Masterpiece fans: if you’ve missed out on the Zen series (or just couldn’t get enough), all three episodes are now available to watch online! Vendetta, Cabal, and Ratking will be available through August 30.

Starring Rufus Sewell (Aurelio Zen), Caterina Murino (Tania Moretti), and Ed Stoppard (Vincenzo Fabri), Zen is based on the Aurelio Zen mysteries by Michael Dibdin.

Watch the series here:

Vendetta:

Cabal:

Ratking:

Every 10 years, following the release of new census data, congressional seats are reapportioned based on changes in population.  And that’s where the political fun begins…

The latest census figures show that New York state’s population growth slowed in the last decade, and as a result the state is losing two seats in the Assembly. Under New York state law, each voting district population must be within 5 percent of the average district size, which is calculated by dividing New York’s total population by the number of Senate and House districts, give or take 5 percent. The redistricting process is designed to equally distribute political power and services among different communities — but lawmakers employ increasingly complex methods of gerrymandering to keep their constituents’ voting strength at the same level it was before redistricting.

Read the full story on MetroFocus.

Photo credit: ITVS

In Our Summer in Tehran, Jewish filmmaker Justine Shapiro and her six-year-old son Mateo experience the daily life of three middle class families from very different backgrounds in Tehran, Iran. Here, Shapiro discusses the hurdles she encountered in making the film, as well as the decision to bring her son along for the journey.

Our Summer in Tehran airs Saturday, August 13 at 3 p.m. on WLIW21.

Interview by Abigail Licad, courtesy of ITVS. For more ITVS film content, visit their site.

Why did you decide to visit Iran with your son Mateo?

The film begins with these lines in voice over: “I want to meet Iranian mothers in their homes before our sons meet on the battlefield.” I was in pre-production for this film in 2006 and the shoot was in 2007, at a time when there was a great deal of media coverage around the possibility that Iran would be the next country in line for war. So I felt some urgency about going there and showing a human side of Iran, before a war began.

This film is very much about the relationships between families. I didn’t want to go to Iran as a journalist or as a single woman or as a travel host. I wanted the Iranian families to regard me as one of them: just another tired mom who, like them, strives to balance motherhood with work. Mateo’s sweet and curious nature opened doors and hearts. I was so glad that he and I had this experience together.

Can you describe the most surprising experience you had while in Tehran?

SURPRISE NUMBER 1: That my shoot came to a halt just 7 weeks into it. The Intelligence Ministry gave us 48 hours to leave Iran. And then, at the airport, the Intelligence Ministry confiscated ALL my material (75 hours of tapes)! Once I returned home I spent 4 months calling the various Ministries trying to convince them to release the tapes.

Finally, Iran relented — with huge caveats: I could get back the footage but I’d have to come to Iran, and edit the film there. So I flew to Iran three times in 2008 to edit Our Summer in Tehran, leaving Mateo behind. Each time I met with an official of the Intelligence Ministry. Finally at the end of the third trip this official gave me permission to bring home all my tapes and hard drives. And the edit began again!

SURPRISE NUMBER 2: The closest friendship I formed was with a devout Muslim — a family’s matriarch, Marjan Torabi, whose husband worked for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. I didn’t reveal my Jewish heritage to her until the two of us had formed a bond. Marjan wanted to take me inside the most holy shrine in Iran and I wasn’t sure if Jews could enter. I felt that she should know that I was Jewish before taking me inside. So I told her, on-camera, while she was buying a chador for me. You have to wear a chador to enter this shrine. I was nervous. But she was, and is, very accepting. She said to me ‘We are both people of the book.’ We email each other every few weeks.

What insight from your trip do you most hope your son will take away and carry into adulthood?

At the end of the film I tell Mateo “I hope that you will continue to move through this world, as you did in Iran, in wonder rather than in fear.”

“Wonder” is being able to imagine possibilities. I think it’s helpful for young people to have experiences that inspire curiosity and wonder, and where they can get, at some level, that they are part of a much bigger world.

We have maps all over our house – even our tablemats are maps. Mateo’s Dad lives in Mexico City and we’ve spent a lot of time there. I think that in part his sense of wonder is also an appreciation of the differences, and a sense that the world is not fair. Why do some people live in houses and others live in cardboard boxes? So “wonder” is not necessarily all smiles and joy, it can also awe at the mystery of injustice. We are all on this planet together, and yet we are leading our lives amidst wildly divergent circumstances.

Why does the mixture of sports and building incite such furious debate?

The current dispute over whether to replace the aging Nassau Coliseum has elicited significantly more controversy than most big development projects, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to Tri-state residents. Similar controversies have consumed the planning and construction of two other arenas in recent years: Atlantic Yards’ Barclay Center in Brooklyn and Newark’s Prudential Center in New Jersey. MetroFocus looks at why these projects, which pit the public’s love of sports against its fear of economic waste and exclusionary political processes, continue to get built.

Read the full story on MetroFocus.

If you were in New York City in the ’60s, there’s a good chance you’ll remember the wild psychedelic light shows that painted the walls of the Fillmore East. On second thought, maybe you won’t. Allow us to take you back…

It’s 1968. Bill Graham, the legendary promoter behind the bi-coastal Fillmore music venues, invites a young multimedia artist named Joshua White and his team, The Joshua Light Show, to perform their liquid light shows on stage with the likes of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. A legend is born.

Read more of this story on MetroFocus.

Can Long Island compete with Californian or European wines? Wine expert and former MSNBC columnist Edward Deitch thinks so – check out his Top 5 Long Island Summer Wines – With a Side of History on MetroFocus.

This year, WNET has racked up 11 Primetime Emmy nominations, in addition to receiving two of the five nominations in the Outstanding Nature Programming category from the News & Documentary Emmys.

Congratulations and good luck to all of our nominees!

2011 Primetime Emmy Nominations:

Outstanding Cinematography For Nonfiction Programming

American Masters • Troubadours: Carole King / James Taylor & The Rise Of The Singer-Songwriter • PBS • A Starcon LLC production in association with Thirteen’s American Masters for WNET.org

-Nicola Marsh, Director of Photography

-Arlene Nelson, Director of Photography

Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special

Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (Great Performances) • PBS • Ellen M. Krass Productions and Thirteen in association with WNET.org

-Lonny Price, Directed by

Outstanding Directing For Nonfiction Programming

American Masters • A Letter To Elia/Reflecting On Kazan • PBS • A Production of Sikelia Productions with Far Hills Pictures in association with Thirteen’s American Masters for WNET.org

-Martin Scorsese, Directed by

-Kent Jones, Directed by

Outstanding Picture Editing For Nonfiction Programming

American Masters • LENNONYC • PBS • Co-production of Two Lefts Don’t Make A Right Productions, Dakota Group, Ltd and Thirteen’s American Masters in association with WNET.org for PBS

-Ed Barteski, Editor

-Deborah Peretz, Editor

Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score)

American Masters • John Muir In The New World • PBS • Global Village Media and Thirteen’s American Masters in association with WNET.org

-Garth Neustadter, Music by

Outstanding Music Direction

Harry Connick Jr., In Concert On Broadway (Great Performances) • PBS • Produced by Cinemusica and FogoLabs Corp for Conn-X Productions, Inc. in association with Thirteen for WNET.org

-Harry Connick Jr., Music Director

Hitman Returns: David Foster and Friends (Great Performances) • PBS • A Production of Warner Bros. Records and Thirteen for WNET

-David Foster, Music Director

Outstanding Nonfiction Series

American Masters • PBS • Co-production of Two Lefts Don’t Make A Right Productions, Dakota Group, Ltd and Thirteen’s American Masters in association with WNET.org for PBS

-Susan Lacy, Executive Producer

-Stanley Buchthal, Executive Producer

-Michael Cohl, Executive Producer

-Prudence Glass, Series Producer

-Julie Sacks, Supervising Producer

-Michael Epstein, Producer

-Jessica Levin, Producer

Outstanding Sound Editing For Nonfiction Programming (Single Or Multi-Camera)

American Masters • Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides • PBS • Produced by Thirteen’s American Masters for WNET

-Deborah Wallach, Sound Editor

Outstanding Sound Mixing For Nonfiction Programming

American Masters • LENNONYC • PBS • Co-production of Two Lefts Don’t Make A Right Productions, Dakota Group, Ltd and Thirteen’s American Masters in association with WNET.org for PBS

-Ed Campbell, Re-Recording Mixer

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special

-Don Pasquale (Great Performances At The Met) • PBS • A Metropolitan Opera production in association with PBS and WNET.org

-Emmett Loughran, Technical Director

-Miguel Armstrong, Camera

-Joseph DeBonis, Camera

-Manny Gutierrez, Camera

-Shaun Harkins, Camera

-John Kosmaczewski, Camera

-Bob Long, Camera

-Jay Millard, Camera

-Alain Onesto, Camera

-David Smith, Camera

-Larry Solomon, Camera

-Ron Washburn, Camera

-Mark Whitman, Camera

-Anthony DeFonzo, Video Control

-Matty Randazzo, Video Control

-Paul Ranieri, Video Control

News & Documentary Emmys:

Outstanding Nature Programming

Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air

Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom

Join host Jon Meacham to explore one of the late Richard Holbrooke’s greatest accomplishments, The American Academy In Berlin. Holbrooke’s Inspiration: The American Academy In Berlin takes an in-depth look at this unique forum, where American and German scholars and policymakers come together to exchange ideas.

Watch the full program:

Caterina Murino and Rufus Sewell (photo credit: BBC for Masterpiece)

This Sunday, Masterpiece Mystery returns to WLIW21 with Zen, based on the Aurelio Zen mysteries by Michael Dibdin. The series follows Zen, an honest cop who brings justice to modern-day Italy, even when his bosses are on the side of the lawbreakers.

Zen stars Rufus Sewell (Aurelio Zen), Caterina Murino (Tania Moretti), and Ed Stoppard (Vincenzo Fabri). The series premieres Tuesday, July 19 at 8:50 p.m. with “Vendetta,” followed by “Cabal” (July 26) and “Ratking” (August 2).

Watch a preview:
(View full post to see video)

Go behind-the-scenes of the series with the cast:

We recently spoke with John Servidio, General Manager of WLIW, and producer Sally Garner to discuss the making of Treasures of New York: Lincoln Center with Patti LuPone. The show goes behind the curtain of the city’s most prominent arts venue to reveal it’s rich and unique history and architecture, as well as its transformation over the years.

Treasures of New York: Lincoln Center with Patti LuPone airs Thursday, July 28 at 7 p.m. on WLIW21.

Enter to win an exclusive guided tour of Lincoln Center.

What do you think differentiates Lincoln Center from other cultural institutions and performance spaces in New York City?

John Servidio: Well, it’s recognized as an arts icon around the world, not just in New York City. It has numerous houses showing multiple events throughout the year, all of the highest quality.

Sally Garner: It’s one stop shopping for the best of everything. But the most surprising difference is what you find there for free or almost free. Check out the calendar for any day at www.lincolncenter.org and you’ll see what I mean.

Lincoln Center granted the production team access to archival footage rarely seen in public. Is there anything that you were surprised to learn from this film, particularly about Lincoln Center’s history or transformation?

JS: There’s one segment in the film where they were checking the acoustics of Alice Tully Hall when they were building it, and no one knew that they brought in the co-artistic director of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel, to play the cello and test the hall at two or three o’clock in the morning. It was a big secret thing, and they finished the hall after that test.

SG: When I first watched fifty-year-old films of Leonard Bernstein and opera star Risë Stevens explaining why New York needed to build Lincoln Center, I knew we’d be able to tell a story many New Yorkers have never heard. Lincoln Center wasn’t just new construction, it was actually a whole new idea called a performing arts center. The films are a glimpse of a very different time in New York’s history.

Patti LuPone (Photo credit: Ethan Hill)

How did Patti LuPone come to be involved with the project?

SG: Publicist Barbara Carroll, at Lincoln Center Theater, gave me a copy of Patti’s new book, “Patti LuPone, A Memoir” and pointed out that Patti was not only a graduate of The Juilliard School’s first drama division class but that she had also performed on most of Lincoln Center’s stages. It seemed like a perfect fit and at the same time, a bit of a long shot. But as a journalist, I learned a long time ago that you won’t get an interview or an answer unless you ask. In this case, I got an almost instant yes thanks to Patti’s love of Lincoln Center and her publicist, Philip Rinaldi, who loved the idea for the program.

Can you tell us what’s next on Treasures of New York?

JS: Treasures of New York is a series that’s going to deal with the well known, and some of the not well known pieces of New York City, and their history. It could go any where from Lincoln Center to Pratt to NYU, to the Empire State Building, to the Highline, or even areas of the city like Soho or Wall Street. What it does is bring out a lot of the things we don’t know about the city that we walk around and see every day. Treasures of New York shows how these are truly treasures, because we go to places that we take for granted, but all over the world they’re considered treasures.

What do you hope audiences will take from this program?

JS: A realization that they live in a city with a rich cultural history, and that they are watching a station that brings that rich cultural history into their home.