Peace Corps Doc "A TOWERING TASK" Now Streaming & On DVD!

Narrated by Annette Bening and directed by Alana DeJoseph, A Towering Task tells the remarkable story of the Peace Corps and takes viewers on a journey of what it means to be a global citizen.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave Americans the opportunity to serve their country in a new way by forming the Peace Corps. Since then, more than 240,000 of them have traveled to more than 140 countries to carry out the organization’s mission of international cooperation. Over 60 years later, Americans young and old alike still want to serve their country and understand their place in the world; current volunteers work at the forefront of some of the most pressing issues facing the global community.

Yet the agency has struggled to remain relevant amid sociopolitical change; more than once it had to fight for its very existence, and now – with a rise in nationalist sentiment and deep cuts to governmental agency budgets – the Peace Corps is again confronting a crisis of identity: what role should it play around the world and in the lives of engaged citizens?

Director Biography

Alana DeJoseph has worked in video and film production for nearly 40 years. She has worn many hats as producer, director, videographer, and editor, but her heart has always been in documentaries. Between 2003 and 2013, she was associate producer of the PBS documentaries The Greatest Good (about the U.S. Forest Service) and Green Fire (about conservationist Aldo Leopold).

Being a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer herself, Alana couldn't help but think that just such an in-depth, comprehensive documentary was needed for the Peace Corps. She says: "In a time when the American public either has a very antiquated notion of the Peace Corps, informed by an almost mythological awe of the 60s, or is not even aware that the agency still exists, at a time when global problems such as climate change and pandemics are highlighting the need for international cooperation, it is high time to bring this unique organization back into the public discourse, to raise the level of the discussion from quaint to crucial."