Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at his film production company Blackside, and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills, and interviews by participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the title of the folk song "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize", which is used as the opening theme music in each episode.
Michael B. Wolfe is an American poet, author, and the President and Co-Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation. A secular American born in Cincinnati, Ohio to a Christian mother and a Jewish father, Wolfe converted to Islam at 40 and has been a frequent lecturer on Islamic issues at universities across the United States including Harvard, Georgetown, Stanford, SUNY Buffalo, and Princeton. He holds a degree in Classics from Wesleyan University.
The depiction of Islamic prophet Muhammad in film is a controversial topic both within and outside of Islam. Although the Quran does not explicitly forbid images of Muhammad, there are a few hadith which have explicitly prohibited Muslims from creating visual depictions of figures. Because the different branches of Islam use different Hadith collections, there is a split on this issue between the two major denominations of Islam, Sunni and Shia Islam.
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet is a PBS documentary film about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad based on historical records and on the stories of living American Muslims who call Muhammad the Messenger of God. It was produced in 2002 by Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe of Unity Productions Foundation and Kikim Media.
Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang was a professor and former chairman of the African Studies Department at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He was a co-principal investigator of the Project MAPS and also a former deputy ambassador and head of chancery of the Gambia Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Nyang served as consultant to several national and international agencies and on the boards of the African Studies Association, the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, America's Islamic Heritage Museum, and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. He wrote extensively on Islamic, African and Middle Eastern affairs. He held a master's degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in government from the University of Virginia. Nyang was an advising scholar for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentaries Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002) and Prince Among Slaves (2007), produced by Unity Productions Foundation.
Kim Spencer is an American television producer and executive.
Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea is a documentary film by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, with narration by John Waters and music by Friends of Dean Martinez.
Prince Among Slaves is a 2006 historical drama directed, written and produced by Andrea Kalin and narrated by Mos Def made for PBS by Unity Productions Foundation. The film, made in association with Spark Media and Duke Media, is based on the story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Sori, a prince from Guinea who was made a slave in the United States and freed 40 years later.
Andrea Kalin is an American independent filmmaker, writer, producer, and director. She is also the principal and founder of Spark Media and founder and executive director of Stone Soup Productions, a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation.
Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse is a 1996 documentary film about the ballerina Suzanne Farrell directed by Anne Belle. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was aired on PBS in 1997 as part of Great Performances: Dance In America.
Aryana Farshad is a writer, director, and film producer born in Tehran, Iran.
Jørgen Emborg is a Danish jazz pianist and composer, influenced by Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, who has given the music a lyrical, specifically Nordic feel in his compositions.
Crime After Crime is a 2011 award-winning documentary film directed by Yoav Potash about the case of Deborah Peagler, an incarcerated victim of domestic violence whose case was taken up by pro bono attorneys through The California Habeas Project.
Ric Esther Bienstock is a Canadian documentary filmmaker best known for her investigative documentaries. She was born in Montreal, Quebec and studied at Vanier College and McGill University. She has produced and directed an eclectic array of films from investigative social issue documentaries like Sex Slaves, an investigation into the trafficking of women from former Soviet Bloc Countries into the global sex trade and Ebola: Inside an Outbreak which took viewers to ground zero of the Ebola outbreak in Zaire - to lighter fare such as Penn & Teller’s Magic and Mystery Tour.
Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World is a PBS documentary film that showcases the variety and diversity of Islamic art. It discusses Islamic culture and its role in the rise of world civilization over the centuries. It was produced in 2011 by Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe of Unity Productions Foundation.
Robert H. Gardner is an American documentary filmmaker, producer and director of the Academy Award-nominated Courage to Care, Emmy Award-winning Egypt: Quest for Immortality, Dupont Columbia Award-winning Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in the Promised Land, National Geographic Explorer series; Search for the Lost Ark, Tiwanaku, and Desert Warriors; The History Channel series Barbarians, Barbarians II, and Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire. In 2001 his groundbreaking series Islam: Empire of Faith aired on PBS, as well as Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World in 2012.
Muhammad: The Messenger of God is a 2015 Iranian Islamic epic film directed by Majid Majidi and co-written with Kambuzia Partovi. The film, set in the sixth century, revolves around the childhood of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Will Bonsall is an American author, seed saver and veganic farmer who lives in Maine. He is a regular speaker about seed saving, organic farming and veganic farming.
Laila Haidari is an Afghan activist and restaurateur. She runs Mother Camp, a drug rehabilitation centre she founded in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2010. She also owns Taj Begum, a Kabul cafe that funds Mother Camp. Taj Begum is frequently raided because it breaks taboos; the cafe is run by a woman and allows unmarried men and women to eat together. Haidari is the subject of the 2018 documentary film Laila at the Bridge. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.
