Acclaimed actress Nikki Beharie will host the ninth season of the enlightening and award-winning public television show AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange. This season, the series presents a slate of documentaries to inspire and uplift, films that show how individuals and groups are positively impacting their communities and families and that capture the importance of home.
The program premieres Monday, Jan. 16—Martin Luther King, Jr. Day— in Dallas on KERA at 7 p.m. with new episodes airing weekly through Feb. 15.
Beharie is best known for her star turn in the hit Fox TV show Sleepy Hollow and for her for breakout role in director Steve McQueen’s Shame opposite Michael Fassbender.
George Potter and Andy Adkins’ An American Ascent in the Jan. 16 episode highlights the first African-American team of climbers as they attempt to summit Denali, North America’s highest peak, challenging their personal limits as well as society’s notions of what a mountaineer looks like.
The moving Intore, by Eric Kabera (Jan. 23), demonstrates the impact a new generation of artists in Rwanda is having in healing a nation that suffered greatly in the horrific 100-day genocide in 1994.
Tyler Johnston and Miquel Galofré’s beautiful My Father’s Land (Jan. 30) follows an illegal immigrant in the Bahamas and the lengths to which he goes to return to his native Haiti to see his ailing 103-year-old father, while exploring issues of immigration and human rights.
Eva Weber’s important documentary Black Out (Feb. 6) shines the spotlight on schoolchildren in Guinea who trek for miles each day during exam season to find places with light so they can study and better themselves and their families. Black Out will air with Olivia Peace’s narrative short Pangaea, a moving story of a young girl who was trapped on a rooftop after Hurricane Katrina.
The series finale is the heartwarming Omo Child: The River and the Bush by John Rowe (Feb. 13) which shows the positive impact one determined individual can have on his community to save lives. Shot over five years, the film follows Lale Labuko, from the Kara tribe in the Om33o Valley, Ethiopia, as he works to create a cultural shift in his tribe by ending an ancient practice that will save a generation of children.
“This season of AfroPoP features compelling programs from both the U.S. and around the globe. We look forward to sharing these stories with American audiences,” said APT Director Business Development & International Sales Tom Davison.
