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Screen Time: Week of March 4

By Tom White


From Amy Berg's "The Case Against Adnan Syed," which premieres March 10 on HBO. Photo: Olivia Fougeirol/HBO

Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.

 

The Case Against Adnan Syed, a four-part series directed by Amy Berg, reinvestigates the case behind the hit 2014 podcast Serial, which examined the 1999 murder of 18-year-old Baltimore County high school student Hae Min Lee, and the subsequent conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed. The HBO series, which premieres March 10, evolves from the genesis of their high school relationship to the original police investigation and trial, and moves into the current day as Syed faces the prospect of a new trial after almost 20 years in jail.

New on Field of Vision and The GuardianThe Trial, from Johanna Hamilton, follows three lawyers representing Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the five men facing the death penalty for plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Watch Alka Pradhan, James Connell and Lt. Col. Sterling Thomas as they prepare for what is being called "the biggest criminal trial in US  history" at Guantanamo Bay.

Now streaming on Netflix, Period. End of Sentence, the Academy Award-winning short from Rayka Zehtabchi, takes viewers to a village outside of Delhi, India, where women are fighting to eradicate the stigma and shame attached to menstruation by installing a sanitary pad machine in the village.

Available March 8 on VOD and DVD, Norah Shairo’s Time for Ilhan chronicles the inspiring journey of Ilhan Omar, the first Somali Muslim to be elected to a state office in America. Her hard-fought battle helped set the stage for her next triumph: a seat in the US House of Representatives.

Brave Girl Rising, a new short from Girl Rising, the nonprofit behind the global campaign for girls’ education and empowerment, premieres on March 8, which is International Women’s Day. The film tells the story of Nasro, a Somali refugee living in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.