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- 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.
- The untold story of a Jewish baby who was born in the death camp before the liberation and survived. An extraordinary journey of the second and third generation, breaking the cycle of trauma to free themselves from Auschwitz - forever.
- Children of Dictators presents some of the most influential dictators of the 20th century through the eyes of their children and relatives. The 4x48-minute long documentary series shares rarely seen personal perspectives of history and offers a deeper understanding of the most feared leaders in the world, while focusing on the portraits of their children. The filmmakers worked without a crew and just two small broadcast cameras, giving them exclusive access to children of dictators, namely Lucia Pinochet in Chile, Jaffar Amin in Uganda, Bettina Goering in Germany and Fidel Castro's daughter in Miami.
- Internationally acclaimed psychologist Dr. Edith Eger - one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors - tells her unforgettable story, while teaching us all how to heal our lives and escape the prisons of our own minds...
- After a traumatic event in her daughter's life, a mother fights to heal the scars of the past, in a small community that doesn't want to comprehend what happened.
- On The Spot's series on birth around the world - how babies are born and what awaits them in a tribal hut, in a war zone, in the biggest Syrian refugee camp, and more. By the end of production the filmmakers had captured the first moments of life across five continents and culminated their personal journey by welcoming their own child into the world, resulting in one of the most personal documentary seasons in Central Europe. After its release on public television, the films were screened at universities for future midwifes plus were presented at different exhibitions about medicine and birth.
- A Qassam-fighter is collecting the remaining parts of Ahmed Jabari's body from his wreck after an Israeli airstrike that killed the head of al-Qassam Brigade. A Palestinian journalist who doesn't believe in violence, is getting a phone call, his 8-year-old daughter was hit. A shiver cut three of her fingers off. Parallel stories of the Qassam-fighter whose dream is to blow himself up to take revenge and the journalist who is willing to do anything to get the daughter into an Israeli hospital - the only place where she can be saved. The birth of hatred and hope - the chronicles of the latest conflict in Gaza.
- Eszter Cseke and András S. Takács's new four-episode documentary series introduces people who dedicate their whole lives to an idea or a cause. The filmmakers aim to find out what drives the warriors in their fight from the Indian caste system through the Buddhist self immolations to Israeli settlers. Sometimes armed with guns, sometimes armed with their calling, even at the cost of their lives.
- The past few decades' developments in technology and telecommunications are moving the world forward at an astonishing pace - in a certain sense. In the history of mankind we have never been connected to so many people as now while we never spent as little time face to face with each other as we do nowadays. The 9th season of On the Spot discovers the effects of mobile coverage, wifi and smartphones of human communities from New York to Transylvnia.
- 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.
- In 1947 a British lawyer who had never been to India before, drew the borders of India and Pakistan using old maps and a ruler. 10 million people left for a new home, Muslims migrated to the North while Hindus moved to the South. Due to the aftermath of World War II, the biggest migration of the 20th century is still a relatively untold story in Europe. We tell the story from the perspective of a little girl who suddenly became the enemy in Muslim Pakistan because of her religion. Her parents considered that they would not be able to escape from the fighters arriving to their village, so they committed a family suicide by throwing their children into the river, then they also jumped after them. Only our protagonist survived this family tragedy, who tells her story for the very first time on camera.
- The world-famous doctor, Gábor Máté was born in 1944 in Budapest as the child of a Jewish family. At the moment of his birth his father was at forced labour and many of his relatives were taken to concentration camps, from where they never returned. His mother wrote a diary about the times before and after his birth, which had a serious impact on Dr Máté even decades later - After the war the family defected to Canada where Dr Máté became the expert of addictions. In his research he explored how childhood memories and traumas affect people's long-term health. His conviction is that the circumstances of our birth fundamentally determine our lives. This principle was confirmed by his studies in the last decades which was published in international bestsellers, translated to over 40 languages.
- Under the Communist regime often entire families were sent to work camps. András Visky was born in 1957 as the son of a pastor of the Reformist Church. When his father was imprisoned, András and his whole family was transported to a lager town on the Baragan-lowland. While spending 6 years in the harsh conditions that killed many fellow inmates, he experienced humiliation and the cruel world of Communist work camps early on. He was treated as guilty even though he was just an innocent child. Now András is a well-known writer and director, working primarily at the Hungarian Theatre in Cluj- Napoca, Romania. In his works he regularly processes memories of captivity and guilt. How can a Transylvanian Hungarian writer deal with the traumas of his past - before and after the democratic change of the political system in Romania?
- 2009–TV EpisodeOpposition blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to jail and public flogging for his spreading liberal views on the internet in Saudi Arabia. His father renounced him on a live TV-show and asked for his prosecution by Sharia law. Raif's wife and children escaped to Canada where they got asylum. The film gives an intimate portrait of a family living in exile, with the trauma of an imprisoned and absent father.
- This is how this unique and personal history series has been created by award-winning documentary filmmakers Eszter Cseke and Andras S. Takacs across four continents, presenting children of Auschwitz, the Khmer Rouge or Sarajevo's siege. How did they survive? As adults, how did they come to terms with their past and the burdensome history they experienced? What can they do with the miracle that they survived?
- The first mobile phones just popped up in the rain forest of Sri Lanka where the ascendents of the Vedda tribe have lived for thousands of years. The chief is strongly against the telecommunication boom and sees mobiles as the gadgets of the evil.
- Can the young Buddhist monks meditate if they are constantly on Instagram? An exclusive meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama who has been financially supporting a dictionary application to conserve Tibetan culture for the future.
- How does smart technology change the way of life and way of thinking in one of the biggest slums in the world? An intimate portrait of two women and their families living in Dharavi, home to a million poor people, surrounded by Mumbai's boosting financial district's skyscrapers.
- Two islands on the Indian Ocean, just 600 meters apart. Soneva Fushi is one of the most expensive private island resorts in the world where superstars and aristocrats pay a fortune for a digital detox. Across the water on the local island Maldivians changed their fishing net to the internet in just a decade, spending 12-14 hours on their smartphones every day.
- Three American women who lost everything due to being sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. In cities like New York they lost their jobs, their homes, their families and social status. They had no choice but leaving everything behind. After years of suffering and isolation in the woods and in trailers, eventually they found Green Bank, a sleepy little town in West Virginia. It is one of the very few places in the US where electrosensitive people can live without symptoms. Here there is no mobile phone network or WIFI due to the world's largest fully steerable telescope which needs the National Radio Quiet Zone around it to be able to operate properly - More and more electrosensitive people escape here, however, locals don't welcome them with open arms.
- Canadian researcher Magda Havas Phd. has been alarming Canadian society about the health risks of electromagnetic radiation (EMF). Meanwhile ex-president of Microsoft Canada started an NGO 'Canadians for Safe Technology' to raise awareness about how to use smartphones, wifi-routers and gadgets in a safe way, not exposing our bodies to too much radiation. His wife has also become electrosensitive - this is the first time this wealthy and respected family of the Canadian high society shares their personal story with the public.
- We join EMF scientist Mr. Gyorgy Thuroczy of WHO at the Congress of Electromagnetic Radiation who is very skeptical about the work of researchers like Magda Havas. Mr. Thuroczy states that the EMF of our gadgets are far below the health limits and there is no hard scientific evidence that it might cause brain cancer. Still, he also urges the public to limit our body's exposure to EMF as research is still underway with indicators that it might have potential carcinogenic effects. In the second part of this episode we explore internet addiction with the #1 American psychologist on the issue, Dr. Kimberly Young who first wrote down the phrase 'internet addiction'. She gives an insight into this more alarming issue around the globe.
- Eszter Cseke and András S. Takács show the perhaps most desperate and most radical form of fight: Tibetan Buddhists who protest against oppression by setting fire to themselves. Why are they doing it? How are they capable? And what does Buddhism say about this? Upsetting footage, never before seen in Hungary, captivating testimonies and a man who has failed: he set fire to himself but survived.
- Eszter Cseke and Andras S Takacs entered the Gaza strip on a Tuesday to film the last episode of their On The Spot: Warriors series about Hamas, but life overruled all their plans on Wednesday afternoon: the Israeli air-force killed the leader of the militant al-Qassam Brigade, and according to the Hamas statement the gates of hell opened. The Hungarian filmmakers covered the conflict live on CNN that evening.
- As the Syrian civil war rages on, refugees still stream across the Jordanian border searching for relief in Zaatari, the largest Syrian refugee camp in the Middle East. There, a mother gives birth to little Ibrahim, a baby with no citizenship and no country. The rest of the family lives day by day in the camp, and the father is restless. He craves his return to war-torn Syria, no matter the risk. This creates a rift in the family, and the raw emotion is just one intimate moment of many in this rare look into the daily lives of refugees. It is a unique perspective of a family caught in a global crisis. As the family grapples with their future, baby Ibrahim sits in the middle of it all. What awaits him in the world as a Syrian refugee? Let us see what happens.
- Manar, a pregnant Palestinian mother is struggling to survive after her house was bombed and destroyed in Gaza just a few weeks before her due date. Her husband barely made it alive and his brother died in the house. Manar now fears toxic stress will affect her newborn child. As the entire family rallies together and searches for a new apartment, despair hangs over them like a dark cloud.
- American-Filipino midwife Robin Lim visited the Philippines after super typhoon Yolanda hit the islands in 2013. She opened Bumi Wada - a maternity and health clinic that supports gentle birth and takes care of mothers during their pregnancies. The clinic was created as a temporary facility but after two years it is still open. Women from the entire region come to give birth in "Bumi" because the service is free and available for everyone who cannot or do not want to go to a hospital.. An ocean away in the Gaza Strip, Hanin and her family had never thought of leaving Gaza City. Not even when their home was destroyed just a few weeks before her due date. Few days had passed since the end of the latest war, which has claimed the lives of 2000 people. Giving birth in a war-stricken area holds enormous risks for both mother and child. In the hospital, while Hanin is in the delivery room her female relatives talk about how their pregnancy was affected by the war a few years back. After a long and painful delivery Hanin gives birth to a beautiful and healthy girl. The next day the whole family is together preparing the traditional welcoming ceremony of the newest family member. First, the grandmother bathes the baby in fragranced water, flowers, gold and money, then each person has to hold her in their arms.