Television

PBS, compiled by Blase DiStefano

FLAG WARS & GEORGIE GIRL GO PUBLIC

Public Television’s P.O.V. series

• Flag Wars. Public television’s acclaimed P.O.V. series opens its new season with the feature film Flag Wars. Shot over four years, Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras’s film is a poignant account of competing economic interests between two historically oppressed groups, seen through the politics and pain of gentrification. This story takes place in Columbus, Ohio. Black residents, working-class or poor and often elderly, fight to hold on to their homes and heritage. Realtors and gay home-buyers see the enormous, often run-down homes as fixer-uppers. The inevitable clashes expose prejudice and self-interest on both sides, as well as the common dream to have a home to call your own. Both provocative and elegiac, Flag Wars is a candid, unvarnished portrait of privilege, poverty, and local politics taking place across America. Airs Tuesday, June 17, at 10 p.m. on Houston’s PBS station, KUHT.

• Georgie Girl. If you missed it at our film festival, now you can see Georgie Girl on the tube. Born George Beyer, one-time prostitute-turned-politician, Georgina Beyer was elected to New Zealand’s Parliament in 1999, becoming the world’s first transsexual to hold a national office. Amazingly, a mostly white, conservative, rural constituency voted this former sex worker of Maori descent into office. Chronicling Georgina’s transformations from farm boy to celebrated cabaret diva to grassroots community leader, Georgie Girl couples interviews and images of Beyer’s nightclub and film performances with footage showing a day in the life of this New Zealand member of Parliament. The film presents a remarkable account of Beyer’s precedent-setting accomplishment, revealing her intelligence, charisma, and humor. Airs Tuesday, June 24, at 11 p.m. on Houston’s PBS station, KUHT.

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