Season 8
10 episodes
0 min. per episode
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Two fearless journalists confront global crises, revealing untold stories that challenge perceptions and ignite passions in unexpected places.
Episodes
In the 1940's a teenager gymnast in Kassa, Edith was aiming to get into the Hungarian Olympic Team but she could not become a member because she was from a Jewish family. In 1944 with her parents and sister, she was deported to Auschwitz where the notorious Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele tore her out from the row which was lining up to the gas chambers. Mengele promised Edit that she would meet with her mother soon who was "just going to have a shower". Edith's parents were killed on that day. Not long after she found herself in front of Mengele who commanded the prisoners to dance - and Edith started to dance for The Blue Danube Waltz while closing her eyes. This is how she survived the death camp. Now she lives in San Diego with her family, her house decorated with ballerinas looks at the Pacific ocean, she is 90 years old and she still works as a family therapist.
This is the story of two young Bosnian women, who were children during the longest siege of history, in Sarajevo. Asja remembers everything: she almost died twice, when she found herself in the middle of grenades and snipers at the age of 6. As a screenwriter she used writing and filmmaking as a therapy in order to get rid of her nightmares. Mela was one of the faces of the siege in the international press, because the story of the beautiful ballet dancer girl touched both war correspondents and the public. She herself wrote over 1000 diary entries during the war. Many times her life was in danger, but she was almost killed 10 years after the war in London, where she was hit by a doubledecker bus. She was in a coma for five weeks, and lost all her memories. A long therapy brought back her traumatic memories, with the help of diary entries and the archival footages about her.
Shin was born and grew up in a strict North Korean prison camp. As a teenager he denounced his own mother and brother for planning their escape which led to their execution Shin had to watch. When he escaped to South Korea through China as a young adult, he had to learn what life outside the prison camp meant. He needed to understand such basic concepts like time, freedom, family or money. How can Shin live with his past in the extremely modern society of Seoul after the darkest side of North Korea? Can he ever recover from his painful memories?
During the Vietnam War hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers were fighting in Vietnam. Tens of thousands were born as children of Vietnamese mothers and foreign fathers, among them were two protagonists of our film, Tuy and Brian. They left Vietnam as members of the so-called "Amerasian" minority. They grew up in the US but recently moved back to their country of birth. The third protagonist of the film is Landon who was left in an orphanage with his twin sister after their mother's death. Their lives were at constant risk because of the lack of supplies. Within the framework of Operation Babylift, "Amerasian" orphans were supposed to be rescued from Vietnam by the US Army, but the first plane tragically crashed. On that plane travelled Landon with his twin sister - Through a miraculous story this episode describes how Brian, Tuy and Landon lived their Vietnamese and adoptee identities in the US, and why they returned to Vietnam where they became best friends.
The father of the Cambodian Norng was taken and executed by the Khmer Rouge soldiers of the Pol Pot regime. Norng was imprisoned with his brother and mother in the notorious Tuol Sleng prison. His mother was tortured and killed. Norng was hiding under the heap of clothes of the dead prisoners for three days with three other children, until the prison was liberated. He was one of the handful survivors. The shocking archival footage from the time of the liberation clearly shows the eight-year-old boy, who did not only save his own life - However, Norng is still haunted by his past, because they were hiding a one- year-old infant too, who did not survive the liberation - Norng is currently the employee of the Genocide Museum therefore every single day he returns to the location of the tragedies of his early childhood.
Eszter Cseke and Andras S. Takacs are award-winning Hungarian journalists and documentary filmmakers of On the Spot, an acclaimed documentary series in Central Europe. With just two small broadcast cameras and no extra crew, Cseke and Takacs have always gained unique perspectives in the most delicate environments. After a decade of filming across five continents, it is no wonder that their different approach has been called "rare and exclusive" by the BBC. Each year, Cseke and Takacs have focused on a new and compelling subject for the series. Whether it is living with ethnic tribes in Africa and Papua, being embedded with fighters in the Middle East, getting to know children of dictators or travelling the world and examining birth in a myriad of cultures, On The Spot is a unique player in the field of documentary filmmaking. Over the years, the program has garnered a great deal of international recognition. They received the Golden Nymph for Best Documentary at the 53rd Monte Carlo TV Festival, the Press Freedom Award in Strasbourg from the Council of Europe, the Prize for Best International Short Film at the American Documentary Film Festival and the Gold Plaque at the 50th Chicago International Film Festival Television Awards.