Featuring Women’s Work: Stories Behind the Movement
This Connecticut Public Original follows the stories of women who share a common desire to be part of a collective effort - serving as leaders, trailblazers, artists, educators, advocates, and entrepreneurs. Airing Monday, March 15 at 11:30 p.m. on CPTV and now streaming here>>
See below for additional special programs airing on CPTV, CPTV Spirit, and Connecticut Public Radio in March 2021.
CPTV
How It Feels To Be Free tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American female entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson, and Pam Grier – challenged an entertainment industry deeply complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes, and transformed themselves and their audiences in the process.
Go inside the inspiring movement for women's workplace equality in the 1970s. Started by a group of Boston secretaries, the 9to5 cause used humor to attract press attention and shame bosses into giving better pay and ending sexual harassment.
Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, 93Queen follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City.
Explore the life of Flannery O’Connor whose provocative fiction was unlike anything published before. Featuring never-before-seen archival footage, newly discovered journals and interviews with Mary Karr, Tommy Lee Jones, Hilton Als, and more.
Makers - Women in Space traces the history of women pioneers in the U.S. space program. Some, like aviators Wally Funk and Jerrie Cobb, passed the same grueling tests as male astronauts, only to be dismissed by NASA, the military, and even Lyndon Johnson, as a distraction. It wasn’t until 1995 that Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a spacecraft.
Twyla Moves explores the life of legendary dancer, director and choreographer Twyla Tharp. Jumping from historical footage to the present day, the film traces her influential career while providing an intimate look at her famously rigorous creative process. Emmy®-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Steven Cantor (American Masters – Willie Nelson: Still is Still Moving) follows Tharp as she builds a high-profile work from the ground up with an international cast of ballet stars, including Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, and Maria Khoreva, who rehearse by video conference while under quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic. The film also features never-before seen interviews and select performances from Tharp’s vast array of more than 160 choreographed works.
The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart was one of America’s first celebrities. After only a few years as a pilot she became the best-known female flier in America, not only for her daring and determination, but also for her striking looks and outspoken personality. Amelia even had an uncanny resemblance to Charles Lindbergh — the most famous man in America at the time — that publicists seized upon, nicknaming her “Lady Lindy.” Three weeks short of her 40th birthday, Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean, and her story became legend.
With the national conversation around police reform still resonating loudly around the country, Women in Blue shines a spotlight on the women within the Minneapolis Police Department working to reform it from the inside by fighting for gender equity. Filmed from 2017 to 2020, the documentary focuses on MPD’s first female and openly gay police chief, Janée Harteau, and three of the women in her department as they each try to redefine what it means to protect and serve.
CPTV Spirit
Celebrate the first lady of cooking with Martha Stewart, Jacques Pepin, Vivian Howard, Marcus Samuelsson, Jose Andres, Eric Ripert, Rick Bayless, and more. Chefs and celebrities share personal insights as they screen Julia's most-beloved episodes.
The Public Television Feature Film Collection - North Country (Premiere) Expand
Encores on CPTV Saturday, March 27 at 9 p.m.
This drama is a fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States, Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, in which a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit. Starring Charlize Theron, Jeremy Renner, and Frances McDormand.
Encores on CPTV on Friday, March 12 at 10 p.m.
Explore the fascinating life of celebrated singer Marian Anderson. In 1939, after being barred from performing at Constitution Hall because she was Black, she triumphed at the Lincoln Memorial in what became a landmark moment in American history.
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay on England's south coast. In a career spanning over half a century, the prolific crime writer was inspired by the landscapes and character of her home country, much of which featured in her novels. This heart-warming documentary takes viewers on a literary tour of England - focusing on the most interesting locations featured in some of her best-known books.
Join a team of archaeologists as they examine one of the most significant Viking graves ever found and test the DNA of the remains of the female warrior buried inside, rewriting our understanding of Viking society.
Dive into the life and career of groundbreaking writer, performer, and subversive star Mae West. Over a career spanning eight decades, she broke boundaries and possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s.
Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr (Ziegfeld Girl, Samson and Delilah) was known as the world’s most beautiful woman. However, her arresting appearance and glamorous life stood in the way of her being given the credit she deserved as an ingenious inventor whose pioneering work helped revolutionize modern communication. An Austrian Jewish emigrant who invented a covert communication system to try to help defeat the Nazis, Lamarr was ignored and told to sell kisses for war bonds instead. It was only toward the very end of her life that tech pioneers discovered that it was her concept that is now used as the basis for secure WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth technologies. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story explores how Lamarr’s true legacy is that of a technological trailblazer.
Connecticut Public Radio
Seasoned - Anna Francese Gass + New Haven’s Sanctuary Kitchen (Premiere) Expand
Anna Francese Gass is the author of Heirloom Kitchen: Heritage Recipes and Family Stories from the Tables of Immigrant Women. Anna’s mother, an immigrant from Italy, is a phenomenal scratch cook. And although Anna trained at the French Culinary Institute and immersed herself in the world of food and recipe testing, she was embarrassed to admit she did not know how to make her mother’s meatballs. Heritage Kitchen documents Anna’s effort to capture and master her mother’s unwritten recipes, as well as the treasured recipes of women from all over the world who resettled in America. It was a delicious and uplifting experience. Also this hour, a conversation with the women of Sanctuary Kitchen in New Haven. We’ll talk to co-founder Sumyia Khan, manager and culinary coordinator Carol Byer-Alcorace, and Sanctuary Kitchen chef Rawaa Ghazi. Stream it here>>
Hear Colin's interview with iconic poet and punk rocker Patti Smith. She looks back over her life as an artist, a lover of Robert Mapplethorpe, a wife and mother, and as a person she says is a better friend in the abstract than in reality. And, she's really funny.
Seasoned celebrates women in the food world, among them Connecticut’s own Chrissy Tracey. Chrissy describes her journey as an entrepreneur and self-taught chef. She’s also the first vegan chef at Bon Appétit magazine. Plus, hear from Charlotte Druckman about her anthology, which amplifies the voices of women chefs and food writers. Stream it here>>