Storyville
Series showcasing the best of international documentary filmmakers works.
Series showcasing the best of international documentary filmmakers works.
A Storyville documentary that follows a group of women working in a red-light district of Kolkata who are reclaiming their voices through the power of video storytelling.
A Storyville documentary that follows a global team of undercover officers as they penetrate the most hidden corners of the internet to stop those who exploit and harm children.
A Storyville documentary set in Bucha, Ukraine, following five protagonists as they attempt to rebuild their lives and come to terms with the legacy of war.
A Storyville documentary that follows a group of women working in a red-light district of Kolkata who are reclaiming their voices through the power of video storytelling.
E1
A Storyville documentary following the rise of Aubrey Gordon from anonymous blogger to best-selling author, whose aim is to promote a paradigm shift in the way we view fatness.
E2
A Storyville documentary that follows director Shiori Ito's courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender.
E3
A Storyville documentary that tells a story of transformation and second chances as three men sentenced to life for murder undertake running a marathon around a crowded prison yard.
E4
A Storyville documentary that follows the lives of Argentina's gauchos (cowboys and cowgirls), as they try to preserve their traditions in a fast-changing world.
E5
A Storyville documentary, shot over several years in one of Africa's most famous conservation areas, that charts mounting tensions between the Samburu people and fourth-generation European settlers.
E6
A Storyville documentary that offers a humorous and humane snapshot of life in a Covid-19 vaccine centre, a reminder of a unique moment in time - one shared by people across the globe.
E7
A Storyville documentary that revisits the spiritual group Falun Gong's audacious attempt to counter the government narrative about them by hacking into state TV stations in China.
E8
A Storyville documentary that follows white film-maker Rob Bliss as he walks 1500 miles through America's southern states wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt.
E9
A Storyville documentary in which Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known globally as Carlos the Jackal, tells his story from the confines of a French high-security prison.
E10
A Storyville documentary in which ultra-Orthodox Jewish couples speak bravely about their wedding and first night together, when the expectation is they will consummate their marriage.
E11
A Storyville documentary that tells the true story of Tomoaki Hamatsu, who spent 15 months in a small room, naked, starving and alone, unaware he was being broadcast to millions of people on TV.
E12
A Storyville documentary in which a young Mongolian couple must adapt to a new, urban way of life when they are forced from their land by a devastating storm, which kills their herd.
E13
A Storyville documentary following a young woman's quest to find out more about her father, who was one of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslims killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
E14
A Storyville documentary following the family of Liat Beinin Atzili, kidnapped from Israel on 7 October 2023, as they try to secure her release.
E15
A Storyville documentary that explores how librarians across the US are risking their safety to defend free speech as book bans and censorship threaten democracy from within.
E16
A Storyville documentary that follows a Russian schoolteacher as he risks everything to expose rising militarism in his classroom.
Storyville documentary. A bittersweet and surreal summer unfolds inside a crumbling Soviet-era wellness resort in Odesa, where guests seek healing, love and distraction.
A Storyville documentary about a young welder, forced to confront a traumatic past when she has to care for her half-sister. A powerful story of love, survival and second chances.
Storyville documentary. Three Australian brothers investigate whether their father and uncle, both Holocaust survivors, may have been involved in the deaths of former Nazis after the war.
A Storyville documentary that takes a suspenseful, immersive look at the lengths people go to to gain freedom, following various individuals as they attempt to flee North Korea.
A Storyville documentary that follows a college student's investigation after she discovers that her face has been digitally altered to appear in online hardcore porn videos.
A Storyville documentary that offers a moving portrait of unconditional love and devotion. A Chilean political journalist is cared for by his wife after his Alzheimer's diagnosis.
A Storyville documentary that explores, in intimate detail, state surveillance and digital social control in China by following the experiences of two families and a journalist.
A Storyville documentary that explores the power and influence of American Evangelical Christians as they aim to fulfil the Armageddon prophecy.
A Storyville documentary that takes the audience on a wild ride of unbelievable twists and turns. What begins as an eerie story of family reunification sees three women's lives spiral out of control.
A Storyville documentary that takes an intimate look at the life of The X Factor winner Dalton Harris as he tries to build on his success and embrace his identity in the face of prejudice.
A Storyville documentary that follows two Indian fishermen, Rakesh and Ganesh, whose friendship is tested as one continues with traditional fishing methods and the other tries modern technology.
A Storyville documentary about an extraordinary football tournament, told through the fearless voices of the women who took part and including recently uncovered archive footage.
A Storyville documentary, mostly animated, that charts the extraordinary true tale of Ali, a gay Afghan man, and the desperate measures he is forced to take to escape persecution.
A Storyville documentary that tells the enthralling, edge-of-your-seat story of a defiant journalist's battle for freedom of the press and against state-censored media.
A Storyville documentary about an indigenous Argentinian mother and daughter and the challenges they face living in an inherited crumbling mansion deep in the Argentine Pampas.
A Storyville documentary that sweeps viewers into an elaborate simulation which dramatically escalates the threat posed in the USA by the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.
A Storyville documentary that tells the untold story of a seemingly ordinary Englishman who spent more than 40 years as a mercenary, fighting other people's wars for money.
A Storyville documentary exploring the digital afterlife business, in which companies are using AI to create avatars of deceased people that the bereaved can interact with.
A Storyville documentary that follows, with unprecedented access to one of the most secretive cabals in the world, a group of Talib leaders in their first year back in power in Afghanistan.
A Storyville documentary following Gina, a queer artist from a small Russian town, who stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism – and put their life in danger.
A Storyville documentary that follows Amber and Guna, happiness agents for the government of Bhutan, as they travel the mountainous Himalayas, meeting people and measuring how happy they are.
A Storyville documentary following the exploits of a five-year-old boy growing up in an Indian Himalayan village where he is taunted for being mixed race.
Three minutes of footage is all that remains of the Jewish community of Nasielsk, Poland, filmed in 1938 by photographer David Kurtz. This Storyville documentary unravels the tales hidden within the celluloid, including insights from the film-maker's grandson and a boy who appears in the faded footage – one of the few survivors of the decimated village.Kurtz's footage was made available courtesy of the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In the 1950s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskill mountains, there was a small wooden house with a barn behind it called Casa Susanna, a holiday home for one of the first clandestine networks of cross-dressers in the US.Back then, Diane and Kate used to enjoy weekend visits to the house with their wives and friends. Now in their 80s, Diane and Kate tell a forgotten chapter of some of the early days of trans identity.
A Storyville documentary that investigates a powerful and terrifying spyware called Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by Israeli company NSO Group and used on journalists, activists and others, including both the wife and fiancée of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
Despite the huge risks, two Russian film-makers have been filming the impact of the invasion of Ukraine in their country. Many thousands have fled. Those that have stayed have had to make a choice – oppose the war, support it, or stay silent.
A Storyville documentary that explores the process of creating sex scenes in Hollywood, the toll on those involved in filming them, and the impact such images have on women and girls in the real world.The film features candid interviews with actors and creators, including Jane Fonda, Rosanna Arquette, Joey Soloway, Angela Robinson, Karyn Kusama, Rose McGowan, Alexandra Billings, Emily Meade and David Simon, and highlights the voices of women who have spoken out against abusive behaviour on set and were punished for it.
From living with incurable bowel cancer, to receiving a damehood, to her untimely death, this archive-based feature documentary details the extraordinary last five years of cancer campaigner Deborah James's life.Known by many as her online persona Bowelbabe, the former deputy head teacher amassed a huge social media following. Filmed with Deborah in the last months of her life, with access to her personal and family archive, she talks frankly about her diagnosis and treatment, and shares many personal moments. The film is told by Deborah herself whilst she dances and records what living with bowel cancer was really like for her and those closest to her.
A Storyville documentary about two women who fall in love in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
A Storyville documentary about the violent five-day standoff between inmates and law enforcement which gripped America in 1971.
Storyville documentary in which UK artist and film-maker Lisa Selby turns the camera on herself as she tries to understand relationships with her late mother and her partner, both heroin addicts.The film won the audience award at the 2022 London International Film Festival.
Extraordinary film based in the Breslov Hasidic community in Yavniel, Israel.The community was founded in the 1980s and led by charismatic leader Rabbi Schick, also known as Mohorosh, who was based in Brooklyn, New York. A controversial figure, Mohorosh welcomed 'repentant' Jews who were seeking a sense of community in Yavniel. These could be Jewish people who had lost their faith, committed crimes or simply wanted to live a Breslov Hasidic life with Mohorosh as their spiritual leader.With a school, a kindergarten, a synagogue, a huge kitchen where the community could eat together and houses built by the community themselves, it was funded by selling holy books and fundraising, and led spiritually by Mohorosh, who largely remained in Brooklyn. However, when Mohorosh died, it emerged that he had left two wills – one leaving leadership of the community and a huge fortune to his son Moishi, and the other benefiting a group of self-selected community leaders.As a huge fight over his inheritance rages and the community is left without their spiritual leader, stories begin to emerge of a hidden criminal organisation which was extorting millions of dollars, as well as violence, sexual abuse and underage marriages.Moishi and a number of survivors decided to break the silence, to leave the community and to tell this extraordinary story to director Bat-dor Ojalvo, who spent years earning their trust. Uniquely, she also gained access to some of the community who continue to live according to Mohorosh's teachings.With incredible archive and home movies from Yavniel, the film was shot in both Yavniel and Brooklyn.
When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the lives and destinies of two young Afghani women, Raha and Marwa, are changed forever.Inside Kabul is an animated film based on the voice notes that Raha and Marwa exchanged in the months that followed.Raha chose to stay in Kabul, where she is confronted with the violence of the regime, the sudden change in what ordinary people, especially women, are allowed to do and the crisis into which the country gradually sinks.Marwa leaves with her husband just in time and finds herself in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi, waiting and waiting to be welcomed to another country.
A Storyville documentary looking at the history of grime as a product of social unrest, urban culture and disenfranchised youth in the UK during the early 2000s.
A Storyville documentary exploring the true impact of artificial intelligence on the world.
A Storyville documentary. Brave account of how the Jewish National Fund acquired land in Palestine before and after the creation of the State of Israel.
A Storyville documentary following two identical twins in their twentieth year together. Benjamin and Joshua confront the limits imposed on them by their learning disability.
A Storyville documentary that investigates allegations against the Afghan police of abuse in Helmand province in the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan.
A Storyville documentary telling the story of Tanja Nijmeijer, the former teacher who became a member of the Colombian FARC rebel group.
A Storyville documentary that shows London from an exhilarating perspective. A group of young people express themselves through biking as an alternative to gang culture.
A Storyville documentary that follows the fierce sporting rivalry between the two best teams, England and France, and their journeys in the 2021 Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup.
Twenty-five years ago, Viagra kick-started the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. From Wales to New York, this is the big story of the little blue pill.
A Storyville documentary that goes behind the scenes of the International Chopin Piano Competition, one of the most prestigious competitions in classical music.
A Storyville documentary in which the landscapes of Norway provide the backdrop for this immersive story of a family whose lives are linked intrinsically to their environment.
A portrait of the last living generation of everyday people to participate in the Third Reich. Men and women ranging from former SS officers to children who grew up in Hitler's Germany speak for the first time about their memories and perceptions of some of the greatest crimes in human history.
The dramatic tale of a woman whose Holocaust memoir took the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher – who turned detective – revealed an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth. In the early 1990s, Misha Defonseca began to tell friends in the Jewish community of Massachusetts of her terrible experiences as a young girl during the Holocaust. Stripped of her identity, and ‘hidden' in the house of a Catholic family, she decided to run away, walking east across Europe, eating earthworms and insects, befriending wolves, evading the Nazis and living by her wits in search her deported parents.On hearing this incredible account, local publisher Jane Daniel persuaded Misha to write her story as a memoir. Before the book was even written, the buzz began. The press picked up the story, and film and translation rights were being sold around the world. By the time the book was finished, Oprah's Book Club came calling, and their involvement guaranteed an international bestseller.Then something strange happened. Misha grew uncooperative and refused to go on the live TV show. Thus began a three-year feud between Misha and her publisher that ended in court, accused of stealing the copyright and withholding royalties. The publisher was ordered to pay damages of USD22 million. In an effort to rebuild her reputation, Jane Daniel delved deeper into Misha's story. A cinematic documentary about truth and lies, about history and imagination and how and why we believe the stories we're told.
When Robert Mugabe was ousted by his own party, Zimbabwe's new leaders promised a democratic presidential election – the first since the start of Mugabe's rule almost 40 years earlier. Against a backdrop of economic crisis, food shortages and political violence, the stakes could not be higher.Working to defeat the ruling party, which has controlled Zimbabwe since independence, is the young and charismatic Nelson Chamisa, who has been compared to a young Nelson Mandela. The campaign will set the course for the future of the country. After decades of corrupt elites using any means necessary to retain power, can a free, fair and transparent election truly be possible?With this sequel to her widely acclaimed 2014 documentary Democrats, which followed the political battle to establish Zimbabwe's first democratic constitution, Camilla Nielsson brings viewers into the heart of an epic struggle for power.
The American college application process can be stressful at the best of times. For the super-smart, mostly Asian-American students at San Francisco's Lowell High School, it's emotionally draining. At Lowell, it's cool to be a nerd – everyone is talented.This Storyville documentary follows a group of students as they make their university applications, all of them under pressure to get a prized spot at one of the country's most elite institutions. Try Harder! is a portrait of young adults in the most diverse American generation ever, navigating their way through a quintessential rite of passage.
The world could not keep its eyes off two athletes at the 1994 Winter Games – Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Just weeks before the Olympics in 1994, at the US Figure Skating Championships, Kerrigan was injured by an unknown assailant. Harding's ex-husband had plotted the attack with his misfit friends to eliminate Kerrigan from the competition.The Price of Gold takes a fresh look at the scandal that elevated the popularity of professional figure skating, with Harding still facing questions over what she knew and when she knew it.
A Storyville documentary. A Russian radio producer sets up a TV station and finds herself in the vanguard of the struggle to protect independent journalism in her country.
A Storyville documentary that follows a group of women as they set up India's only newpaper run by women. They are expected to fail, but instead they stir a revolution.
Ten-year-old Oleg lives with his grandma in eastern Ukraine, close to the front line of the war between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces. His village, Hnutove, is just a mile from the war zone. Whilst friends and family have been able to flee, Oleg has no other place to go.This Storyville documentary follows him over the course of a year, from 2016 to 2017, examining what it is like to grow up in the midst of armed conflict.
Single mother Anna and her four children are living under siege in Ukraine in 2019. Eldest daughter Mira dreams of becoming a film-maker and so, as bombs descend on neighbouring homes, she and her siblings construct, act in, and edit a film about their lives in the war zone.The Earth Is Blue as an Orange observes the family as they cope with war by using their cameras to create meaning out of a meaningless conflict.
Deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, a handful of elderly men hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle. This award-winning film follows these truffle hunters, who live and work alongside their cherished dogs in an eccentric world, guided by a secret culture and a training passed down through the generations.
A compelling coming-of-age story of four friends, sharing important turning points in their lives as they transition to a new gender.Nic, Leo, Raff and Andrea meet in Bologna, where each of them is going through their gender transition. Their discussions gently revolve around their personal experiences, providing a unique insider's look at hormones, surgery, the longing for facial hair and the legal hurdles faced by transgender people.
Documentary that tells the little-known story of sports legend Arthur Ashe off the tennis court. Known to most on account of his stellar sports career – he became the first black man to win Wimbledon in 1975 – the film uncovers Ashe's work as a social activist, a role that embraced not only the civil rights movement in the US and African Americans but all oppressed peoples throughout the world.
On 13 January 2018, Hawaiians were suddenly confronted by an urgent nuclear threat. This was the text message they received from their country's emergency management agency:Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.This documentary captures the voices of the people who experienced the events of that day, viscerally recreating what happened during the 38 minutes they had to react and make impossible decisions in the face of a possible nuclear catastrophe.
Mikhail Gorbachev helped to shape the 20th century. As the architect of Glasnost and Perestroika, his actions brought down the Berlin Wall, giving countries of the former Soviet Union a chance to break away and be free. But while to many in the west he remains a hero, in his own country Gorbachev is condemned for destroying the Soviet Empire.This film is an intimate portrait of the man, now 91 years old and living alone in an empty house outside Moscow, carrying the burdens of his past.
A snapshot of one day in a country under siege. Filmed on 14 March 2022, the 2,944th day of the Russian-Ukrainian war, by a collective of Ukrainian film-makers who wanted to document life in Kyiv for ordinary civilians, citizens-turned-activists and groups of territorial defence soldiers. Written and directed by Volodymyr Tykhyy and the Babylon 13 Collective.
Controversial Afghan pop star and activist Aryana Sayeed mentors young hopefuls as they prepare to appear on their country's hit TV show Afghan Star. With two young women on the verge of being named the show's first ever female winners, the Taliban take over and their lifelong dreams of becoming pop stars are suddenly under threat.
Hla and Nyo Nyo live in a country torn by conflict. Hla is a Buddhist and the owner of an under-resourced medical clinic in western Myanmar, where the Rohingya (a Muslim minority community) are persecuted and denied basic rights. Nyo Nyo is a Rohingya and an apprentice midwife who acts as assistant and translator at the clinic.Despite living in the area for generations, Nyo Nyo and her family are still considered intruders. Risking her own safety daily by helping Muslim patients, she is determined to become a steady healthcare provider and resource for the families who desperately need her.Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing's remarkable feature debut won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Made over the course of five turbulent years in Myanmar, it shines a spotlight on these courageous women, who unite to bring forth life, despite the risks and challenges of their own, and offers a rare insight into the complex reality of Myanmar and its people.
In 2014, following a tip-off, a group of journalists exposed a troubled history for indigenous Sámi women, men and children in Norway. It revealed generations of negligence, abuse and suffering, supported by a mass of evidence and previously unseen archival footage.As the case goes to court, the community remains defiant against a judicial system whose attitudes highlight fissures in the purported equal treatment of all citizens. The community's battle aims to break a vicious cycle of racism and to achieve meaningful, lasting change for future generations.
On 3 June 1991 at 3.18pm, a pyroclastic flow erupted from Mount Unzen in Japan. A cloud of superheated gases and particles descended at more than 100mph from the peak of the volcano, consuming everything in its path.It instantly killed Katia and Maurice Krafft, volcanologists and film-makers from the Alsace region in France. They were too close. They were almost always too close. On the day before they died, Maurice said in an interview, 'I am never afraid, because I've seen so many eruptions in 25 years that, even if I die tomorrow, I don't care.'The Fire Within pays homage to the Kraffts, who left an archive of more than 200 hours of footage of their final journey, unprecedented in its spectacular and hypnotic beauty.
In her role as environmental officer, Annina Van Neel learns that Saint Helena's planned airport sits on top of a mass burial site for 325 African slaves. As part of the development, their remains were exhumed and moved into storage, with no clear plan or timeline as to what would happen to them next.Haunted by this and her memories of growing up in Namibia under apartheid, and in spite of the opposition of local people who consider her an outsider, Annina fights for a proper memorial for these forgotten victims.
Tears turn to soap bubbles, and hugs turn to fights, in this award-winning film about an orphanage in eastern Ukraine, filmed before Russia's invasion in February 2022.In a large ramshackle house near the front line in war-torn eastern Ukraine, a group of Ukrainian women run an orphanage. Children whose homes have been shattered by poverty, violence and alcohol can safely stay there for up to nine months until a decision is made on whether to return them home, foster them or move them to another orphanage.When one child checks out of the orphanage, a new one always checks in, missing their parents. Children like Kolya, who smokes cigarettes on the sly, steals, and draws tattoos on his arms, but who also looks after his younger siblings before collapsing, crying, into his drunk mother's arms.
A bunch of amateur film-makers, with nothing left to lose, tackle one of Hollywood's greatest musicals in order to save their beloved Bradford Film Club.As its members grow old amid flickering memories and hardships, a handful of die hard members desperately cling to their dreams, and to each other, in this warm and funny look at shared artistic folly that speaks to the delusional dreamer in us all.
A Storyville documentary that revisits how a daring husband-and-wife team became the first journalists to invest in a helicopter, changing the way the news is covered forever.
Sofia Mulanovich, Peru's most successful surf champion, offers a fellow surfer, teenager Johnny Guerrero, the chance of a life away from the barrios.
A Storyville documentary that goes inside the dark and mysterious world of spies, special forces and political insiders as they race to find Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's billions.
A Storyville documentary that examines the repercussions of the child abuse scandal that erupted on Jersey in 2007 and the role played by two bloggers in forcing the island to confront its past.
A recently widowed 83-year-old goes undercover in a Chilean nursing home in a warm-hearted and surprising look at age, isolation and loneliness. Sergio is a Chilean spy - sort of. At least, he is offered the role of one after a casting session organised by Detective Romulo, a private investigator who needs a credible mole to infiltrate a retirement home. Romulo's client, the concerned daughter of a resident, suspects her mother is being abused and hires him to find out what is really happening. However, Sergio is 83, not 007, and not an easy trainee when it comes to technology and spying techniques. But he is a keen student, looking for ways to distract himself after recently losing his wife. What could be a better distraction than some undercover spy action? While gathering intelligence, Sergio grows close to several residents and realises that the truth beneath the surface is not what anyone had suspected. The film is a stylish combination of observational documentary and spy movie, resulting in a unique observation of compassion and loneliness.
The tragic outcome of a nightclub fire in Bucharest in 2015 triggers an investigation into corruption in Romania's healthcare system.
A moving and sensitive Storyville documentary that follows a year in the life of a little French girl, Sasha – assigned male at birth – and her family's fight for her acceptance.
A Storyville documentary in which three parents in the US talk about what it is like to have a child who was not the victim of a high school shooting but its perpetrator.
A Storyville documentary about the rise and fall of the former superstar CEO of Nissan, from celebrated industry leader to wanted fugitive.
This Storyville documentary is granted rare access to globally trending megachurch Hillsong, where key church figures and followers shed light on the organisation's current scandals.
A Storyville documentary. Why did Jim Jones, a charismatic American preacher and leader of the People's Temple, compel his members in 1978 to perform 'revolutionary suicide' in northern Guyana?
A Storyville documentary. The Jonestown project quickly begins to implode. Jones's excessive drug use, irrational behaviour and the isolation of his followers raises the alarm back home.
A Storyville documentary. The biggest tech revolution of the 21st century isn't digital, it's biological. What will CRISPR mean for human evolution?
Jewish lawyer Lea Tsemel is a controversial figure in Israel. For the last 50 years, she has fearlessly defended Palestinians prosecuted in Israeli courts for resisting the occupation.
A Storyville documentary that reveals the complex and surprising truth behind the relationships of four Thai-Danish married couples in a small fishing community in Denmark.
E6
The people of the Faroe Islands believe that pilot whale hunting is vital to their way of life, but when a local professor makes a discovery about the effects of marine pollution, environmental changes threaten to change the community and their way of life forever.
A Storyville documentary, filmed over seven years, that follows pornstar Jonathan Agassi and explores the impact that both the industry and his upbringing have had on his life.
First of a two-part documentary telling the story of a group of American men and women studying for college degrees while in prison for serious crimes. Shot over four years in maximum and medium security institutions in New York state, Lynn Novick's film tackles the failure to provide meaningful rehabilitation for more than two million Americans living behind bars.
Concluding part of the documentary about prisoners enrolled in the Bard Prison Initiative, featuring the background stories of participants and their families.
Documentary laying bare Chechnya's deadly war against its gay citizens, which reveals the bravery of those running rescue missions to protect the republic's LGBTQ community.
Documentary that looks at the tough reality of running for politics in a country riven by corruption and tribal factionalism, through the story of Boniface `Softie" Mwangi.
Documentary exploring the campaign to save the US's last standing roller rinks from closure against a backdrop of growing racial tension. The film reveals the story of underground subculture that has grown up around these venues and given rise to some of the world's greatest musical talent - but has itself remained virtually unknown to the mainstream.
Pepe the Frog started life in 2005 as a cute cartoon character in an online comic. Today, he is known as an international hate symbol after being hijacked by the alt-right.
Patrik Hermansson went deep undercover, as Swedish student Erik Hellberg, at the heart of the alt-right. He infiltrated some of the most notorious far-right networks in the US and the UK, culminating in the violent clashes in Charlottesville. He extracted damning information that runs all of the way to the White House. And he caught it all on hidden camera.
A Storyville documentary that reveals the events that immediately followed the discovery of the devastating fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019.
A Storyville documentary. A mysterious fugitive, a hijacked airplane and a daring mid-air escape. The real-life tale of one of America's most extraordinary unsolved crimes. Just who is DB Cooper?
A Storyville documentary. Film-maker Xavier Alford has a rare and life-changing illness. Confronting his fears, he finds talking with fellow patients and his family makes all of them stronger.
A tale of capitalism and opportunism run amok - complete with gangsters, strippers and live bears serving beer on a hockey rink in Moscow.
A two-part Storyville documentary telling the story of the the deadliest siege in American history, which took place in 1993 outside Waco, Texas, and following a new group of Branch Davidians which is living on the same property under a new leader. His goal: to repopulate the Branch of Davidian sect before the coming apocalypse. The programme combines interviews with survivors on location at Mt. Carmel Ranch, some of whom have never spoken publicly before, as well as family, friends and key ATF/FBI officers, along with dramatic reconstructions of past events.
This episode begins with the fateful ATF raid. The two-and-a-half-hour gun battle rapidly develops into a stand-off with the FBI, watched by the world's media. Tanks are sent in and sniper positions set up. Inside, the Branch Davidians, believing that prophecy is being fulfilled, sit tight, while the FBI dismiss Koresh and his followers' words as just ‘Bible babble'. Finally, Koresh announces he will write his version of the Seven Seals and that they will all come out when it is complete. But it is too late. On April 19, a frustrated FBI starts inserting teargas into the compound with tanks. A fire develops and, fanned by high winds, devours Mount Carmel along with David Koresh and his followers. Now we finally answer the controversy that has been disputed ever since that fateful day - who lit the fire?
Paul Conroy and Marie Colvin's fateful mission to tell the story of the civilians trapped by the Syrian conflict in the besieged city of Homs.
How Rhobi Samwelly has set up a safe house for girls in fear of suffering female genital mutilation, confronting a tradition that, although illegal, goes back thousands of years.
Documentary about the secret team of content moderators who clean the internet. Who are they, what criteria do they use, and where does content moderation end and censorship begin?
The war crimes trial of Ratko Mladic, accused of masterminding the murder of over 7000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in the 90s Bosnian war, the worst crime in Europe since WW2.
Documentary about a trailer park in Florida housing more than 100 convicted sex offenders, following them as they attempt to reintegrate themselves back into society.
The untold story of the Brexit negotiations...from the other side, with exclusive access to the EU parliament's representative Guy Verhofstadt.
The untold story of the Brexit negotiations...from the other side, with exclusive access to the EU parliament's representative Guy Verhofstadt.
The extraordinary story of Brunhilde Pomsel, secretary and stenographer to the Nazi proganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
The true story of commercial diver Chris Lemons, who was stranded on the bottom of the North Sea with five minutes of oxygen, but no chance of rescue for more than 30 minutes.
The account of what happened to a group of men and women who, in 1973, participated in an experiment in human behaviour by drifting across the Atlantic on a raft.
Eyewitness accounts and leaked secret documents provide a deeper understanding of the final bloody days of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy demonstration.
Storyville documentary about the investigation into the theft from a Malaysian wealth fund of 3.5 billion US dollars, a crime traced to the very top of Malaysia's government.
Storyville film that tells the story of President Duterte's bloody campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines, told with unprecedented access to people on both sides of the war.
A Storyville documentary. How one man's refusal to overlook its financial irregularities led to the exposure of the subprime mortgage scandal that engulfed Lehman Brothers.
The inspirational story of how Tracy Edwards became the skipper of the first all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989.
Documentary that reveals the continuing impact of China's one-child policy, abandoned in 2015, on the country's people.
A Storyville documentary. Mads Brügger and Göran Björkdahl investigate the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations Secretary-General, killed in a plane crash in 1961.
Endangered African species like elephants, rhinos and lions come closer to extinction each year; since 1970 the world has lost 60 per cent of all wild animals. Their devastating decline is fuelled in part by a global desire to hunt and kill these majestic animals. This film investigates the industry of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation.Through the eyes of impassioned individuals who drive this business - from a Texas trophy hunter on a mission to kill 'the big five', to the world's largest private rhino breeder in South Africa, who believes he is saving these extraordinary beasts from becoming extinct - the film grapples with the consequences of imposing economic value on animals. What are the implications of treating animals as commodities? Does breeding, farming and hunting offer the option of conserving endangered animals? Trophy raises provocative debate about the rights and wrongs of killing animals for sport and for profit, and questions the value of these pursuits in saving the planet's great species from extinction.
Bafta-nominated documentary telling the story of website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), where a group of young men band together and risk their lives to document and release videos, photos and written testimony of Islamic State atrocities in their home city of Raqqa.From acclaimed Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Heineman, City of Ghosts follows the visceral and at times distressing journey of a network of brave young activists who band together to report the stories of atrocities inflicted on the Syrian citizens of Raqqa by ISIS, who invaded their city in 2014. The film reveals the very real dangers for this tight-knit group of citizen journalists, working undercover both inside and outside their homeland. They risk their lives daily to report stories of terror and destruction in the besieged city of Raqqa. The stories are posted on an online site -'Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently' - in the hope that they will reach the mainstream media and governments globally. A dramatic and heartbreaking story unfolds, as we witness the huge personal sacrifices the young journalists make to bring the plight of their people to the world.
Aisholpan is a 13-year-old girl from a remote Mongolian tribe, who dreams of becoming an eagle hunter - just like her father and her grandfather before him. The ancient tradition stretches back over 1,000 years, but Aisholpan's plans are almost dashed at the outset by the male-dominated eagle hunting community, who strongly disapprove of girls taking part, arguing they should stay at home to milk the cows and make the tea. Meanwhile, Aisholpan and her determined father - who passionately believes girls can do anything that boys can - set out to prove she can become Mongolia's first eagle huntress.Eagle Huntress premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for best documentary at the 2017 Baftas.
A Storyville documentary. A raw and unfiltered insight into the bloodiest conflict since the Second World War. Over the last two decades, the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo has witnessed over five million conflict-related deaths, multiple regime changes and the impoverishment of its people.Following the lives of four diverse characters - a government whistleblower, a patriotic military commander, a mineral dealer and a displaced tailor - this programme offers a visceral, yet intimate insight into a nation caught between the foreign-backed M23 rebels and the government ruled by president Joseph Kabila, who cancels elections and refuses to relinquish power. As the conflict resonates through their lives, the film reveals the insidious legacy of colonialism, resource exploitation and the genocidal wars that has created a never-ending cycle of violence.
E5
'You're not a human being, you're an athlete,' 20-year-old Rita is told by one of her two merciless coaches as she prepares to represent Russia in rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics. It is the most crucial year of her career and her last chance to achieve her ultimate dream, a gold medal. However gracefully Rita catches rings or rolls a ball across her shoulders, her coaches expect more from her, time and again. Described as the 'Black Swan' of sports documentaries, Over the Limit offers unprecedented access to the hidden world of elite gymnasts and the unrelentingly brutal training demanded by the Russian system.
E6
John Curry transformed a dated sport into an art form and made history by becoming the first openly gay Olympian in a time when homosexuality was not fully legal. Directed by James Erskine, this is a documentary about a lost cultural icon - a story of art, sport, sexuality and rebellion. Featuring unseen footage of some of his most remarkable performances and with access to Curry's letters, archive interviews, and interviews with his family, friends and collaborators, this is a portrait of the man who turned ice skating from a dated sport into an exalted art form.
As Pakistan prepare for their 2018 elections, Insha'Allah Democracy follows film-maker Mo Naqvi during the country's last election, when he was a first-time voter and wanted to back a candidate who would prevent Pakistan from becoming a terrorist state. But Mo faced a tough choice - either vote for religious hardliners or a secular liberal leader who happened to be a former military dictator.Insha'Allah Democracy chronicles one voter's journey to discover if democracy is possible in an unstable Muslim country, whilst providing a fly-on-the-wall exploration into a controversial leader, Pervez Musharraf.
Roger Ross Williams, the first black director to win an Academy Award, embarks on a deeply personal journey into the heart of the American prison system to try and understand how come so many of his childhood friends have ended up behind bars. He starts in his own hometown but soon finds himself navigating a maze of powerful institutions: police precincts, courtrooms, local jails, maximum security prisons and corporate empires. As he explores a massive and dysfunctional system, he encounters complicit politicians and prison profiteers, each with their own self-serving motivations to maintain the status quo, as well as prison administrators who recognise that most of their inmates should be free, yet are helpless to release them. His pursuit of an answer propels the film to examine the American society - from the free market ideals that America is founded upon to the savage ways in which the country has manifested those ideals.
E9
A Woman Captured is a raw and intimate portrayal of the psychology behind enslavement. Director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter offers an evocative study of a woman so debased and disregarded that even she has lost sight of her own life.
E10
Director Pankaj Johar sets out to understand how, in the world's largest democracy, it is possible for millions of children to be bought and sold.
E11
A Storyville documentary following the African-American Rainey family as they navigate life in their north Philadelphia neighbourhood gripped by poverty, drugs and gun violence.
E12
A Storyville documentary following a group of citizens in West Virginia who take on a corporation after they discover it has been dumping a toxic chemical into the water supply.
A Storyville documentary about Fakhir Berwari, a bomb disposal expert who disarmed thousands of landmines in Iraq with just a pocket knife and a pair of wire clippers.
A Storyville documentary: Thriller about warfare in a world without rules - the world of cyberwar. It tells the story of Stuxnet, self-replicating computer malware, known as a 'worm' for its ability to burrow from computer to computer on its own. In a covert operation, the American and Israeli intelligence agencies allegedly unleashed Stuxnet to destroy a key part of an Iranian nuclear facility. Ultimately the 'worm' spread beyond its intended target. The most comprehensive account to date of how a clandestine mission opened forever the Pandora's box of cyber warfare. A cautionary tale of technology, politics, unintended consequences, morality, and the dangers of secrecy.(New, Stereo, Widescreen, High Definition, Subtitles)
An inside account of a scandal that duped celebrities and the literary world. Former homeless youth JT LeRoy become an 'it boy' beloved by stars like Madonna and Courtney Love. His tough prose about his sordid childhood captivated icons and luminaries internationally. But in 2005 an article in a New York magazine sent shockwaves through the literary world when it unmasked JT LeRoy. It turned out LeRoy didn't actually exist.
In 1983, after decades of steady deterioration, John Hull, a professor at the University of Birmingham, became totally blind. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began documenting his experiences on audio cassette. Over three years he recorded over 16 hours of material.
Nominated for an Academy Award, this film tells the uplifting story of Owen Suskind, an autistic young man and his family. After unremarkable early years, at the age of three Owen withdrew and suddenly stopped speaking. Diagnosed with autism, Owen slowly emerged from his isolation by immersing himself in Disney animated films, using them as an emotional road map to reconnect with the wider world.
E5
Documentary about a compelling murder mystery, fuelled by a passionate young love affair. It all looked clear-cut when German student Jens Soering confessed to the brutal murder of his girlfriend's parents. But all was not as it seemed - by the time it came to trial, Jens was claiming he confessed to the murders to protect his beloved girlfriend, the beautiful Elizabeth Haysom - and that she had actually been the killer. Through access to the dramatic trials, love letters and new evidence, Killing for Love attempts to get to the truth of what happened on that fateful night.The 20-year-old Elizabeth Haysom was widely admired at the University of Virginia for her wild past. Jens Soering, the son of a German diplomat, was a first-year Jefferson Scholar and had just turned 18 when he met her. He was instantly entranced and they embarked on an intense, obsessive relationship. Three months into their affair, on 30 March 1985, Elizabeth's parents were brutally murdered in their Virginia home and the couple fled. Crisscrossing Asia and Europe they were eventually arrested in London, where Jens confessed to the murder in what he later claimed was an act of love.
On Friday, 26th November 2010, in the close-knit town of Bergamo, Letizia Ruggeri received a telephone call. It was Maura Gambirasio, a mother whose 13-year-old daughter Yara hadn't come home from the gym. Letizia, who spent years investigating mafia murders in Sicily, thought of her own daughter and promised she would find Yara.Three months later, Yara's body was tragically discovered - she had been attacked. With just one piece of DNA evidence to go on, Letizia started a hunt for a perpetrator that would take four years, 20,000 DNA samples, ingenuity and tenacity to find the identity of 'Unknown Male no 1'. It was a revelation that would unlock deep family secrets that still reverberated when the suspect was finally brought to trial.
The bizarre and sensational story of the despot who stole a film star. In 1978, North Korea's movie-loving dictator Kim Jong-il arranged for the Hong Kong kidnap of South Korea's leading lady, Choi Eun-hee. Choi had left South Korea in search of a new start. Her marriage to Shin Sang-ok, her long-term collaborator and one of the country's most successful filmmakers, had collapsed when Choi found out about his affair and second family with a younger actress.After her disappearance Shin, retracing her last known steps, also fell into the hands of Kim's kidnappers. Kim Jong-il had his prize. The golden couple of Korean cinema made movies at his command for seven years until, on a trip to Vienna, they eluded their minders and made a break for the American Embassy.
Aan extraordinary and harrowing portrait of life in solitary confinement - and a unique document of a radical and risky experiment to reform a prison.
E9
Girl bands and pop music permeate Japanese life. This film gets to the heart of a cultural phenomenon driven by an obsession with young female sexuality and internet popularity.Meet Rio - a bona fide Tokyo idol who takes us on her journey toward fame. Now meet her 'brothers' - a group of adult male superfans who devote their lives to following her, in the virtual world and in real life. Once considered to be on the fringes of society, the brothers who gave up salaried jobs to pursue an interest in female idol culture have since become mainstream via the internet, illuminating the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.Tokyo Girls explores the Japanese pop music industry and its focus on traditional beauty ideals, confronting the nature of gender power dynamics at work. As the female idols become younger and younger, the film looks at the veil of internet fame and the new terms of engagement that are playing out in real life around the globe.
Oink explores man's relationship to pigs, diving headfirst into a beguiling mix of sentimentality and violence - from keeping pigs in your bed to factory farming.The documentary veers wildly from the birth of Dorothy, our saddleback narrator, to zeno-transplantation of organs, from Ralph Steadman cartoons for Animal Farm to wild hogs being machine-gunned from a helicopter.Oink is a mad, bad journey from China to Wiltshire via Brooklyn, which reflects on who we are and how we deal with the world around us.
A profoundly intimate documentary filmed by Bafta-winning director Morgan Matthews over a period of more than ten years in the life of Morgan's father Geoff and his wonderfully eccentric partner Anna.In an attempt to reconnect with his dad after becoming estranged, Morgan uses the camera as both a facilitator and a filter that enables him to stay close during challenging times. The film follows Geoff and Anna through a financial crisis that sees them losing their home, it captures the challenges of their relationship, and documents the decline in Geoff's health as a result of emphysema and cancer.With the warmth, love and humour that is so often mixed up in family dramas, this is a documentary made from the inside by a film-maker who is used to turning his camera towards other people's families - but never his own. The result is deeply personal, but the themes of a challenging paternal dynamic, a relationship under pressure, and death in the family, are widespread and universal.
The former EU commissioner of health, Mr John Dalli, recently left his post having been accused of being in the pocket of 'big tobacco'. Two Danish journalists, Mads Brugger and Mikael Bertelsen, travel toMalta expecting to uncover proof of a vast conspiracy against Mr Dalli, when a secret source steps forward, claiming to possess documents and recordings. Mr Dalli attempts to strike a deal with the source, taking them on a disturbing, thrilling and darkly humorous odyssey from the hallways of Brussels to an island in the Caribbean Sea.
Carne Ross was a career diplomat who believed western democracy could save us all. But after the Iraq war he became disillusioned and resigned. This film traces Carne's worldwide quest to find a better way ofdoing things - from a farming collective in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street to Rojava in war-torn Syria - as he makes the epic journey from government insider to anarchist.
Created from a treasure trove of archive, Queerama traverses a century of gay experiences, encompassing persecution and prosecution, injustice, love and desire, identity, secrets, forbidden encounters, sexualliberation and pride. The soundtrack weaves the lyrics and music of John Grant, Goldfrapp and Hercules & Love Affair with the images and guides us intimately into the relationships, desires, fears and expressions of gay men and women in the 20th century- a century of incredible change.
In 1974 two men vanished several months apart. Iceland, with a population of just over 200,000, was a close, tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone, but the police got nowhere: there were no bodies, no witnesses and no forensic evidence. Then six suspects were arrested and confessed to the murders, many facing long, harsh sentences. It seemed like justice had been done, but nothing could be further from the truth.Forty years later, this notorious murder case was reopened when new evidence brought into question everything that had gone before. It became clear that the suspects had very quickly lost trust in their memories and were confused about their involvement in the crimes they had confessed to. The extreme police interrogation techniques were brought under intense scrutiny.This tense, psychological thriller tells the true story of the biggest-ever criminal investigation in Iceland's history, exploring one of the most shocking miscarriages of justice Europe has ever witnessed.
Documentary looking at the black market website known as the Silk Road, which emerged on the darknet in 2011. This 'Amazon of illegal drugs' was the brainchild of a mysterious, libertarian intellectualoperating under the avatar The Dread Pirate Roberts. Promising its users complete anonymity and total freedom from government regulation or scrutiny, Silk Road became a million-dollar digital drugs cartel.
On 25 November 1999, a six-year-old Cuban boy was found floating alone off the Florida coast after his mother drowned during an attempt to escape Cuba for the United States. Set against the tense and acrimonious relationship between the two countries, The Boy Who Changed America tells the story of Elian Gonzalez and the bitter custody battle that played out in the aftermath of his rescue between his Cuban father and American relatives. Eighteen years later and in the wake of Fidel Castro's death, the now 23-year-old Elian and his family tell their story for the first time.
I'd participated in this sort of peer-to-peer/group therapy work with my family since I was 16 years old and have come to understand how it's been effective for me to use in my life before in different settings long before I accepted my father's invitation to go inside Folsom . But I had my reservations about what it might be like inside a maximum-security prison and I didn't know how safe it would be or what would be required of me. I didn't know if there was enough strength or experience inside of me, or if there might be some deficit on my part in what I could offer the convicts.Although I didn't even know I was doing it I had pulled out a measuring stick and began judging the distance between where I thought I was and where I believed they stood in relationship to myself. I imagined pain and hardship that was somehow bigger, that outweighed my own if you were to put it on a scale.What did I know about gang-banging or violence? My father grew up on the Southside of Chicago with those experiences, but I didn't know anything about those things beyond his stories and what I saw in the media. It took me some time to realize that my lack of experience was a vacuum that I was filling with fiction. I felt an obligation to myself to fill in my ignorance with actual facts. The only way to do that was to see for myself.Angela Sostre, one of the early producers, told me "Ask yourself why you might be the only person able to tell this story. And without you, why it might not be told at all." That did it. I realized I needed to make this film and tell this story.
It was a scandal that shook the British establishment to its roots. In June 1951, the government was forced to admit that two Foreign Office diplomats had disappeared. One of them, Donald Maclean, had slipped through their fingers three days before he was due to be questioned for passing secrets to the Russians. The other, Guy Burgess, was a total surprise. He was a charming, clever Etonian, with powerful friends everywhere. And lovers too - at a time when homosexuality was illegal, Burgess made no secret of his sexual tastes. He turned out to be the most flamboyant of a ring of privileged Cambridge students who had secretly joined the Communists in the 1930s, disgusted by their own government's policy of appeasing Hitler. With the help of newly declassified documents, George Carey's film shows how the most celebrated spy ring of the 20th century grew out of the class system, sexual hypocrisy and the sheer incompetence of some people who then ran Britain.
E26
An eccentric Jewish family is thrown into turmoil when two stolen children reappear after 40 years.
E27
After five years of war in Syria the remaining 350,000 citizens of Aleppo are constantly under siege. Through the eyes of the volunteers of the White Helmets, in this film we experience daily life and death in the streets of Aleppo.Khalid, Subhi and Mahmoud are founding members of the White Helmets and are the first to enter destroyed buildings, scouring through the rubble in search of bodies and signs of life. They have chosen to stay in Aleppo to help save their people during the never-ending siege.Many lives including those of countless children and infants are lost during the bombings. But each day is a dilemma and a conflict for the men - should they stay and risk death themselves, or should they try to get out and save their own families, as other have?The film is a collaboration with the Aleppo Media Centre, and tells the extraordinary story of real heroes in an epic human tragedy.
E28
Twelve billion miles away a tiny spaceship is leaving our solar system and entering the void of deep space. It is the first human-made object ever to do so. Slowly dying within its heart is a plutonium generator that will beat for perhaps another decade before the lights on Voyager finally go out. But this little craft will travel on for millions of years, carrying a Golden Record bearing recordings and images of life on Earth. The story of Voyager is an epic of human achievement, personal drama and almost miraculous success. Launched 16 days apart in 1977, the twin Voyager space probes have defied all the odds, survived countless near misses and almost 40 years later continue to beam revolutionary information across unimaginable distances. With less computing power than a modern hearing aid, they have unlocked the stunning secrets of our solar system.This film tells the story of these magnificent machines, the men and women who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could ever have hoped.
E29
To the surprise of a whole world, the ex-Yugoslavian now Slovenian cult band Laibach became the first rock group ever invited to perform in the dictatorially repressed state of North Korea. Under the firm guidance of an old fan turned director and cultural diplomat, Laibach must deal with strict ideology, cultural differences and many technological difficulties in order just to perform. Struggling to get their songs through rigorous censorship, they race against the clock so they can be unleashed on an audience never before exposed to alternative rock'n'roll.
The story of how the circus came to be a tradition with footage of classic fairgrounds, freak shows, vaudeville and variety performances.
The story of the Jordanian entrepreneur and Irish actress who attempted to scam the UK taxman by creating a fake film production starring Danny Midwinter, Marc Bannerman and Andrea McLean. When the filmmakers are taken to court the producers are convicted of tax fraud and given long custodial sentences.
A stylistic and daring experimental film that tells the story of Nick, a convicted murdered that petitions the court asking to be executed, but not everything is as it seems.
The story of the oldest Italian horse race, the Palio.
The story of the party thrown in 1971, which celebrated 2,500 years of Persian monarchy, at which the cost didn't matter. This show explores the lavish five-day celebration.
A film which follows the Black Panther party, their culture and political awakening.
Three men travel together across Europe. For two of them the journey involves a confrontation with the acts of their fathers, who were both senior Nazi officers. For the third, the eminent human rights lawyer and author Philippe Sands, it means visiting the place where much of his own Jewish family was destroyed by the fathers of the two men he has come to know. An emotional, psychological exploration of three men wrestling with their past, the present of Europe, and conflicting versions of the truth.
Documentary about the first globally-famous stunt performer, exploring the charisma and showmanship at the heart of Evel Knievel's improbable success. Knievel made a career out of ridiculous stunts and rose to fame with multiple television appearances of his daredevil stunts that captured the public's imagination throughout the late 1960s and 70s. Using archive material, the film takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride from his early motorcycle stunts, through to his attempt to be fired across Snake River Canyon, to his time in jail for brutally assaulting his business partner. The darker side of Knievel's larger-than-life persona also emerges, especially among those who knew him best. Friends, family and business colleagues paint a complex portrait of a man who preferred to be seen as a self-styled myth. His love of alcohol, womanising, and temper were all eclipsed by an obsession with insane stunts bordering on a death wish.
Documentary following animal rights lawyer Steven Wise in his unprecedented challenge to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans. Steve and his legal team are making history by filing the first lawsuits that seek to transform an animal from a thing with no rights to a person with legal protections. It is an intimate look at a lawsuit that could forever transform our legal system, and one man's lifelong quest to protect 'nonhuman' animals. Supported by affidavits from primatologists around the world, Steve maintains that, based on scientific evidence, cognitively complex animals such as chimpanzees, whales, dolphins and elephants have the capacity for limited personhood rights. Filing lawsuits used to free humans from unlawful imprisonment, Wise argues on behalf of four captive chimpanzees in New York State. The film captures a monumental shift in our culture, as the public and judicial system show increasing receptiveness to Steve's impassioned arguments.
Gripping first-hand account by a former Guantanamo detainee that chronicles the rise of modern jihad, its descent into terror and the reaction of the west. Mozzam Begg, a Birmingham-raised British Pakistani, has experienced a generation of conflict. He has been a witness to the escalation of global radicalization for the past two decades, from the Bosnian conflict to wars in Afghanistan and Syria.The documentary captures his perspective on the escalation in tensions between the west and Islam - from his forced confession and testimony as a free man to his experience as a British Muslim and living the 'War on Terror'. Begg's story, intercut with news archive, raises important questions about how democracies respond to terrorism and how that response has impacted communities and individuals.
Paolo Macchiarini is one of world's most famous surgeons. He hopes to revolutionize medicine by creating a new type of synthetic organ - a vision that could save many lives. But the Italian surgeon has also been accused of using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs as well as falsifying his science. Is he a genius - or is he behind one of medicine's biggest scandals?This gripping investigative series gains access to Macchiarini's closed world of organ transplants, animal experiments and stem-cell research. From his base at one of the world's most prestigious medical institutions - the Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden - the series explores the fallout from his work across the world, from London to Russia. It poses a fundamental ethical question - how far can you risk a human life in the name of cutting-edge science?
The second episode of this gripping investigative series starts in the summer of 2012, with supersurgeon Macchiarini under pressure when problems start to arise. His pioneering transplant work seems at risk when he discovers faults with the new synthetic organs. Macchiarini still has faith in the procedure and plans new operations. This time it will no longer be fatally ill patients on whom he tries out his new methods, but patients whose condition is not life-threatening. Will Macchiarini succeed with his pioneering work?
By 2014, four Karolinska doctors started to question Macchiarini's transplantation of plastic tracheas and raised the alarm at Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institute. They suspected that Macchiarini had been lying in his scientific papers and that patients' lives were being put at risk by a technique which had not been properly tested or investigated beforehand. But still his employer, the Karolinska Institute, defended him and claimed nothing was amiss.Investigative journalist Bosse Lindquist confronts Macchiarini and the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, to uncover why Macchiarini was able to continue.
Documentary which exposes the impact of Australia's offshore detention policies through the personal accounts of people seeking asylum and whistleblowers who tried to work within the system. Australia has successfully stopped hopeful asylum seekers and refugees from reaching its shores. Anyone picked up making the treacherous journey across the Indian Ocean is sent to Australian off-shore detention camps on the remote tropical islands of Manus and Nauru. Once there, men, women and children are held in indefinite detention, away from media scrutiny. Featuring never-before-seen footage of the appalling living conditions and shocking testimonies from both detainees and camp workers, Chasing Asylum exposes the impact of this policy on those seeking a safer home.
Documentary about American politician Anthony Weiner, renowned for scandals relating to sexting. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after his sexting exploits were made public. He attempted a political comeback by running for mayor of New York City, but his ambitions were thwarted once more as he was foreced to admit to fresh allegations. The programme also traces the personal cost to Weiner, his family and campaign team and the unrelenting media scrutiny on him.
Documentary telling the story of how a young journalist came to be the first American to be executed by ISIS.On 22 November 2012, photojournalist James 'Jim' Foley was kidnapped in Syria. Two years later, the infamous video of his public execution introduced much of the world to ISIS.The film documents Jim's life through intimate interviews with his family, friends and fellow journalists - while former hostages reveal never-before-heard details of his captivity with a chilling intimacy that reveals their untold story of perseverance.Made with unparalleled access, including footage Foley shot himself, childhood friend and director Brian Oakes reveals Jim's enormous courage during his captivity in this powerful chronicle of bravery, compassion and pain.
Documentary which tells the inspirational story of a teenage girl pursuing her dreams against the odds. Sonita dreams of being a rap star performing for adoring fans, but as an 18-year-old illegal Afghan immigrant living in the poor suburbs of Tehran, opportunities are hard to come by. Undeterred, Sonita pursues her dream, and with her friend Ahmad finds a recording company prepared to risk an unauthorised rap song that includes an illegal female solo, only to have their plans thwarted by Sonita's family. One of her brothers wants to get married, so Sonita must return to Afghanistan and be sold into marriage herself. The bride price she fetches will pay for her brother's wife. Feisty, defiant and spirited Sonita continues the fight to live life her own way and overcome the many obstacles in her path, experiences which are powerfully and unflinchingly captured in her music.
An incendiary investigation into one of Australia's most notorious cults and the scars its survivors still bear today. Anne Hamilton-Byrne was beautiful, charismatic, delusional and damaged. She was also incredibly dangerous. Convinced she was a living god, Hamilton-Byrne headed an apocalyptic sect dubbed The Family, which was prominent in Melbourne through the 60s and 70s. With her husband Bill, she acquired numerous children - some through adoption scams, some born to cult members - and raised them as her own. Isolated from the outside world, the children were dressed in matching outfits, had identically dyed blonde hair, and were allegedly beaten, starved and injected with LSD. Taught that Hamilton-Byrne was both their mother and the messiah, the children were eventually rescued during a police raid in the mid 80s, but their trauma had only just begun.
Documentary which follows events at Israel's most notorious football club. Beitar Jerusalem FC is the most popular team in Israel and the only club in the Premier League never to sign an Arab player. Midway through a season the club's owner, Russian-Israeli oligarch Arcadi Gaydamak, brought in two Muslim players from Chechnya in a secretive transfer deal that triggered the most racist campaign in Israeli sport and sent the club spiralling out of control. The film follows the famous football club through the tumultuous season, as power, money and politics fuel a crisis and shows how racism is destroying both the team and society from within.
E3
Two top politicians, MP Paul Mangwana and MP Douglas Mwonzora, from the governing party and the opposition respectively, have been appointed to lead Zimbabwe through the process of writing a new constitution. It is the ultimate test that will either take the country a decisive step closer to democracy and away from President Robert Mugabe's dictatorship, or towards renewed repression. The film follows the two adversaries as they undertake their gargantuan task, travelling together throughout the country to ask Zimbabweans about their opinions on matters including the judicial system and the president's authority. Overcoming their initial suspicion, a kind of understanding grows between the two men, as they endure intrigue during the negotiations that follow. In a country impeded by economic sanctions from the international community and hyperinflation, failure is not an option.
India's Daughter is a documentary film directed by Leslee Udwin and is part of the BBC's ongoing Storyville series. The film is based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of 23-year-old "Nirbhaya" who was a physiotherapy student.
E13
He said he was doing God's work on earth, but betrayed his colleagues to the KGB. Sentenced to 42 years in jail, George Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs five years later and fled to the Soviet Union. George Carey's film follows the strange life of this enigmatic traitor, tracking down people who knew him, and ending with an unexpected encounter in the woods outside Moscow.
With remarkable access, this documentary follows an unfolding active FBI counterterrorism sting operation, telling the story of Saeed 'Shariff' Torres, a 63-year-old former Black Panther turned informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Shariff is an ex-convict who claims to have at one point made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year sidling up to Muslims accused of pro-terrorism leanings. From a rented Pittsburgh home he receives instructions by text from his FBI handler. He's told to befriend a white Muslim convert who has publicly made pro-terrorist statements.As the documentary observes Shariff closing in on the suspect, viewers get an unfettered glimpse of the government's counterterrorism tactics and the murky justifications behind them. Taut, stark and controversial, the film illuminates the fragile relationships between individual and surveillance state in modern America, and asks who is watching the watchers.
A look at long-withheld piece of history, audio recordings conducted with returning Israeli soldiers after the land gains in the six-day war of 1967.
E24
Documentary which explores timeless themes of love and marital commitment. For the past two decades, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Doug Block has helped support himself by shooting weddings. Hired for his intimate documentary style, he found himself emotionally bonding with his wedding couples on their big day, only to send off their videos and never see them again. Many years and 112 weddings later, having long wondered what has become of their marriages, Block begins to track down some of the more memorable couples. Is married life what they thought it would be? Are they still together? How have they navigated the inevitable ups and downs of marriage over the long haul? Juxtaposing rapturous wedding day flashbacks with remarkably candid present-day interviews, this is a funny, insightful and deeply moving insight into the long-term challenges of marriage.
E14
Documentary which exposes the shocking supply of ever younger girl models to the Japanese modelling industry. The film follows 13-year-old Nadya from poverty in Siberia to the city of Tokyo and a life as a model. American scout Ashley promises her a lucrative career, but all is not as it seems as Nadya's optimism quickly fades when confronted with the dehumanising culture of life in Japanese casting sessions.
E16
Documentary which tells the story of three teenage boys who manage to escape a polygamist Mormon cult in Utah. As they struggle to come to terms with life in the real world, we learn about the extraordinary lives they used to live - in houses with many mothers, where their sisters may be married off at 14 and, surprisingly, where no-one can wear red in case it offends the Second Coming. Powerfully emotional and compelling, Leaving the Cult is a fascinating insight to a community it's hard to believe exists.
J Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most celebrated scientists of his generation. Shy, arrogant and brilliant, he is best known as the man that led the Manhattan Project to spectacular success.As the years progressed he also grew into a scientific statesman, leading a government agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, which was trying to develop ways to avoid a nuclear arms race. His attempts at politics, though, were a lot less successful than his scientific endeavours. As he grew more powerful, he started to make serious enemies amongst the establishment, particularly a friend of President Truman's - Lewis Strauss.This film tells the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of Robert Oppenheimer.
Documentary about celebrated Malian photographer Malick Sidibe, whose iconic images of his country from the late 1950s through to the 1970s captured the carefree spirit of his generation asserting their freedom after independence, up until an Islamic coup ushered in years of military dictatorship. The filmmakers travel to Malick Sidibe's studio in Bamako to witness him at work and meet many of the subjects of his earlier photographs, whose personal stories also tell the history of Mali.
Welcome back!