After 30 years, Herro Mustafa has the opportunity to return to the Kurdish region of Iraq, where she was born and fled as a refugee. “American Herro” weaves the sadness and disorder created by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime and the ongoing genocide of the Kurdish people with a story of hope and freedom for a young Kurdish girl growing up in America.
Prairie Public and Ducks Unlimited have teamed to produce a documentary about one of the most threatened biomes on the planet—a biome that is in our own backyard.
Because no other landscape on the continent is more important to waterfowl, wildlife, and cattle producers than the native prairie in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Dakotas, the project producers traveled across North Dakota to explore the uniqueness of this resource, the complicated reasons we’re losing grassland, and the efforts of ranchers and conservationists to protect it. The program is funded by a grant from MDU Resources Foundation.
This documentary about the Germans from Russia examines what causes a region, a place, to imprint itself upon the people who are born and live there. What is the connection between landscape and memory; what is forgotten, what is remembered? How may a territory endure in the minds of the descendants of those inhabitants after years, even after generations, have passed?
Prairie Public’s 30-minute DVD “The Bank of North Dakota” chronicles the bank’s fascinating history and reviews its key role in financing the state’s economic future.
During the early 1900s, North Dakota’s economy was dangerously dependent on a single industry—agriculture, an industry controlled by financial interests outside the state. To diversify the economy and regain control of its financial future, North Dakota created a unique asset: the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. North Dakota is the only state in the union with a state-owned bank. The program documents the rise of the Non-Partisan League and its struggle to overthrow the out of state interests that controlled the North Dakota economy and chronicles the political infighting, the dirty tricks, the back room deals, and the amazing series of events that led to the creation of the bank. “The Bank of North Dakota” features historians, economists, bank staff members and members of the Industrial Commission discussing how the bank came into existence, how it has responded over the years to its mission, and its evolving role in promoting commerce, agriculture and industry.
Customs and traditions are certainly part of culture, but so are foodways. I would imagine that in those days there were few if any cookbooks, so that most women were, at best, left to collecting a series of handwritten recipes. In the colonist villages, recipes were passed on from mother to daughter. And today the Aussiedler are returning to their country with recipes that have been handed down for 200 years.
“The Dirty Thirties: German Russians Remember” features stories from the narrators of the Dakota Memories Oral History Project (DMOHP) who grew up on the Northern Plains, from South Dakota to North Dakota to Saskatchewan. They share memories of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era, otherwise known as “The Dirty Thirties.” This audio CD features a variety of narrations about dust storms, extreme temperatures, grasshopper invasions, and New Deal programs. Environmental historian and NDSU Professor of History Mark Harvey, PhD, has added scholarly commentary, discussing the environmental conditions on the Northern Plains during the 1930s.
Most people have heard that it’s “Rockin’ in the Bakken,” but what does that mean to the residents of the Williston Basin? Faces of the Oil Patch describes the new visage of the oil patch—the areas in and around Williston, Watford City, Tioga, Stanley, New Town, Parshall, and Fort Berthold—in the words of the people who live and work in these communities.
The 60-minute documentary shows us the towns that don’t have the infrastructure to support the uncontrolled and dramatic growth, the ranchers who now view bumper-to-bumper traffic all day rather than the rare vehicle traveling along the two-lane horizon to horizon, and the oil workers who earn huge salaries but live in makeshift housing without hope of finding homes suitable for their families. The narratives and stunning video are woven together with visual images captured by noted still photographer Wayne Gudmundson to show everyday life and the changing landscape of northwestern North Dakota. Production funding provided by North Dakota Humanities Council, North Dakota Council on the Arts, and the members of Prairie Public.
“Fish, Mercury, and Nutrition: The Net Effects,” a 30-minute documentary, explores the many benefits of eating ocean fish and the risk of mercury exposure for the population with the most to gain (or lose): unborn and young children. Pregnant and nursing moms will learn why two ocean fish meals a week during the critical window of development can safely give their babies lifelong benefits. The rest of the population also benefits by including ocean fish in their healthy diets.