Old and bold

The shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, unleashed a wave of mass protests that shook the whole of the United States. His death was the catalyst that set off an already highly explosive atmosphere in the town. RTD visits Ferguson to hear what its residents have to say about the issues in their community.

For some people, the so-called ‘Tower of David’ is just an unfinished skyscraper. For others, it’s an asylum for robbers and murderers. About 800 families call this place home. RTD presents a film about people that live in this tower.

They’re only children, but they already have medals for bravery. They saved someone else's lives while risking their own. A burning house, a frozen river, or a bullet. There is no threat big enough for the young and the brave when others are in danger.

Karina, who calls herself a living Barbie doll, enjoys a glamorous, carefree lifestyle. She believes she is envied and looked up to by most young women. And her whole life is coloured pink.

They serve a prison sentence, but they committed no crime. They are born behind barbed wire and all they can hope for is their mothers' love. But love is not a regular guest in jail. Are they atoning their mothers' sins or standing on a path to new ones?

Despite being born with a crippling disease that left his body withered and tiny, Grigori is able to find his true love Anya on the Internet and they get married.

Every August the Pine Ridge annual powwow is held to celebrate the culture and traditions of the Lakota people, but it looks like a feast in a time of plague, as most of them have lost all hope of getting through the dire straits. 

Prisoners of a psychiatric ward. They are criminal offenders suffering from mental disorders. Can art therapy relieve their troubled souls and minds? Artist Alexandr Semyonov gives them a chance to change and get better. 

A stranger in his homeland and a stranger in his adopted country, a former Soviet soldier had to stay in Afghanistan for 29 years after being captured by the Mujahideen and made to fight on the side of his country's enemy. In this film, he finally comes back to his native land, but is he welcomed?

As a transsexual, Yury Ovodov or "Julia" believes that he is actually a woman, and his decision to act the part has alienated his family and stunted his career prospects. However, he claims that he wouldn't be able to live with himself as a male. RTd follows a person trapped between two identities as he seeks acceptance, both from his community and from himself.

Juno was a picture of success; he had been married for 29 years and had a PhD in biophysics, but never felt completely at ease. He took the bold decision to realign his gender. This new documentary, by RT America correspondent and director Alexey Brazhnikov, delves into transgender life in the US and explores how people face their problems, past, present and future.

They joined the army driven by a desire to serve their country and its people. However, the wars they were sent to made them re-evaluate everything they believed in. Now, US veterans are trying to come to terms with their past and learn how to live among civilians again.  It turns out, they’ve no one to rely on but each other.

Meet a man who has taken in dozens of children that have been failed by their parents and the system. With tough love he is teaching them how to get over their pasts and succeed in life.

An homage to “women of a certain age”! Their beauty is much more than skin deep, enhanced by wisdom, life experience and achievements. A beauty pageant for women over 50 inspires RTD writer and director, Alyona Simikina, to document her own mother’s life.

All across the USA people are rising up against fracking. They don’t believe the process is safe and think it causes wide-scale land contamination. Ever more extraction sites are being approved and developed with new plant being built in once idyllic landscapes. 

Pastor and pilgrim Gennady Mokhnenko - a foster father of 32 former street boys, travels to Africa to sponsor a 33rd son, a boy from the streets of Kenya. He brings along three of his foster sons and a team of volunteers. They work in orphanages and hospitals, bring money to provide medications, food and clothes in their mission to help Kenyan street kids and orphans in their day-to-day struggles. RT’s camera crew follows them in Kenya to hear about their experiences in this troubled part of the world.

In Russian prison colonies inmates often receive an education, sometimes specializing in a completely new profession. For a few, their talents manifest i n ways they would never have realized in the days before they wore prison clothing. 

When the local men prove to be too unreliable in a small Russian village, it's up to the women to take control, doing everything from administrating the community to running one of the local dairy farms. 

A Tokal is an additional wife in a polygamous Kazakh marriage. Only a decade ago, to have a tokal in Kazakhstan was considered shameful. Nowadays though, polygamy is gaining popularity throughout the country, becoming a more common-place and accepted practice.