Many are surprised to discover the abundance of thought-provoking films on Wisconsin Public Television – topics ranging from race and diversity, social justice and history to education, the arts and civic engagement. These topics resonate in communities throughout Wisconsin.

Reel2Real engages your community by supporting local screenings of acclaimed PBS films followed by discussion events featuring local experts and community leaders. These public screenings have and continue to foster community discussion, bring difficult issues to light and encourage participants to consider diverse perspectives.

Support for Reel2Real comes from the Alliant Energy Foundation and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. Reel2Real is a partnership of Wisconsin Public Television and the Wisconsin Library Association. For more information please contact Lynne Blinkenberg.

UPCOMING SCREENINGS

Freedom Riders
Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 6:30-8 p.m.
Appleton Public Library
Lower Level Meeting Room
225 N. Oneida St.
Appleton, WI 54911
Email: eeisen@apl.org
Phone: 920-832-6173

In addition to the screening a panel discussion will be lead by Bob Pedersen, President & CEO of Goodwill Industries, and Paul Eisen insurance broker and Winnebago County Supervisor. Pedersen was active in the Civil Rights movement. Eisen was a personnel investigator for the US Civil Service Commission and a poll watcher in Greenwood, Mississippi during the 1960s.

Freedom Riders
Wednesday, May 18, 6:30 p.m.
Three Lakes Center for the Arts in the Northwoods
1760 Superior St.
Three Lakes, WI 54562
Phone: 715.546-3391

Sponsored by the E.U. Demmer Memorial Library

The Botany of Desire
Thursday, June 9th, time TBA
Western Technical College
220 S Main St.
Viroqua, WI 54665

Sponsored by McIntosh Public Library in Viroqua, WI

BRING REEL2REAL TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY

Many are surprised to discover the abundance of thought-provoking films on Wisconsin Public Television – topics ranging from race and diversity, social justice and history to education, the arts and civic engagement. These topics resonate in communities throughout Wisconsin.

Reel2Real engages your community by supporting local screenings of acclaimed PBS films followed by discussion events featuring local experts and community leaders. These public screenings have and continue to foster community discussion, bring difficult issues to light and encourage participants to consider diverse perspectives.

Support for Reel2Real comes from the Alliant Energy Foundation and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. Reel2Real is a partnership of Wisconsin Public Television and the Wisconsin Library Association.

For more information please contact Lynne Blinkenberg or download a screening guide. Click here to view the current schedule.

CURRENT REEL2REAL OFFERINGS

The Botany of Desire examines this unique relationship through the stories of four familiar species, telling how each of them evolved to satisfy one of our most basic yearnings. Linking our fundamental desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control with the plants that gratify them – the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato – The Botany of Desire shows that we humans are intricately woven into the web of nature, not standing outside it.

Click here to visit the official Botany of Desire web site and view clips.

Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed almost every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we’ve gained?

Click here to visit the official Digital_Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier web site and view clips.

It takes a true calling to make faith a way of life. The Calling is a four-hour documentary series that follows seven Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Jews on a dramatic journey as they train to become professional clergy. Embarking on life paths that demand tremendous personal sacrifice and commitment, these seminarians must uphold timeless truths in an era that values quick fixes and hot trends, and face a public that challenges the very relevance of their mission. A new look at an old job, The Calling takes viewers into the unknown world of seminaries to tell entertaining and compelling personal stories of how faith is lived in today.

Click here to visit The Calling’s official web site and view clips.

Freedom Riders(American Experience) is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.

Click here to visit the official Freedom Riders web site and view clips.

With the ever growing popularity in food and travel shows and the combination of the amazing culinary resources in our backyard – Wisconsin Foodie was born. The goal of Wisconsin Foodie is to educate, entertain and connect Wisconsinites to their food. Each show dives into Wisconsin’s culinary world – profiling local food treasures and unique travel destinations. Wisconsin Foodie artfully blends all three show facets (food, cooking and travel) to create a national-style program, yet completely local and all about Wisconsin.

Click here to visit the official Wisconsin Foodie web site and view episodes.

In The Wounded Platoon, FRONTLINE investigates a single Fort Carson platoon of infantrymen — the 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry — and finds, after a long journey, a group of young men changed by war and battling a range of psychiatric disorders that many blame for their violent and self-destructive behavior.

Click here to visit the official Wounded Platoon web site and view clips.

More than 57,000 Wisconsin men and women served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Their stories provide valuable insight into a war that continues to profoundly affect our culture, politics, and the lives of Wisconsin veterans and their families. Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories offers a perspective of military services that is neither romanticized nor demonized, it is simply humanized. New this fall is Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories: Silent Heroes, an accompanying discussion film telling the stories of women, Native Americans and Hmong involved in Vietnam.

Click here to visit the official Vietnam War Stories web site and view clips.