The cocaine industry in Peru is outgrowing its traditional region of production—the VRAEM—and expanding into other areas of the country like the Amazon lowlands and the Brazilian border. This is creating a new wave of violence for indigenous tribes who are refusing to work with the cartel.
We embed with local drug traffickers to see the cocaine refinement process firsthand, visit with an autodefensa militia group, and meet a local Amazonian community currently under attack.
Tir Dhondy explores the hidden world of functioning heroin users who claim to balance their recreational drug use with an otherwise normal lifestyle and asks the question: is it really possible to be a functioning heroin user?
A few years ago, a new synthetic drug called Flakka appeared in Florida. It wasn’t long before viral videos and sensationalized news reports of alleged Flakka overdoses started to spread across the internet, and people began comparing its effects to that of a zombie outbreak. One supposed incident involved a person who allegedly ate off a homeless man’s face on the side of a highway. The drug’s effects are often compared to that of bath salts, and include hallucinations, “superhuman” strength, and a state of “excited delirium” that is credited with driving the lunatic actions of some users.
However, Flakka can be easily altered or changed, and reports have emerged that its recent incarnation has surfaced under a slightly new chemical—and just as dangerous—structure. Matt Shea travels to Florida to meet both users and distributors to discover what’s really behind this zombie drug.
Women make up about 10% of Singapore’s prison population. And inside the walls of Institution A4, at the Changi Prison Complex, are about 800 female inmates, incarcerated for various offences. But as different as they and their offences may be, they all have one thing in common – drugs. Majority of the female inmates at Changi have used and abused drugs or committed crimes related to drugs.
In this new series, our cameras take us inside the nation’s only women’s prison to see what life is like for a group of diverse inmates. We also meet the all-female team of prison officers watching over them and witness the relationships they build in that world behind bars.
In March of 2019, Amos Dov Silver was arrested at a Kiev hotel, following a global sting operation. Silver, the creator of the drug-dealing mobile app “Telegrass”, has since been accused by the Isreali government of running a crime organization, but for thousands of Israelis Silver is a fearless folk hero, intent on exposing a corrupt and broken system.
Through exclusive footage of Silver, his family and his partners’ investigations, as well as secretly filmed footage of Silver in the Ukrainian prison, a polarizing portrayal of this man emerges: is he a champion of the people, or a lost soul corrupted by power?
Millions of people worldwide are physically dependent on commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs. While these drugs can provide effective short-term relief, pharmaceutical companies have hidden -from both doctors and patients- their dangerous side effects, addictive nature and long-term harm.
Combining cinema verité and investigative journalism, Medicating Normal follows the stories of those whose lives have been torn apart by the very medications they believed would help them. Expert testimony and undercover footage reveal a systemically corrupt industry.
Medicating Normal is the untold story of the disastrous consequences that can occur when profit-driven medicine intersects with human beings in distress.
In 2017 Petter (24) decides to end his life, but at the very last moment, is stopped by the police. His best friend and fellow film student Sverre is determined to help and suggests they make a film to keep Petter busy and focused on getting better. Equipped with a camera, they search the streets of Oslo to find out how other troubled souls deal with their lives.
With a naïve and spontaneous approach, they end up in dramatic and unpredictable situations. They meet Monica, whose past has led her to self-injurious behaviour. Oliver and Cornelia, both escaping their demons with alcohol and drugs, and Emma, who is transsexual, lesbian, and proud of who she is. They also meet Miriam, who becomes Petter’s girlfriend.
By getting to know their destructive patterns, Petter becomes aware of his own. By facing their problems, he sets off on a bumpy therapeutic journey, that eventually brings light into his darkness.
Young & Afraid is an authentic and raw documentary about choosing to live.
With the world fighting a deadly pandemic, another heartbreaking public health crisis is raging in North America. A new synthetic drug is killing more than gun crime, homicide and car accidents combined.
100 times stronger than heroin, the deadly opioid fentanyl is cheap, potent and small enough to send in the post. These market forces have seen it replacing the heroin supply, spreading unprecedented death, destruction and misery. And, like all epidemics, it is spreading fast.
The death toll has disproportionately affected the homeless and marginalised. And now, due to its strength and low cost, the drug is also starting to appear in party drugs, such as cocaine and cannabis – with fatal results.
We travel to Vancouver, the epicentre of the fentanyl epidemic to meet with health care workers, activists, fentanyl dealers and people who use it.
We learn of radical initiatives to fight back against a toxic drug supply and ask what the world should expect if the fentanyl epidemic spreads outside of North America.
There’s a dark side to the internet, and you probably don’t even know it exists. Look behind the positive veneer of social media, communication apps and platforms that have made our lives easier and more connected, and you’ll find criminals using the same apps and platforms to run illicit and dangerous activities.
Sextortion syndicates target victims globally through social media. Illegal wildlife trades thrive on social consumer marketplaces. Digital black markets operate anonymously using software designed for press privacy and freedom to sell drugs. Secret child pornography rings run rampant in secret, closed groups and private chats.
This explosive new series lifts the lid on how criminal organisations are thriving in this new digital frontier.
Episode One – The Queen of Sextortion
Sextortion was invented by one woman in the Philippines, Maria Caparas. She turned the idea of making friends online and recording explicit video chats into a profitable blackmail and extortion scam that could not exist without social media. She now runs a mini empire seemingly beyond the reach of authorities, that has led to many suicides.
Episode Two – Wildlife Clickbait
They may look like ordinary posts of exotic pets for sale on social media. But they are feeding a growing trade in illegal and endangered animals in Malaysia and beyond. This criminal industry is worth billions and is jeopardising attempts to protect endangered species.
Episode Three – Black Market Boom
Drugs, guns, counterfeit documents and much more are sold on dark web marketplaces that run on anonymous browsers and using cryptocurrency. AlphaBay was the biggest marketplace, transacting over US$800,000 in a day enabling its founder to live a luxury lifestyle in anonymity, until international law enforcement caught up with him.
Episode Four – The Candyman
It was one of 640 million closed groups on Facebook. Hiding behind the anonymity, the creator of child pornography group Loli Candy and its 7,000 members hid their activities on Facebook and Whatsapp – the dissemination of horrifying images of abuse. While they were eventually bought to justice many more thrive.
Ayhuasca: Expansion of Consciousness, tells the story of Ayahuasca, from its emergence in the Amazonian Forest, to its popularity with the Santo Daime religion, and on to its arrival in urban centres.
Combining scientific, religious and anthropological perspectives on the use of Ayahuasca in modern society, and in parallel with the director Fausto Noro’s own healing process, Ayhuasca: Expansion of Consciousness provides for the first time, a holistic, yet balanced view of this controversial subject.
“Biemans stays calm at all times and defers to his subjects. The result is rich and integral television, sometimes moving and always captivating”
De Volkskrant
Also available as a five part series:
Episode One:
Episode Two:
Episode Three:
Episode Four:
Episode Five:
The Yakuza, Japan’s organised crime syndicates, are a dying breed. Their members are aging and the government of Japan has launched a large-scale crackdown on them to eradicate them once and for all. But who are the Yakuza? The cancer of a nation or a necessary evil in a country with one of the lowest crime rates in the industrialised world?
Undoubtedly the Yakuza are involved in crimes including extortion, fraud, murder, drugs & gambling. However, Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the industrialised world, with crimes related to drugs -officially against the Yakuza code of honour- or street gangs strikingly low, a fact that many contribute to the presence of the Yakuza. Deeply rooted in Japanese society, they are seen as a necessary evil and ‘problem solvers’. They have been around since the 1700s and were said to protect the weak from the strong, following a rigorous code of honour. Several clans even contributed aid for the victims of the recent earthquake and Tsunami, all reasons why the public perception of the Yakuza in Japan is not solely a negative one.
Unlike the Mafia, the Yakuza is a legal, public group making them relatively easy to check on. Their offices are public, their members registered by the police and Yakuza members went as far as freely admitting their guilt in cases of crime investigations, as a part of their code of honour. In reaction to strict government measures against them, the Yakuza has ceased all cooperation with the law. As the police concentrate their resources on the Yakuza, many criminals simply don’t register with clans anymore and start operating underground, evading the grasp of police. A clear trend is emerging towards a new structure of organised crime in Japan, resulting in a steep decrease in the numbers of the traditional Yakuza while the underground is soaring – including foreign Russian and Chinese mafia’s.
This documentary deals with the struggle of the Yakuza for its survival and the restructuring of the organized crime scene in Japan. Furthermore, unprecedented access to the secret world of the Yakuza gives you an insight on who the Yakuza really are: criminals, outcasts, but also family men and a part of Japanese society.