The Confessions (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

It’s been 15 years since the rebellion in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s government began. “The Regime” examined how the uprising started and the brutal crackdown that followed. (Aired 2011) On March 6, 2011, young boys painted messages on the walls of a school 60 miles south of Syria’s capital, Damascus. “Freedom, freedom and freedom, only,” read one message. “Down with the corrupt Assad,” read another. Soon after, the boys were rounded up by the government’s secret police. Their fathers went to see the police chief, a cousin of Syria’s then-president, Bashar al-Assad, and begged him to release their children. Airing later that year, “The Regime” examined what happened to the boys, and how outrage over their fate helped to fuel the Syrian uprising. “That very instance of repression, of torture, seemed to galvanize the town itself,” the late reporter Anthony Shadid said in the documentary. “And almost from that moment, the uprising seemed to gain momentum.” As Syrians took to the streets to protest and to call for more freedoms, the swift and brutal response by Assad’s security forces followed

FRONTLINE goes inside the fight over abortion. Drawing on a landmark FRONTLINE film from the 1980s, the documentary takes a look at both sides of the abortion divide in a community still embroiled in the conflict. (Aired 2019) In 1983 – 10 years after Roe v. Wade – a landmark FRONTLINE documentary, “Abortion Clinic”, showed the experience of and conflict over abortion like never before on American television. Nearly 40 years later, FRONTLINE returned to Pennsylvania to look at both sides of the abortion debate in “The Abortion Divide.” From producers Mark Obenhaus and Elizabeth Leiter, “The Abortion Divide” offers a window into the sometimes difficult and deeply personal choices women face with unplanned pregnancy – and examines the steadfast belief of the anti-abortion community that there should be no choice at all. 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 Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; and

In this two-hour documentary, FRONTLINE goes inside President Trump’s fight against the investigation of his campaign and traces the dramatic events that led the White House and the nation to the brink of a Constitutional crisis. (Aired 2018) In the 2018 documentary, Trump’s Showdown, filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team (America After 9/11, Bannon’s War) methodically reveal how an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election grew to threaten Donald Trump’s presidency. The film draws on more than 60 in-depth interviews with former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, Trump insiders, attorneys, authors and journalists. Thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of archival footage pull together the entire story – from the days just before Trump’s inauguration to the increasingly chaotic events that ensnared powerful members of Trump’s inner circle and threatened the president himself. 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 Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

FRONTLINE goes inside the showdown between U.S. President Donald Trump and the courts over presidential power. President Donald Trump’s allies, opponents and experts talk about how he is testing the extent of his power, the legal pushback and the impact on the rule of law. “Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law” is a FRONTLINE production with Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser, Vanessa Fica and Philip Bennett. The writers are Michael Kirk & Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Nelson Alexander. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath. Explore additional reporting on “Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law” on our website: FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon

Decades after the Vietnam War shattered his childhood, journalist Nguyen Qui Duc traveled to his homeland and documented the changes he witnessed in the country. (Aired 2003) Decades ago, the Vietnam War shattered Nguyen Qui Duc’s childhood. Over the years, Nguyen, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, returned to his homeland as a journalist, reporting on the country’s culture and establishing connections with writers and artists living there. In 2003, he documented a journey through Vietnam for FRONTLINE/World, looking, he said, “for home, for a bit of myself, for a country that always exists in my memory.” As Nguyen traveled to different parts of the country in “Vietnam: Looking for Home,” he shared his reflections about the nation: “It’s easy to remember Vietnam has a habit of adopting and resisting changes. The culture, the people, will survive.” Several years after “Vietnam: Looking for Home” aired, Nguyen returned to Vietnam, this time for good. He filed occasional dispatches with FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World, and opened an influential arts and culture salon that pushed the boundaries of Vietnam’s communist government. Nguyen

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