Documentaries
The real face of american universities
Documentary : 59 minutes
Directed by : Lauren Klein
Enquête Exclusive, M6, France
College in the United States is expensive : tuition costs up to 50,000 dollars a year. To promote their schools and seduce prospective students, many of the roughly 4000 universities produce promotional films on par with Hollywood trailers. To all who enter their gates, universities promise to forge a healthy spirit in a healthy body, because sports are a the heart of college traditions.
A school’s greatest pride is its athletes, many of whom are recruited for their professional-level talent Each year, universities go head to head in must-see matches, the schools sway to the sound of the school band and the cheering of its cheerleaders.
Other stars on campus… the ambitious young women who are elected Miss University. They are flaunted like Queens, selling the image of healthy youth while masking other, less glorious realities on campus.
To fight alcohol abuse, the stain on college life, many universities even have their own police officers. All means are worthy to stopping minors from consuming alcohol, even catching them red-handed. And campus police have another mission : putting an end to hazing, a crime punishable by prison time in the United States.
Behind closed walls of fraternities, everything is permitted, or almost Hazing is a pledging pratice used by some of them as a rite of passage to membership.
Between tradition and debauchery, where lies the true face of American universities ?
Kangaroo babies of Douala
Laquintinie hospital, in Douala.
Out of the 6000 babies born here every year, 150 are premature. For last 10 years, this hospital in Cameroon has put in place a programme called the Kangaroo method to help these early deliveries. Developed in Colombia in the 1970s, the programme significantly increases their survival rate.
Ofir Drori, a poacher's worst nightmare
Ofir Drori is a poacher’s worst nightmare. A former officer in the Israeli army, he now works with Cameroonian officials to hunt down the smugglers. It all started eight years ago with one meeting. Ofir was writing an article on bush meat when a trader offered to sell him a young female chimpanzee. Shocked, Ofir freed the animal and founded an organisation called LAGA, Last Great Apes. Today he and his team go undercover and break up the traffiking rings. Sometimes they manage to trap those right at the top of the chain.
Girls and gangs : the new face of Mexico's drug cartels
Documentary 54 minutes
Directors : Manon Quérouil et Stéphanie Brillant
Enquête Exclusive, M6
In today’s Mexico, the role of women in drugs cartels has evolved beyond that of the traditional girlfriend. As women, they arouse less suspicion transporting drugsand arms, enabling them to gain greater influence within the cartels. Some have risen up the ranks to become involved in money laundering or even murder. A handful have even reached the level of gang leaders, becoming icons.
How has this happened? Mexican drug cartels are notoriously macho so what has changed? An investigation into the changing face of Mexico’s drug cartels.