The World According to Sesame Street

Tomorrow, October 24, 1996, PBS will broadcast The World According to Sesame Street as the premiere of the Fall 2006 Independent Lens series. It premiered in the documentary competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. We are watching - and taping this one - even though it has nothing to do with Chinese version, Zhima Jie.

Our local PBS station listed it this way:

Tuesday, October 24 at 9pm
Independent Lens: "The World According to Sesame Street"
Follows three producers from Sesame Workshop to Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa, where they localize the popular children's television program with indigenous songs, puppets, and curricula.

For more on Sisimpur (the Bangladeshi version) or Takalani (The South African version) see Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I did not relaize that Takalani Sesame was the first to have an HIV character - in 2002, but Time magazine in Europe wrote about it in "Meet Kami, the world's first HIV-positive Muppet and the latest recruit in South Africa's AIDS war".

Particpant Productions on their website, starts, "The World According to Sesame Street is a feature-length documentary, in cooperation with "Sesame Street," that explores the drama and complexities behind producing international versions of the world’s most-watched children’s television program. The documentary shows that social impact and change can come from the most unlikely sources, including a team of Muppets.

The Rotten Tomatoes review starts:
"The World According to Sesame Street runs counter to the usual critiques of the malevolent effects of the export of American culture. Contrary to films whose examination of artistic production and/or the process of media creation is, frankly, often quite indulgent and boring, this documentary by Linda Goldstein Knowlton and Linda Hawkins Costigan is both insightful and uncommonly revealing. more »

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes