Documentary overview

About COVID's Hidden Toll (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

How the COVID crisis has hit vulnerable immigrants and undocumented workers who have helped keep America fed during the pandemic. While millions of Americans have been sheltering in place, FRONTLINE has been investigating the hidden toll of the pandemic of those who cannot stay home: Agricultural workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, who have been deemed essential to the nation’s food supply. In "COVID’s Hidden Toll," numerous farmworkers speak out about their experiences of having to choose between their health and their jobs – and what they say is a lack of protection from their companies. With Latino people nationwide dying from the coronavirus at a disproportionate rate, the film examines outbreaks at several growers and meat packing plants over the past several months, and how new evidence indicates that agricultural workers have faced a heightened risk of contracting the coronavirus. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional

COVID's Hidden Toll (full documentary) | FRONTLINE is presented by FRONTLINE PBS | Official. Its listed runtime is 53 minutes. The source link and publisher attribution are provided with the embedded film.

As a society documentary, COVID's Hidden Toll (full documentary) | FRONTLINE uses covid, hidden, frontline as its central frame. Social documentaries work best as invitations to examine systems through lived experience. Distinguish individual testimony from wider claims, and consider which institutions, incentives and inequalities shape the choices shown.

Viewing context

What to consider before watching

  1. What evidence, testimony or observation does the film use to explain covid, hidden, frontline?
  2. Which people, institutions or historical conditions most influence the story told in COVID's Hidden Toll (full documentary) | FRONTLINE?
  3. How does FRONTLINE PBS | Official's framing affect the documentary's emphasis, and which perspectives may deserve further research?
Subjects

Topics covered in this documentary

Societycovidhiddenfrontline
Film information

Documentary details and original source

Title
COVID's Hidden Toll (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
Category
Society
Runtime
53 minutes
Language
English

Free Documentary Vault provides independent discovery, organization and editorial context. The film remains hosted by its original publisher, who controls availability and playback.

Continue exploring
America's Medical Supply Crisis (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
America's Medical Supply Crisis (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

When the coronavirus hit, why were countless Americans left unprotected amid a desperate shortage of PPE and other critical medical equipment? FRONTLINE, The Associated Press and the Global Reporting Centre investigate. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s COVID-positive diagnosis, and as cases spike in parts of the country, “America’s Medical Supply Crisis” examines why the United States was left vulnerable to key equipment shortages — and why problems persist, months into the coronavirus crisis. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation, the Park Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

America's Medical Supply Crisis (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety
Growing Up Poor In America (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
Growing Up Poor In America (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

The documentary, "Growing Up Poor in America", follows three children and their families in the battleground state of Ohio as the COVID-19 pandemic amplifies their struggle to stay afloat. In early 2020, it was estimated that almost 12 million children in America were living in poverty — a burden disproportionately borne by Black and Latino kids. Then came the coronavirus. Director Jezza Neumann, who made 2012's “Poor Kids,” once again delves into how poverty impacts children. As the pandemic continues, the presidential election approaches and America reckons with racism, FRONTLINE offers a powerful look at child poverty in the time of COVID-19 — told from the perspective of the children themselves. The film is supported by the WNET “Chasing the Dream” initiative. Love FRONTLINE? Find us on the PBS Video App where there are more than 300 Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Growing Up Poor In America (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety
Whose Vote Counts (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
Whose Vote Counts (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

As America chooses its next president in the midst of a historic pandemic, FRONTLINE investigates whose vote counts — and whose might not. In this documentary with Columbia Journalism Investigations and USA Today, New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb reports on allegations of voter disenfranchisement, how unfounded claims of extensive voter fraud entered the political mainstream, rhetoric and realities around mail-in ballots, and how the pandemic could impact turnout. With director June Cross, the Fred W. Friendly Professor of Media and Society at Columbia, and producer Thomas Jennings, Cobb scrutinizes one of the first elections held during the pandemic — Wisconsin’s April 2020 primary, which saw long lines, claims of disenfranchisement, an unprecedented number of absentee ballots and dueling legal battles between Republicans and Democrats. The film places the election within the context of America’s history around voting rights and suppression, and discovers lessons for the country as a whole as the November presidential contest approaches. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Whose Vote Counts (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety
Caught in India’s AIDS Crisis | India: The Sex Workers (full documentary) | FRONTLINE/World documentary thumbnailEN21 min
Caught in India’s AIDS Crisis | India: The Sex Workers (full documentary) | FRONTLINE/World

A 2004 examination of India’s AIDS crisis through the eyes of girls and young women sold into sex work, originally aired as part of the FRONTLINE/World series. (Aired 2004) Starting with “India: The Sex Workers,” we are making episodes from FRONTLINE/World’s archive newly available here on the original video platform and on pbs.org as part of an effort to make our past reporting widely accessible. Originally developed by FRONTLINE producers in conjunction with public television stations KQED San Francisco and WGBH Boston, FRONTLINE/World launched in 2002 as a national public TV series that turned its lens on the global community, covering countries and cultures rarely seen on American television. The series completed its final broadcast season in 2010. At the time this FRONTLINE/World documentary was filmed, more than two million women and girls were working in India’s sex trade, and being forced to navigate their country’s AIDS crisis. With more than 4.5 million HIV infections across India at the time, often, the women and girls’ only defense against HIV was convincing men to wear condoms. But frequently, the documentary revealed

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Caught in India’s AIDS Crisis | India: The Sex Workers (full documentary) | FRONTLINE/World

21 minSociety
Opioids, Inc. (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN53 min
Opioids, Inc. (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

Pushing opioids. Bribing doctors. Making millions. FRONTLINE and the Financial Times investigate how Insys Therapeutics profited from a fentanyl-based painkiller up to 100 times stronger than morphine — and how some Wall Street investors looked the other way. This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: “Opioids, Inc.” tells the inside story of how Insys profited from Subsys, a fast-acting fentanyl-based spray that's been linked to hundreds of deaths. Tactics included targeting high-prescribing doctors and nurse practitioners known as “whales,” misleading insurers, and holding contests for the sales team: the higher the prescription doses they got doctors to write, the larger the cash prize — despite the dangers to patients. But as the documentary traces in unprecedented detail, the scheme fell apart: With federal prosecutors using anti-racketeering laws designed to fight organized crime, Insys became the first pharmaceutical company to have its CEO sentenced to prison time in federal court in connection with the opioid crisis. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Opioids, Inc. (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

53 minSociety
Tracking Suspected Members of the Pakistani Taliban | Taliban Hunters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE documentary thumbnailEN19 min
Tracking Suspected Members of the Pakistani Taliban | Taliban Hunters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

Inside a counterterrorism police unit in Karachi, Pakistan, dedicated to tracking down suspected members of the Pakistani Taliban. (Aired 2015) In the nearly five years since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, there’s been a dramatic increase in attacks within neighboring Pakistan by the militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly called the Pakistani Taliban or TTP. Pakistan has accused Taliban-controlled Afghanistan of harboring the group and enabling it to launch cross-border attacks, which the Afghan government denies — and in recent weeks, the fight between the two countries escalated into what Pakistan’s government called “open war.” Against this volatile backdrop, FRONTLINE’s 2015 documentary “Taliban Hunters” offers relevant history on TTP and Pakistani security forces’ fight against it. This short documentary went inside a Karachi-based counterterrorism police unit dedicated to tracking down Taliban suspects. As the documentary reported, TTP first emerged in 2007 and used to have only a small, underground presence in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. But by the time the documentary aired, the group had been gaining ground in the city of over 20 million people, and carrying out suicide

FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Tracking Suspected Members of the Pakistani Taliban | Taliban Hunters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

19 minSociety