The Bridge to Premiere on the Hallmark Channel
On Sunday, December 30th at 11:00 am

The Bridge, a one hour reality-documentary program, will be broadcast nationally on December 30th through Faith and Values Media on The Hallmark Channel. The show will be broadcast in the Middle East early in 2008.

This is a pilot for a future series of programs featuring exchanges between people in the U.S. and countries throughout the Middle East.

The program follows two Americans and two Egyptians as they trade places and experience the challenges of day-to-day life in a new culture and learn to see the world from a different perspective. The show explores aspects of both cultures while revealing the common humanity of the show’s participants.

While reality TV programs usually emphasize the differences and individual weaknesses of participants, The Bridge focuses on what the participants’ have in common with each other. Through this experience, they learn to understand their differences and to appreciate the commonalities they share.

Viewers follow the journey of Spirit, an Atlanta radio talk-show therapist as she gets to know Bothaina, a television talk-show host from Cairo. The second pairing is Mike, an Alabama cowboy, and Mahmoud, an Egyptian horse trainer. They spend two weeks in each other’s country, visiting homes, getting to know family, attending new cultural events, and experiencing new customs.

The Bridge is a co-production of Common Ground Productions (Washington), Video Cairo SAT (Cairo), Downtown Community Television Center (New York), and Baraka Productions (New York).

Common Ground Productions, the media division of Search for Common Ground, uses radio, television and internet programming to transform the way the world deals with conflict. John Marks and Deborah Jones are Executive Producers for CGP.

DCTV’s Emmy winning team Jon Alpert and Matt O’Neill (Bagdad ER) are co-producers. Tami Alpert and Shannon Sonenstein direct. DCTV is America’s largest and most honored non-profit community media center.

Video Cairo SAT is a TV broadcast service provider. As one of the first commercial media enterprises in the Arab world, VCS is a leading sponsor of media development for social progress and dialogue in the Middle East.

Baraka Productions is a New York based Film Production and Media Services Company which produces films, television shows and documentaries that deal with social and political issues.

Check local listings for TV broadcast stations in your area.

For additional information contact:
Susan Koscis
Director of Communications
Search for Common Ground
Washington, DC
(202) 777-2215
skoscis@sfcg.org