Article:ON WORLD TV THIS MAY: THE JOURNEY

Airing in May 2011 on the World Channel, as part of our THE JOURNEY theme:

Roadtrip Nation
Three Australians arrive in Los Angeles for a road trip across the U.S. First they learn to drive the RV; then they head to San Diego to interview the band Switchfoot. They also visit Orange County, California, and meet philanthropists Augie and Lynn Nieto.

In the Footsteps of Marco Polo
Adventurers Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell re-create Marco Polo's journey from Italy to China, which includes crossing Afghanistan and the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts.

Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood
Archival footage, film clips, home movies, interviews and personal photos accent this documentary, which recounts the experiences of Jews who took refuge in Hollywood after Adolf Hitler banned them from the German movie industry in 1933.

Forgotten Ellis Island
The story of Ellis Island Hospital, which consisted of 22 brick buildings sprawled across two islands. The site of hundreds of births and many more deaths, its staff treated and cared for immigrants to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century.

A Necessary Journey
Binh Rybacki, who fled her native Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in 1975, returns to her homeland with a Children of Peace International medical team to help relocate and set up health clinics.

Oh, Saigon
The Vietnam War's lasting impact on a Vietnamese family is examined by filmmaker Doan Hoang. Included: the experiences of her father and uncle, who both fought for the South, and another uncle who fought for the North.

Children of the Amazon
Documentarian Denise Zmekhol travels deep into the Amazon rain forest to learn the fate of indigenous Surui and Negarote children she photographed 15 years earlier.

Right to Risk: A 15 Day Journey Through Arizona’s Grand Canyon
Eight disabled people go rafting with guides on the Colorado River. During stops, the participants, whose conditions include spina bifida, blindness and MS, discuss how they deal with the negative attitudes they encounter.

P.O.V.: Traces of the Trade--A Story of the Deep North
The 21st-season opener features Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North, an exploration of filmmaker Katrina Brown's slave-trading ancestors, the Rhode Island DeWolfs.

The Call of the Wild
The true story of Christopher McCandless (1968-92), who turned his back on modern life and hiked into the wilds of Alaska in 1992, only to be found dead from starvation four months later. Filmmaker Ron Lamothe retraces his wanderings.

Freedom Riders: American Experience
The story of the 1961 Freedom Riders, civil-rights activists who confronted the Jim Crow laws that remained the status quo at interstate travel facilities in the South despite two Supreme Court rulings that declared them unconstitutional.

Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange--Desert Bayou
"Desert Bayou," about the experiences of some 600 blacks who were relocated to Utah in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Voces: Dream Havana
The story of Cuban writers Ernesto Santana and Jorge Mota, longtime friends who faced difficult decisions in 1994, when Mota fled Cuba on a homemade raft and Santana opted to stay and face the hardships at home.

Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange--Ten Days in Africa
A new series featuring films about social and cultural issues of Africans starts with "Ten Days in Africa," about identity issues in Ghana, Senegal and Cote d'ivoire. Also, a film exploring similar issues in the Mississippi Delta.

Voces: Soy Andina
An immigrant folk dancer from the Andes and a modern dancer from Queens travel to Peru to reconnect with their roots and experience the country's traditional dance and culture. The folk dancer returns to her birthplace, which has changed.

Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange--Black to Our Roots
A teenager travels to her ancestral home in Ghana to escape the cycle of violence and poverty of her Atlanta neighborhood.

Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange--Moving to the Beat
The Portland, Ore., hip-hop group Rebel Soulz visit Freetown, Sierra Leone, where they collaborate with local artists, confront their stereotypes and fantasies of Africa, and dispel the Sierra Leoneans' perception of America.