A series of nine one-hour films, Al Jazeera Correspondent, in which the news channel’s correspondents delve deep into stories across the world, are scheduled for September on Al Jazeera English, available on the DStv platform.
The Burma Boy by Barnaby Phillips will be broadcast on 1 September. Some 100,000 African soldiers, taken from British colonies to fight in the jungles of Burma against the Japanese are among the forgotten heroes of World War II. They performed heroically in one of the most brutal theatres of the war. Yet, their contribution has been largely ignored both by the British, and by independent African countries. Barnaby Phillips travels to Nigeria, Burma and Japan to find a Nigerian veteran of the war, to talk to those who fought alongside him as well as against him. He even finds the family that saved his life in the jungles of Myanmar.
A Year in Haiti screens on 15 September. For the past 12 months Sebastian Walker has documented Haiti’s struggle to recover from the 2010 earthquake. Al Jazeera was the only international broadcaster to set up bureau in Port-au-Prince. Sebastian re-visits many of the people he met at a time when Haiti was deep in crisis. Al Jazeera makes extensive use of its unrivalled archives. Through personal stories, the documentary examines where things have gone wrong since the international community stepped in and promised to “build Haiti back, better’. The film examines why a system that was designed to help actually ended up exacerbating the misery.
Imelda and Me screens on 22 September. The question of impunity in the Philippines has a special meaning for Veronica Pedrosa. In 1971 her family was forced into exile by the Marcos regime after her mother wrote an biography of then First Lady Imelda Marcos. Imelda has never been successfully convicted despite hundreds of cases of corruption and human rights abuses having been brought against her. The commission formed to find the missing millions allegedly stolen by the Marcos’s will soon be abolished. With the Marcos’s rising again in Philippine politics, Veronica tells the story of her family’s exile and their campaign against Marcos rule.
Imran Garda’s The Red Corridor screens on 29 September. It’s one of the world’s largest armed conflicts yet remains largely ignored outside India. Maoist rebels are fighting government forces for what, they claim, are their tribal lands. Imran Garda journeys from Naxalbari, where the movement began, to Chhattisgargh where it has its strongest base. He continues on to West Bengal where the violence most prevalent. Women who complain of rape by Indian security services are branded Maoists and their claims dismissed. He meets activists and journalists imprisoned for “helping’ or “sympathising’ with the Maoists while focusing on the millions who have been displaced or had their lives destroyed conflict.
