Jon Alpert

Open Space was a programme produced by the BBC's Community Programme Unit. It was an evolution of the earlier Open Door series of programmes allowing minority points of view to make a television programme about issues of concern to them. The programmes were transmitted on BBC 2 in a mid-evening slot and would attract audiences between 500,000 and 1,500,000. In a typical year there would be two or three groups of up to eight Open Space programmes each usually half an hour long. A producer, an assistant and a budget of up to £25,000 would be allocated to each programme.

A five-year portrait of Junior Rios' descent into the black hole of drug addiction which will ultimately cost him everything.

Filmmaker Jon Alpert turns the camera on his own family in this intimate portrait of his aging father. As illness and declining vitality reshape his life, the film captures a deeply personal struggle with dignity, humor, and the bonds that hold a family together.

With more than 50 million Latinos now living in the United States, Latinos are taking their seat at the table as the new American power brokers in the world of entertainment, business, politics and the arts. As Latinos’ influence in American society has soared, they have entered mainstream American culture, and the proof is in the music. Executive produced by legendary music mogul Tommy Mottola, THE LATIN EXPLOSION: A NEW AMERICA features a dazzling array of artists at the center of Latino cultural power and influence, including Marc Anthony, Emilio Estefan Jr., Gloria Estefan, José Feliciano, Eva Longoria, George Lopez, Jennifer Lopez, Los Lobos, Cheech Marin, Ricky Martin, Rita Moreno, Pitbull, Romeo Santos, Shakira, Thalía and Sofía Vergara. Narrated by John Leguizamo.

When Diana Levine went to the hospital in April 2000 seeking relief for a severe migraine headache, the professional musician and children's record producer never imagined that faulty drug labeling would result in the amputation of her arm. Today she is at the center of a closely-watched Supreme Court case and a national debate about the federal courts and corporate accountability.

Redemption is a documentary about New York City's canners - the men and women who survive by redeeming bottles and cans they collect from curbs, garbage cans and apartment complexes. You've seen them combing through the trash, but never got to meet them. The film is an unexpected and intimate look at post-industrial gleaners, struggling at the edge of our society.

A look at the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Boot Camp Program, which allows young inmates undergo a strict six-week course in order to learn from their past mistakes and make a better future for themselves.

This follow-up to the 1989 documentary ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME revisits three of the original subjects in New Jersey during a five-year period in the 1990s. We share in their triumphs and setbacks as they navigate lives of poverty, drug abuse, AIDS, and petty crime.

On March 13, 2022, filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed by Russian soldiers, the first American journalist to die while reporting on the war in Ukraine. His younger brother and collaborator, Craig Renaud, recovered Brent’s body and his final recordings from Ukraine and brought them back to their childhood home in Arkansas. As Brent’s journey to his final resting place unfolds, the film chronicles the years he and his brother spent covering some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts.

An intimate documentary that looks at the vicious cycles of drug addiction and street crime in one of the roughest parts of New Jersey.

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

Produced by DCTV in response to what its makers saw as distorted media portrayals of New York City’s Chinatown, "Chinatown: Immigrants in America" (1976) offers an unvarnished portrait of an immigrant community confronting poverty, labor exploitation, and cultural displacement. Directed by Jon Alpert and Yoko Maruyama, the film documents restaurant, garment, and service workers enduring low wages and unsafe conditions while struggling to build lives in America.

It has been called "the saddest acre in America." It is also one of the most sacred. Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for young men and women who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This emotional documentary filmed entirely in Section 60 provides intimate glimpses of family and friends who have come to honor their loved ones.

A rare look inside Cuba’s LGBT community, this compelling film follows the efforts of Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, as she champions LGBT social reforms and acceptance of diversity.

Documentary on Antonio "King Tone" Fernandez and his gang, the Latin Kings, whose main target was to protect Latin people.

During the upheaval surrounding the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, filmmaker Jon Alpert travels across the Philippines documenting everyday life amid political crisis. Through encounters with citizens from all walks of life, the film reveals the stark inequalities and tensions shaping a nation on the brink of revolution.

Not since the invention of the Internet has there been such a disruptive technology as Bitcoin. Bitcoin's early pioneers sought to blur the lines of sovereignty and the financial status quo. After years of underground development Bitcoin grabbed the attention of a curious public, and the ire of the regulators the technology had subverted. After landmark arrests of prominent cyber criminals Bitcoin faces its most severe adversary yet, the very banks it was built to destroy.

Filmed over two decades in the life of Vern Sager and his family, The Last Cowboy captures a family's struggle to preserve a vanishing way of life as cowboys and Indians in the Badlands of South Dakota.

With suicide rates among active military servicemen and veterans currently on the rise, this documentary brings urgent attention to the invisible wounds of war. Drawing on personal stories of American soldiers whose lives and psyches were torn asunder by the horrors of battle and PTSD, the documentary chronicles the lingering effects of combat stress and post-traumatic stress on military personnel and their families throughout American history, from the Civil War through today's conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the first American television crew allowed into Cuba since the 1959 revolution, filmmakers Jon Alpert and Keiko Tsuno travel across the island documenting daily life under Fidel Castro. Through interviews with farmers, workers, and families, the film offers a rare ground-level portrait of Cuban society fifteen years after the revolution.