Cultural & Educational Media

Discovering Unity in Diversity

Cultural & Educational Media (CEM Productions) is a non-profit media organization that produces films, TV series, and web-based programming to inspire and unify people and audiences worldwide. Our award-winning programs focus on our shared values and common humanity, transcending ethnic, religious, class and political differences to promote new understandings, new insights and a greater respect for all peoples.

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Teachers & Visionaries
Current Projects

Browse Our Collection

Healing A Soldier's Heart

This documentary film follows the courageous journeys of four Vietnam veterans, all suffering from severe PTSD. This film provides an unforgettable journey back to Vietnam, through what Dr. Tick calls “their second, this time, willful descent into hell,” and carries viewers into the hearts and minds of the four veterans and their families, as they experience forgiveness and compassion from their former enemies.

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Our House in Havana

This film follows the emotionally charged return trip of Silvia Morini, a vivacious 68 year old Cuban, who after 38 years living in the U.S.A., decides to return to Cuba to search for the house, the neighborhood and the faded remains of her once-opulent, privileged life. Silvia’s pilgrimage is full of discoveries, engaging interactions, and personal confrontations, which carry her from exhilaration to depression, and, ultimately, in a surprising twist, to an astounding personal transformation.
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Face to Face: Young Arabs & Americans

Face to Face—Young Arabs and Americans is a groundbreaking television documentary featuring a live digital satellite link between four students at San Francisco’s Lowell High School and four Arab high school students in Amman, Jordan. Meeting via live satellite link, four American and four Arab high school students create a meaningful, insightful discussion about Middle East politics, inter-racial dating, suicide bombers and more.
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Last Images of War

LAST IMAGES OF WAR is the compelling and tragic story of four photojournalists who covered the Afghan-Soviet war, felt an intense commitment to provide the world with the dramatic images it so craved, and who were ultimately consumed by the story and the conflict they were reporting on. This unforgettable, Emmy-Award winning film explores the motivation and ideals which carried these three men and one woman to their deaths in what was considered a Holy War or “Jihad” against the Soviet Union.
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John Collier, Jr. : A Visual Journey

This film provides an intimate portrait of the life, the stunning photographic work, and the unique humanitarian insights of one of this century’s greatest teachers. When he was eight, John Collier was hit by a car and suffered severe brain trauma that left him with learning disabilities and speech and hearing impairments. As a result, he never finished grammar school, yet he went on to become an internationally renowned photographer, anthropologist, educator, and one of the founders of the field of visual anthropology.
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Afghanistan: The Fight for A Way of Life

This film explores the historical, religious and cultural background that led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979. It documents the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and their struggle to maintain their cultural traditions and way of life.
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School Colors

This film gives a first-hand look at the events, relationships, and conflicts at Berkeley High in the 1990s, a large, multicultural, urban school. The documentary examines how sharply segregated along color lines America’s public schools remained forty years after Brown v. Board of Education. School Colors explores segregation in the classroom, the social segregation of the student body, and finally, the school’s efforts to achieve greater racial equality and harmony.
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To Find the Baruya Story

This intriguing film portrays the work of French anthropologist Maurice Godelier among the Baruya – a tribe famous throughout the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea as salt makers and traders. This multi-faceted film, photographed in both 1969 and 1982, illustrates an anthropologist’s actual fieldwork methods and personal relationships among the Baruya, and provides an in-depth view of the Baruya’s traditional salt-based economic system.
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Her Name Came on Arrows

In the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea, French anthropolgist Maurice Godelier invites five of his Baruya friends and informants to his house to discuss Baruya kinship and rules of marriage. As Godelier poses questions, the kinship rules that provide the cohesive fabric of Baruya culture are brought to life. Abstract terms are given practical meanings as Godelier investigates Baruya customs of stealing wives, exchanging sisters for wives, stealing names and exchanging “food for blood.” Throughout the interview, a wealth of information comes to the surface.
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Global Spirit Series

This project is a unique television series that investigates the most urgent philosophical and existential issues of the 21st century, tracing the eternal, yet still evolving human quest for meaning, truth, and wisdom. This series brings together ancient wisdom traditions with the perspectives of world religions and modern science to help viewers define who we are as human beings and explore how this affects our relationships with our families, our communities, the environment and with the world at large.
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Lunch with Bokara Series

This television series explores the frontiers of religion and metaphysics, of science and spirituality. In every episode host Bokara Legendre brings together an engaging group of well-known scientists, thinkers, and spiritual teachers from around the world. Join a unique, spontaneous conversation as fascinating guests who have never met are brought together for the first time to share their insights, knowledge and wisdom.
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Mosaic: World News from the Middle East

This LinkTV series gathers news and current affairs from around the world, as experienced—and at times reported by—people on the ground. Unlike a conventional newscast, MOSAIC is responsive to online sources and independent voices, utilizing a bottom-up, web-first news gathering framework, to create a new kind of global news for all media platforms.
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Bridge to Iran

This series combines the unique powers of film, television and the Internet to open a new cinematic bridge to Iranian culture. These unique programs offer American and international audiences a wide range of insightful perspectives on Iranian society, family life, history, religion and the arts. Each week on national television and the internet, BRIDGE TO IRAN presents penetrating stories that take viewers inside the lives of Iranian citizens and into the heart and soul of Iranian culture.
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Explore Program Topics
Eco-environmental
World Religions
Science & Spirit
War, Trauma & Healing
Philosophy & Cosmology
Music & the Arts
Indigenous Cultures
Education & Global Development

Meet Our Teachers & Visionaries

Adam Bucko

Social activist and spiritual director to many of New York City’s homeless youth

Adam Bucko

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The Power of Community

Carlos Santana is a Mexican and American musician who first became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock and Latin American jazz

Carlos Santana

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Love, Fear and Beyond

Religious studies scholar in the United States, his book The World’s Religions sold over three million copies and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion. He died on December 30, 2016.

Huston Smith

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Food for the Soul

One of the foremost voices in African spirituality to come to the West, destined from birth to teach the ancient wisdom, ritual, and practices of her native land Burkina Faso

Sobonfu Somé

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The Ecstatic Experience
Healing, Family, and Community

Environmental activist, author, scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology

Joanna Macy

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Sacred Ecology

Founder of Shade Tree Multi-Cultural Foundation who integrates the metaphysics of the African wisdom traditions and the power of storytelling with his mentoring work with youth

Orland Bishop

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Stories to Remember

Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Once a college lacrosse player, Lyons is now a recognized advocate of indigenous rights

Chief Oren Lyons

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Earth Wisdom for A World in Crisis

Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care

Roshi Joan Halifax

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The Power of Community

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Join the Global Spirit Circle

If you are enjoying these programs, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Global Spirit series. Our 501c3 non-profit organization’s tax deductible ID# is 94-2876381.

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Cultural & Educational Media (aka: CEM Productions)
150 Harbor Drive, PO Box 249, Sausalito, CA 94966, USA

ABOUT CEM

Cultural & Educational Media (CEM Productions) is a San Francisco Bay Area based 501c3 non-profit media group producing films, TV series, and web-based programming that promote new insights on the meaning and depths of human existence. CEM uses the power of film and storytelling to inspire, bring together, and unify people and audiences worldwide.

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