy -- and the dreadful decision that no one wants to make. Both pro-life and pro-choice, both out front on the picket line and inside the clinic, these women's stories turn politics into heart-searing drama: a pregnant 17-year-old and her pro-life mother whose conflict unfolds in front of the camera; a 22-year-old who became a pro-life protester when she learned that her mother nearly aborted her; an unhappy mother-of-two who's expecting a third when her marriage suddenly hits the rocks; a 71-year-old grandmother who still grieves for her mother, an early victim of illegal abortion. In this fusion of past and present, the history of abortion is the history of women -- told at a time in America when yesterday's back-alley abortions may be the only choice left for tomorrow.

A stimulating study which features concert footage and interviews with the master pianist. Includes many of his favorite pieces.

The life and career of Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony, founder and artistic director of the New World Symphony and conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.

They're Jewish, they're grandmothers, and they're lesbians. But they're also so much more, as you'll find out in Deborah Dickson's powerful and intimate documentary. Ruth Berman and Connie Kurtz first met in Brooklyn in 1959, both young married women raising their young children. Becoming fast friends, they soon both moved with their families near Coney Island, where they became active community leaders. Then, in 1974, something incredible happened - they fell in love.