Season 2019 2019

TV-PG

Arguably the greatest tragedy to befall the west coast of Scotland remains, to this day, largely unknown. On the event of the 100th anniversary, the people of Lewis tell their story to the rest of the nation through the words and testimonies of the islanders. On 1 January 1919, having survived the First World War, in excess of 250 naval men were returning home to celebrate their first New Year of peace. But in the blackest of nights, in a rising gale, HMY Iolaire sank within yards of the Lewis coast.

The Western Isles sent 6,000 men to serve in the First World War, and sustained the heaviest casualty rate of any area of British Empire, losing over 1,000 men by the end of the war. But no-one expected further losses after peace had been declared a few weeks earlier, and the seamen were sailing back in sight of home.

Author and local historian Malcolm Macdonald, along with historian and broadcaster Joni Buchanan, explore the feelings of expectation as the Hebridean men returned from war and explain the aftermath and shock that spread throughout the island over the next few weeks and months, affecting generations to come.

Featuring unique BBC archive footage with eyewitness testimonies of the night and its aftermath, including tales of extraordinary bravery and foresight. The story also examines how the disaster has shaped the identity of the islanders in the subsequent years, arguably contributing to the mass emigration of the 1920s and the population decrease that continued through much of the 20th century.

Lewis musician Iain Morrison, who discovers that his own great-grandmother had to write to the authorities for financial assistance, details how his contemporary work of music called 'Sàl' - 'Salt Water' helped him find hope.

Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a documentary which follows an investigation to solve the 'Jack the Stripper' murders, the biggest unsolved serial murder case in British criminal history.

It is the biggest unsolved serial murder case in British criminal history - the so-called 'Jack the Stripper' murders took place in Swinging Sixties London. Six women lost their lives to a killer who was never caught. Criminologist Professor David Wilson leads an investigation to unmask the killer, who claimed more victims than even his notorious Victorian namesake, Jack the Ripper. Professor Wilson and his investigative team - which includes former detective Jackie Malton and forensic psychologist Professor Mike Berry - begin their hunt for the killer not in London, but 150 miles away in Abertillery, South Wales. In 1921, the Welsh mining town was devastated by the double murder of two schoolgirls when eight-year-old Freda Brunell and 11-year-old Florence Little were killed just weeks apart by a local boy, 15-year-old Harold Jones, who the Abertillery residents still refer to as their 'Dark Son'. Those murders - especially the sadistic nature of their deaths and the treatment of the bodies afterwards - have eerie parallels with the 'Jack the Stripper' murders. Could Harold Jones the boy killer have matured in later life into a serial killer? To test this theory the team revisit the scenes of the killings in west London. They use contemporary policing techniques such as geographical and offender profiling to see if the crimes of Jones the boy can be measured against those of Jack the Stripper. And from the outset, it becomes apparent there are many chilling similarities.

Writer and environmentalist Peter Owen-Jones spends a year in the enchanting landscapes of the New Forest, exploring its wildlife, history and meeting the Commoners, the people whose ancient way of life has helped shaped the land since Neolithic times.

‘The New Forest is a timeless place - there are no fences and the animals roam free. I’ve always wondered how the forest and the commoning way of life have survived in the middle of southern England for so long. It’s been an incredible experience finding out.’ - Peter Owen-Jones.

Over the year, with its dramatic seasonal changes, Owen-Jones ventures out into the forest and immerses himself in the lives of the Commoners, a group of around 700 people who have retained grazing rights for their animals, which date back to medieval times. From the first foals born in spring to the release of the stallions and the annual herding of the ponies, he discovers a hardy people who, despite the urban development around them, and the pressures on the landscape of 13 million visitors a year, retain a deep love of the land and a determination to see their way of life survive.

The New Forest National Park covers an area of 566 square kilometres. It extends from the edge of Salisbury Plain through ancient forest, wild heathland and acid bog, down to the open sea. Here, Owen-Jones discovers hidden wildlife treasures. The rolling heathland is home to dazzling lizards, our largest dragonfly and carnivorous plants. And deep in the ancient woods, he finds goshawks that stalk their prey between the trees and an explosion of rare fungi. To his surprise, he discovers that many of the trees were planted by man to build battleships for the British Empire.

Owen-Jones delves into the history of the Commoners. He discovers how their pastoral way of life evolved from the practices of Neolithic herders and he reveals how the brutal Forest Laws imposed by William the Conqueror were used to crush them in order to preserve the forest

2018 saw the downfall of a series of famous men in the face of allegations of sexual harassment. The issue has never received so much media attention, but the debate about what is and isn't appropriate in the workplace continues. A hand on someone's back, complimenting their fragrance - is this a colleague being friendly, or are they crossing a line? What constitutes sexual harassment?

To find out, BBC Three conduct a social experiment, hosted by journalist and presenter Ben Zand. They bring together 20 people between the ages of 18-30 to see if they understand the rules of behaviour in the workplace. Over the course of two days, they watch a specially written drama in three parts telling the story of a professional relationship between a man and woman at work which ends with an accusation of sexual harassment. At each stage, the group are given the opportunity to vote on the behaviour displayed and if it is offensive or unwanted, before finally voting if they believe it constitutes sexual harassment.

They also hear directly from people whose lives have been affected by sexual harassment, including a false accusation of harassment.

The debate between the young people is wide ranging and impassioned. The programme reveals just how much confusion and disagreement there is when it comes to specifying exactly where a line should be drawn - a line which can become blurred. It shows the significant differences that exist between the genders when it comes to their perspective on what is acceptable.

And finally, the group hears from a barrister who lays down the law and answers the question posed by the drama - is this sexual harassment?

Granted exclusive access to hundreds of drawings and paintings by Orson Welles, film-maker Mark Cousins dives deep into the visual world of this legendary director and actor, to reveal a portrait of the artist as he’s never been seen before – through his own eyes, sketched by his own hand, painted with his own brush. Executive produced by Michael Moore, The Eyes of Orson Welles brings vividly to life the passions, politics and power of this 20th-century showman and explores how the genius of Welles still resonates today, more than 30 years after his death.

Welles was one of the great creative figures of the 20th century. But one aspect of his life and art has never been discussed. Like Akira Kurosawa and Sergei Eisenstein, Welles loved to draw and paint. As a child prodigy, he trained as an artist, before a drawing trip to Ireland in his teens led to his sensational stage debut at Dublin’s Gate Theatre. Welles continued to draw and paint throughout his life, and his groundbreaking film and theatre work was profoundly shaped by his graphic imagination.

When he died over 30 years ago, he left behind hundreds of character sketches, set designs, visualisations of unmade projects, illustrations to entertain his children and friends, images in the margins of personal letters, and portraits of the people and places that inspired him. They are a window on to the world of Welles, and a vivid illustration of his creativity and visual thinking. Most of these have never been made public. Now, for the first time, Welles’s daughter Beatrice has granted Mark Cousins access to this treasure trove of imagery, to make a film about what he finds there.

The Eyes of Orson Welles is a cinematic essay which avoids the techniques of conventional TV documentaries. It combines Cousins’s trademark commentary with new digital scans and specially made animations of the artworks, which bring vividly to life the magic of Welles’s graphic world. These are intercut with cli

A look at Hugo Chavez's 14-year presidency - a story of short-term achievements in health and education but also of a tragic legacy of his idealism, populism and pursuit of power.

This balanced mocku-documentary is Louis Theroux meets Alan Partridge. It is the US midterm elections, and spoof news reporter Jonathan Pie is sent across the pond on the campaign trail. Jonathan meets real people who don't normally have a voice as he sorts through the utter carnage of US politics and delivers an extremely entertaining, witty take on Trump's America. He talks to all sides: Republicans, Democrats and independents, while attempting to work out whether Trump is going to destroy the planet with his stance on climate change, his relationships with volatile countries or his twitter account.
Pie comes away with a lot of his preconceptions blown out of the water but also with a few intact.

Sidney Nolan is unquestionably one of the best-known names in the history of Australian modern art. His images are iconic treasures of the Australian visual language – everyone feels they know Nolan, but that is far from the truth. He was a restless spirit, boundlessly curious, intellectual and mischievous, and his creativity was unrelenting; he was a genius. This film explores and celebrates the artist and the man, going well beyond his early years to his extraordinary international career and all the success and turmoil that came with it.

For many people, going to college or moving out of home offers a chance to look at their relationship with their parents from a fresh perspective. 23-year old Dammy confronts her mum about her longstanding issues by having the type of brutally honest discussions that many of us so often avoid.

Dammy suffers from anxiety and hasn’t had a serious conversation with her mum about it. First off, it doesn’t help that mum still sees Dammy as her ‘baby’ and finds it hard to treat her like an adult – but it also seems that mum wants to gloss over any difficult issues. Keen not to upset her mum, Dammy has learnt to just stay silent. Through an emotional and frank therapy session, their relationship is put under the microscope. Over the course of a session with therapist Hannah Sherbersky, Dammy finally confronts mum about their lack of meaningful communication but perhaps she didn’t expect to learn so much about her mum’s upbringing in the process.

Last year 17 teenagers were stabbed to death in what was the deadliest year in a decade in London. Tina Daheley asks the police, politicians and an audience of Londoners why some young people are turning to knife crime and what can be done to stop the number of young lives lost on the capital's streets.

Saudi Arabia is ranked as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman. Despite this scary fact, Saudi-born, British fashion stylist, Basma Khalifa, 29, has been persuaded to move back to Saudi Arabia – a country she hasn’t been to since her parents moved to Northern Ireland when she was three years old. Although she grew up Northern Ireland, she’s never felt totally at home in the UK. Maybe she can start a new chapter of her life in Saudi Arabia which has become more open under the new Crown Prince. But just a few days after arriving in the country, the news breaks of the murder of the Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi and her experiment takes on a darker turn.

Basma travels to Jeddah – Saudi Arabia’s more ‘liberal’ city - and moves in with her three aunts. She immerses herself in Saudi Arabian life but the strict laws and social codes aren’t easy for her to stomach. Basma struggles with how to behave in public and what to wear and with every slip-up, she comes head to head with the Saudi Arabian government minder who has been assigned to monitor her movements. Just when she’s starting to think she can’t take it anymore, she discovers Jeddah’s underground party scene. Suddenly she feels more at ease as it’s not too different from her London life in which she has to hide her ‘western lifestyle’ from her family. A spiritual journey to Mecca seals her newfound faith in Saudi Arabia and she’s hungry to see what else it has to offer her. Since June 2018, women in Saudi Arabia have been allowed to drive and Basma wants to try it for herself - probably as one of the first British women ever to drive in Saudi Arabia. Despite her aunt’s warnings that it could jeopardise her whole visit, Basma decides to go ahead and rent a car. Everything looks good until Basma mentions the name of a female right-to-drive campaigner who the Saudi Arabian government has put in prison. What follows is a nail biting ordeal and in the

Why do humans make art? When did we begin to make our mark on the world? And where? In this film, Britain's most celebrated sculptor Antony Gormley is setting out on a journey to see for himself the very beginnings of art.

Once we believed that art began with the cave paintings of Ice Age Europe, tens of thousands of years ago. But now, extraordinary new discoveries around the world are overturning that idea. Antony is going to travel across the globe, and thousands of years back in time, to piece together a new story of how art began. He discovers beautiful, haunting and surprising works of art, deep inside caves across France, Spain and Indonesia, and in Australian rock shelters. He finds images created by hunter-gatherers that surprise him with their tenderness, and affinity with the natural world. He discovers the secrets behind the techniques used by our ancestors to create these paintings. And he meets experts making discoveries that are turning the clock back on when art first began.

Finally Antony asks what these images from millennia ago can tell us - about who we are. As he says, 'If we can look closely at the art of our ancestors, perhaps we will be able to reconnect with something vital that we have lost."'.

Journalist Livvy Haydock investigates the rise of vigilante groups who, without official endorsement from the police, target suspected paedophiles.

With access to two UK-based paedophile hunting groups, Guardians Of The North from Sunderland and Predator Exposure in Leeds, Livvy observes their methods and stings first-hand to explore whether these groups are helping or hindering the police in their attempts to administer justice.

The police have publically said that they are struggling to tackle the increase in online child sex predators. The hunters say they are trying to help tackle the threat. While some of the evidence the hunters gather is used in some cases to charge suspects, the police are concerned about people being wrongly targeted and hurt. As well as some groups naming and shaming people online before police can assess any evidence.

Livvy speaks to founders and members of the hunter groups, their decoys used to catch suspected paedophiles online, the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the North West, and relatives of those wrongly accused.

By taking the law into their own hands, are the hunters actually making potential convictions more difficult for the police? Or are the hunters helping to capture predators who could otherwise slip through the net.

This landmark documentary gathers together the compelling and, in some cases, never-before-heard testimony from the last Holocaust survivors living in Britain today. All of these extraordinary people were children during the Holocaust, but now in their later years, they reflect on their experiences with a different perspective and understanding of how this past trauma permeates through to their contemporary lives with increased significance.

The film is based in the present tense, building a picture of a small number of survivors in their day to day lives, whilst also giving an insight into why they hold on to particular memories of the Holocaust, as well as what concerns them most as they contemplate reaching the end of their lives.

Over the course of a year, director Arthur Cary also follows these individuals on personal and profound journeys - including the story of a man who returns to Auschwitz with his daughter, a German Jewish survivor addressing the Bundestag, and a man who returns to his German childhood hometown for the first time since 1946 to finally acknowledge the death of his little brother. These scenes are punctuated by compelling interviews with a wider group of survivors who reveal shared feelings as well as their own unique thoughts and experiences. Having lived through 'humanity's darkest hour', these are the last survivors.

All over the world, children with intersex traits are being operated on to be sex assigned at birth - sometimes with devastating consequences. The UN says as many as 1.7%% of the world have intersex traits - that's the same as the number of people with red hair. All over the world, children with intersex traits are being operated on to be sex assigned at birth - sometimes with devastating consequences. Megha Mohan explores the hidden world of intersex children.

A spectacular aerial journey following the world’s longest monument, the Great Wall. In slow-TV style, fly 2,500 kilometres along the wall, from the Yellow Sea to the Gobi Desert.

Travelogue that follows photographer Don McCullin, now 83, documenting his country from inner cities to seaside towns, on a journey in search of his own nation. Sixty years after starting out as a photographer, McCullin returns to his old haunts in the East End of London, Bradford, Consett, Eastbourne and Scarborough. Along the way he encounters an array of English characters at the Glyndebourne Festival and Goodwood Revival and photographs a hunt and a group of saboteurs aiming to disrupt them. McCullin’s journey is punctuated by scenes in his darkroom, a place he is allowing cameras into for the first time.

Following on from the Bafta-nominated Behind Closed Doors, documentary-maker Anna Hall's latest film goes into uncharted territory in which she finds children who have witnessed domestic abuse and then asks them what happened to them.

In this film, four children go on camera to talk about what they witnessed and experienced, and the ongoing effect this has on them.

Working with charities and Oxfordshire social services for over two years, this film has painstakingly worked with the children and their families to explore the importance of listening to the child and never ever thinking that just because a child's not in the room, that they don't hear or understand what's going on.

Cat Lewis, social worker at Oxfordshire social services says: 'I think you need to realise that even if you're having an argument and there's no physical violence, your kids will know. And lots of parents say, 'Oh they weren't in the room, they were asleep, they didn't hear it, they didn't know'. They did. They know. Children are very very in tune to what is happening around them and we lose a lot of that intuition as we become adults and life gets in the way. If you are at that stage of your relationship where you cannot communicate properly, then seriously you need to think about not being in that relationship. Because your children's lives will be affected forever'.

One in five children in the UK have lived with an adult who is, or has been, a domestic abuser.

All the latest research shows that witnessing domestic abuse in childhood affects a child forever.

This is the David Bowie story you don’t know. The story of how David Robert Jones became David Bowie, how David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust and how Ziggy became immortal, changing the musical landscape as he did so. The story that finally makes sense of one of the greatest icons of the 20th and 21st centuries. Part three of Francis Whately’s Bowie trilogy.

War Requiem: Staging a Masterpiece was filmed over 12 months, with unprecedented access this landmark film follows the English National Opera as they pursue the challenge of staging Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. One of the greatest British choral works of the 20th Century, War Requiem is seen by many as a true masterpiece. The ENO is the first company to transform the work into a dramatised performance. Artistic Director Daniel Kramer engaged a team drawn from across the world including the Turner Prize-winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans: 'By keeping War Requiem alive and relevant today, we will be able to remember the sense of urgency that people in the post-war generation felt, a sense of never again.'

In-depth documentary showing an interesting insight into Sir Frank Williams, his career and family. From nothing other than an obsession with speed, Williams builds one of the world's most enduring Formula One racing teams, but a near fatal car accident in 1986 at the height of this success leaves Frank fighting for his life and the future of the team hanging in the balance.

Phoenix Dance Theatre performs Sharon Watson’s Windrush: Movement of the People, a contemporary dance work exploring the narrative of the arrival of SS Empire Windrush that brought the first Caribbean migrants to the UK. The work is a lively celebration of the rise of multicultural Britain and features an uplifting soundtrack of calypso, jazz, gospel and reggae, with original music created by Christella Litras, and set and costume design by Eleanor Bull. Commended by audiences and critics since its premiere at Leeds Playhouse in 2018, the production has toured UK venues to sold-out auditoriums and festivals. This production was supported by The Space and was filmed at Production Park in December 2018.

Charting Sweden’s remarkable rise as a music superpower. James Ballardie explores the unique Swedish song writing formula behind some of the biggest pop hits since the 1990s.

Abused By My Girlfriend tells the remarkable story of Alex Skeel, a 23-year-old man from Bedford who survived an abusive relationship with his girlfriend Jordan Worth.

Combining observational filming with personal and police archive, this film provides a raw and uninhibited window into a teenage romance that descended into terrible violence.

Alongside Alex's shocking and thought-provoking testimony, his family and friends also share their stories of seeing him slowly slip away, powerless to stop it, and unaware of how bad it would get.

Bedfordshire Police described Alex's case as one of the most extreme cases of domestic violence they had ever dealt with. In hospital, doctors examined Alex's body and told him that he was just ten days away from death.

In April 2018, Jordan was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. She became the first female in the UK to be convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour.

By sharing his story, Alex hopes to challenge assumptions about violence and masculinity in relationships, and to empower victims of domestic violence to come forward.

The first all-Asian girls' cricket team train for their last tournament together. Now they have left school, will outside pressures of life get in the way?

The publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses in 1988 sparked a culture war in Britain between those in the Muslim community, who considered the book blasphemous and called for the book to be banned, and those defending it as an expression of freedom of speech.

Protests, which began in the north of England, soon spread across the UK and to the rest of the Islamic world, culminating in February 1989 with Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa - a death sentence on the writer.

Now, 30 years on, broadcaster and journalist Mobeen Azhar embarks on a journey, starting in his native Yorkshire where the protest first began, to examine the lasting effect the book has had on the Muslim community and how the events of 1989 continue to have an impact today.

Mobeen hears from a range of people who were affected by the so called 'Rushdie Affair' - from the men who took an early stand against the book and organised the original protests to the writer who wrestled at the time of the book's publication with the complex questions of free speech and her own religious beliefs, and a former member of the National Front who claims that the furore over the book became a recruiting tool for them.

We only see the world through our own eyes. We cannot know the experience of others, and we all have our own version of normal. But what if some children are seeing their world completely differently and no-one is aware how truly different that actually is? These children have a cerebral visual impairment, which means that part of their brain that deals with vision is not working properly. Ian Hamilton, himself completely blind, investigates this little-known sight problem. He asks if our lack of understanding about vision means that some children are being misdiagnosed with autism. And are there people out there having problems with their sight that not even they know about?

Young children used to say they want to be actors, footballers or pop stars, but today many of them say that they want to be YouTubers. Jamie Genevieve is a YouTuber at the very top of her game and says she was lucky to catch the vlogging wave early on, saying that nowadays it’s much harder to make it to the top. But this also reveals Jamie’s humility: a trait that makes her one of the most-followed social media influencers in Britain.

She is the typical girl-next-door and will happily post online videos about herself “being goofy” at home in her slacks without any makeup on. Jamie explains the methods and processes that are essential for being a success online; such as the volume of photos needed to find the perfect one for Instagram, how to keep it real by keeping your views and comments honest and authentic at all times and how to take the perfect selfie.

Jamie also has some advice for the keyboard warriors who like to send cruel comments to young girls. BBC cameras followed Jamie for six months to reveal what the life of a social media influencer is really like. At home and abroad this film reveals the magic ingredients required to cut it at the top of the online beauty trade.

The black market is where we go for our fake gear, but who is behind it all? Investigative reporter Livvy Haydock has spent the last six months investigating the people flooding the UK with fake clothes, bags and even pills. During the course of her investigation Livvy meets a young importer of fake goods ready to sell on to buyers and markets around the country. She also investigates the back alley sweatshop clothes factories making the fakes right here in the UK. Livvy also meets the people manufacturing and selling counterfeit Xanax pills, which hit the headlines recently with over 200 deaths in the UK since 2015 attributed to fake copies of the drug. It is legally available but only on private prescription, resulting in young customers turning to the black market for their fix. She meets dealers selling fake Xanax to 14-year-olds, as well as others who use customers as human guinea pigs to test whether their product is safe. With unique and unprecedented access to the people behind the black market, Livvy reveals who is behind our fakes.

Nothing pulls harder at the heartstrings than an opera aria – that key moment when the action stops and the character draws us right in to the heart of the drama, revealing his or her innermost feelings and thoughts. These are chances for the singers to really show off, to wow an audience with some of the most famous music in opera. In this film, charismatic conductor and music director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano, shares his personal selection of some of opera’s greatest arias. Pappano’s choices stretch across the full 400-year operatic canvas and feature some of the most ravishing and famous arias in the repertoire - from show-stopping Baroque to heart-stopping Mozart, the full-blooded Romantics to blood-curdling Verismo via Bel Canto pyrotechnics and new 20th-century techniques. Along the way he identifies the various functions that arias perform in opera – from entrance arias, soliloquies and arias born of crisis to breathless declarations of undying love. Combining hands-on workshops featuring today’s international stars - such as Joyce DiDonato, Lucy Crowe, Bryan Hymel and Lawrence Brownlee - along with glorious archive of operatic legends including Placido Domingo, Gundula Janowitz and Piero Cappuccilli, Pappano shines a fresh new light on the precise characteristics – vocal, musical, psychological and dramatic – that transform these great theatrical moments into timeless masterpieces.

The World Stone Skimming Championships is held on the tiny west coast island of Easdale. An island blessed with millions of perfect skimming stones after its slate mining industrial past was brought to an abrupt end by a huge storm. Water filled the immense quarries and created the world’s first stone skimming arena. The competition has always been, and is to this day, a community fundraising event, but tensions are now mounting between the small island community and the skimmers whose abilities have far outgrown the limitations of the 63m quarry.

Former Aberdeen and Rangers star Davie Robertson has left everything behind and moved to India to manage Real Kashmir FC. It's football in the danger zone, can he make it work?

2018 marked the 40th anniversary of Soft Cell, one of the most charismatic bands in the history of popular music. To celebrate this landmark, Marc Almond and Dave Ball reunited for an emotional farewell concert at London’s O2 Arena that September.

With unprecedented access, this film provides an intimate portrait of the band, following rehearsals as well as footage from the actual concert, woven in with archive and music videos.

Amar Latif was told, aged four, that he would be blind by the time he was 18. However, his lack of sight hasn’t prevented him from experiencing the world. He has travelled extensively, visiting over a hundred countries and taken up skydiving, bungee jumping and skiing. Whenever Amar travels he relies on someone sighted to guide him. In return he opens their eyes and all their senses to a completely different way of travelling.

Amar is joined by comedian Sara Pascoe as he attempts to open her eyes to the potential of travelling blind and ‘seeing’ the world differently. The destination is Turkey and their journey takes them off the beaten track as they explore the country’s bustling cities, remote mountains and extra-ordinary landscapes. What becomes clear is that Sara and Amar travel in completely different ways. Sara prefers to stand back and observe while Amar needs to be in the thick of things. Their journey through Turkey becomes as much about their relationship with each other, as it is about the country.

Amar and Sara start their travels in Istanbul and as they navigate the city’s vast Grand Bazaar to get to their hotel, Sara is keen to guide them straight there but Amar just wants to smell, listen and touch every item in the bazaar. It is Sara’s first lesson in guiding - if you are blind then things need to be experienced, or else they don’t really exist.

After three days in Istanbul, Amar and Sara head east to the mountains along the Black Sea. Traditional communities still live here and have a long history of summer festivities. One of these is oil wrestling – a sport Amar has heard about but never witnessed. Sara must describe the complexities of large men in leather trousers covering themselves in olive oil and throwing each other onto the ground and she rises to the challenge.

Their time in the mountains also gives Amar and Sara time to understand each other better. Amar opens up of how he went blind, and th

The shocking accounts of five men who were abused by Daryll Rowe - the first ever person in the UK to be convicted after deliberately infecting men with HIV.

This is the story of how one woman from America's most famous family changed with world through sport. Bill Clinton, Nicole Scherzinger and members of the Kennedy family reveal how JFK's sister Eunice, inspired by a tragedy in her own family, began Special Olympics more than 50 years ago. Clare Balding tells how Eunice defied her own father and overcame ignorance and prejudice to begin a movement which swept the world. Featuring stories of Special Olympians from across the globe over the last five decades this documentary shows the power of sport, the triumph of determination over discrimination and the persistence of one woman - in a man's world - to make a difference.

Allegations of a significant elephant-poaching problem in Botswana have sparked a political row between the president and his predecessor. As Alastair Leithead reports, the issue has ignited a national debate over whether there are too many elephants and whether hunting should be re-introduced.

The showband was a uniquely Irish phenomenon. It was a movement that saw thousands of young people travel up and down the country in the late '50s, '60s and early '70s to the `Dancehalls of Romance' to be entertained by the Royal Showband, the Miami Showband and Big Tom and the Mainliners, and individuals including Dickie Rock, Joe Dolan and Brendan Bowyer. Ardal O'Hanlon looks back at the phenomenon, examining what triggered the infamous era, the people involved, and its eventual end in the 1980s

When the #metoo movement spread around the world in 2016, thousands of women followed in France using the hashtag #balancetonporc (expose your pig). But soon using the hashtag became controversial for its vociferousness and created much debate. A tribune defending the right to flirt signed by 100 French women including Catherine Deneuve published in Le Monde newspaper shocked and fuelled the controversy. Men also got involved, complaining about the movement.
Why was #metoo so controversial in France? BBC journalist Helene Daouphars takes us on a trip to her home country where she investigates the resistance French women face when they speak up about sexual harassment and why #metoo didn't take hold there.
She meets with politician Segolene Royal, historian Michelle Perrot, Activists Marie Laguerre, Caroline De Haas and Sandra Muller, students and sociologist to find out.

Celebrated conceptual artist Ryan Gander investigates the selfie – the icon of a new kind of self-regard that hardly existed just ten years ago. He discovers the roots of the selfie go back hundreds of years before smartphones. In the age of social media, when we are told to be our best selves and live our best lives, he investigates what that really means and what technology is doing to our sense of self.

Twenty-five years after the murder of his friend Stephen Lawrence, Duwayne Brooks explores the current wave of knife crime and the impact it is having across the nation.

Art historian Professor Richard Clay immerses us in the febrile world of viral media, exploring the popularity and meaning of internet memes, from LOL cats to emoji, pratfall videos to ‘dank’ alt-right satire. Playfully fusing the conventions of a BBC Four authored documentary with a throwaway YouTube video style, the film examines the rise and rise of this new visual language and asks what makes a few memes cut through and spread so intensely, while the vast majority fall quietly by the wayside.

Featuring personal testimony by individuals whose lives have been destroyed by heroin, this film explores the impact of the drug across Northern Ireland and some of the efforts being made to get addicts help.

Ten years on from the Parliamentary expenses scandal which rocked Westminster to the core, Emily Maitlis explores the profound impact it had on public trust in the political class.

An investigation into the US laws letting older men marry girls under the age of 16.

Ellie Flynn travels to the USA to visit states poised to reconsider their child marriage laws. South Carolina is considering closing its 'marry-your-rapist' loophole that allows girls under 16 to marry if they are pregnant and have a parent’s consent. Visiting the record office in Spartanburg County, Ellie finds 16 child marriages in the county in the last decade. In ten of those cases, the groom could have been prosecuted under statutory rape laws. One of these marriages was between teenager Keri, then 15, and Paul, then 24. When Keri became pregnant, Paul agreed to marry her and help look after the baby in order to avoid prison. This raises a central question for Ellie: whose rights are more important: the underage, pregnant girl or the unborn, potentially fatherless baby? Ellie also travels to Georgia to meet 17-year-old Zion. She married at 16, and her groom David was just two years older than her, so Zion didn’t need to use the marry-your-rapist loophole, and nor was her groom at risk of prosecution for statutory rape. Many campaigners want to change Georgia’s minimum marriage age to 18, but Zion is convinced that this would have meant the end of her and David’s family, as they would have been forced to live apart for two years. But not all child marriages end in family harmony. Often it breaks families apart, as Ellie finds out in Idaho. Here, a case involving conflicting laws, religious beliefs and ideas of parental responsibility left two men in prison and a family at war. In Idaho, child marriage laws require a court order from a judge, but in the state of Missouri only the consent of one parent is needed. So when Heather became pregnant at 14, and without consulting her mother, Heather's father drove her across the USA to marry her 24-year-old rapist.

The Believers Are But Brothers is an urgent political riff on young men and the internet adapted for television from an award-winning play.
Artist, writer and activist Alipoor steps into the dark, blurry online world of fantasists and extremists to tell four fictional stories - of an ISIS recruiter, two British recruits and an alt-right ‘white boy’ from California.
Extremists communicate openly on social media and young men find power in digital fantasy, unleashing their wrath on the world. Alipoor’s fictional play captivated audiences with its portrayal of a shifting world of truth, fantasy, violence and hyper-reality just one click away and his television adaptation promises to take BBC Four audiences deep into this digital realm.
Through the screens on our phones and in our homes, and the apps we use every day, he explores this complex and controversial world via an electronic maze of meme culture, 4chan, the alt-right and ISIS. Along the way he uncovers a toxic mix of the harmlessly bizarre and the horrific, gaming and chatrooms, infamous ads and propaganda, brutal misogyny and weird fantasy, where, seemingly cut off from real world values and boosted by anonymity, anything can be said or done.

Bettany Hughes investigates the enduring relationship between warfare and worship, by following the trail of Mars, from Rome and Carthage to the present day.

Since the border between the UK and Ireland was created in 1922, film crews and journalists have descended there to try and make sense of its absurdities and contradictions – as well as the turmoil it can cause.

Border Country: When Ireland was Divided, brings 100 years of archival footage together with the stories of people whose lives have been affected by this crucial dividing line.

The story of the meteoric rise of one of Scotland's best-loved comedy double acts. Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill have given birth to some of our best-loved characters and catchphrases and created a sitcom sensation that’s attracted TV and theatre audiences that others can only dream of.

Featuring special interviews with Ford and Greg and other key people from their careers.

Plus first-hand accounts of their first steps out into Glasgow's fledgling comedy scene, how they came to create memorable catchphrases in Chewin' the Fat to the moments that changed the face of comedy theatre with their record-breaking Still Game Hydro arena shows.

Maryam Mirzakhani was a maths genius. She was also Iranian. Born at a time when women's rights and freedoms were being curtailed in her country, Maryam defied the odds to excel in a field traditionally dominated by men, becoming the first woman ever to win the highest award in mathematics - the prestigious Fields Medal. Tragically her brilliant career was cut short when she died of cancer at just 40 years old. This film, pays tribute to her legacy and to the talent and ambition that helped Maryam succeed.

Twenty years on, this landmark BBC documentary reveals the full story of one of Britain’s most high-profile killings.

They defined music and popular culture like no other band ever will. But how did The Beatles make the journey from Merseyside teenagers to international pop stars in the 1960s? The Beatles: Made on Merseyside recounts how American rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues dragged post-war Liverpool into one of the most vibrant music cities ever with the Mersey Sound.

Featuring unique archive and revealing interviews from those involved in the early years of The Beatles in Liverpool and Hamburg, we discover the story of The Beatles’ previous band formations and why it took so long for them to achieve success. From school bands to colleges, Hamburg to The Cavern Club, The Beatles moved from skiffle to rock ‘n’ roll before creating their unique sound.

Presented by Emilia Fox and Professor David Wilson, this documentary casts new light on the Jack the Ripper case, identifying another victim and naming the killer.

Over nine tumultuous months, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg takes us inside the most extraordinary political story of our time – Brexit.

What’s the best way to save the ageing breed of male Morris dancer from extinction? Richard Macer infiltrates the endangered world of bells, beer and beards to discover an unlikely saviour of this ancient masculine tradition in the form of women.

The Morris Ring, the oldest Morris organisation in the country, has voted to admit women dancers for the first time with the hope that its member sides - as the teams are called - might stem the tide of declining numbers. But there are hardliners who believe females will dilute the very essence of what makes men’s Morris great. So, is Morris better when danced just by men or are women and mixed sides just as good?

During this journey, Macer is invited to join his local side the Manchester Morris Men, where the average age is over 70. Macer might represent an injection of youth to this team but does he have the talent to perform at one of the biggest festivals in the Morris Ring calendar?

What emerges during a long hot summer of folk dance is a bitter conflict as one of Britain’s most enduring traditions tries to reconcile itself to the modern world of gender equality. It also becomes a fascinating meditation on the nature of masculinity in a society in thrall to the idea of political correctness. And there is a personal development too for Macer, which sends his journey off in an unexpected direction.

A year in the life of abstract artist Sean Scully, one of the world’s richest painters. Little known at home but a superstar abroad, Sean flies around the world to open 15 major museum exhibitions - a journey that also reveals his extraordinary life story.

Now, at the age of 73, Scully opens up about his unique experiences spanning 55 years in an often hostile art world - how he built a reputation from nothing, having grown up penniless on the streets of Dublin and London, often homeless as a child and running with street gangs as a teenager, to turn his striped paintings into the huge success they are today.

Karenina Velandia explores El Helicoide in Venezuela and looks at how it came to be one of the country's most notorious prisons. She talks to former prisoners and guards.

For two years BBC cameras have followed, Dr Sheperd Doeleman of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the work of the Event Horizon Telescope project team, a collective of the top scientific minds from around the world. The project combines radio observatories and telescope facilities from around the world to make up a virtual telescope with a diameter spanning the entire planet. This mega-telescope’s ultimate mission is to capture the first image ever of a black hole. Although the concept of black holes has been long assumed to be fact, the Event Horizon Telescope’s success would definitively prove the existence of this scientific phenomena for the first time – and provide clear visual evidence.

The programme brings viewers into the laboratories, behind the computer screens and beside the telescopes of what may prove to be one of the great astrophysical achievements in human history.

After one of the hottest years on record, Sir David Attenborough looks at the science of climate change and potential solutions to this global threat.

As part of BBC News' "Europe's Identity Crisis" season, Mark Urban examines Macron's rise, troubles and future plans for France and the EU.

In her first documentary for more than 35 years, the great British classical singer Dame Janet Baker talks more openly and emotionally than ever before about her career and her life today. With excerpts of her greatest stage roles (as Dido, Mary Stuart, Julius Caesar and Orpheus), as well as of her appearances in the concert hall and recording studio (works by Handel, Berlioz, Schubert, Elgar, Britten and Mahler), she looks back at the excitements and pitfalls of public performance.

She tells the film-maker John Bridcut about the traumatic loss of her elder brother when she was only ten years old, and how that experience coloured her voice and her artistry. She explains why she felt the need to retire early some thirty years ago and discusses the challenges she and her husband have to face in old age. She also gives tantalizing clues to the question her many fans often ask: does she still sing today at the age of 85?

Among the other contributors to the film are conductors Raymond Leppard, Jane Glover and André Previn (in one of his last interviews before his death in March), the singers Joyce DiDonato and Dame Felicity Lott, the opera producer John Copley, the pianist Imogen Cooper, and the actress Dame Patricia Routledge. This feature-length film is a Crux production for the BBC, following the award-winning ‘Colin Davis - in His Own Words’ in 2013. John Bridcut has also made film profiles of Herbert von Karajan, Mstislav Rostropovich, Rudolf Nureyev and Jonas Kaufmann, as well as ‘Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70’ for BBC One in November 2018.

Billy Bragg on how one song - Rock Island Line - kickstarted the skiffle craze in 50s Britain and gave birth to the great British bands of the 60s.

Just 40 years ago it was illegal to be gay in Scotland, now the country is a leader in LGBTQ+ rights – and Glasgow is home to a thriving drag scene.

This documentary takes a glimpse behind the make-up, wigs and corsets to find out what it takes to live a life in drag, why people do it and the daily battles drag queens still face, following three queens at different stages in their drag careers.

Barbara La Bush, the self-proclaimed ‘oldest queen in Glasgow’, represents traditional end-of-the-pier drag. She must come to terms with ailing health and the insecurity of a working life spent on the clubs and pubs circuit. Lawrence Chaney, part of the Instagram generation of highly looks-focused performers, seeks approval from a mainstream culture that is out of her comfort zone. And new queen Voss must battle the prejudices of a job in the merchant navy as well as gain parental acceptance.

Jodie Chalk first rode a motorcycle at age five, a gift from her father, Garfield. At 25 she is one of the most competitive riders in the UK, setting track records all over Britain but her dream is to be the first woman to win a British CB500 championship. With Garfield behind her on every corner she’s in with a chance, but as a woman in a male-dominated sport she’s struggling to find a sponsor and the cost of riding at the highest level are high.

For Jodie and Garfield, this season is make or break. They have both made huge sacrifices to get here and the championship title is within her grasp - will she make it? Will Jodie be Scotland’s first female champion?

Stereoscopy is a Victorian technique used to create a 3D effect. During the late 1800s, it was a worldwide phenomenon bringing virtual reality-like experiences of world-famous locations and people into millions of homes, but its popularity gradually waned as it was overtaken by new technology. Now Queen's Brian May wants to bring it back.

Woody Guthrie is one of America’s legendary songwriters. A voice of the people, he wrote hard-hitting lyrics for a hard-hit nation.

His is a tale of survival, creativity and reinvention. He is proof that there is always potential for change and even in 2019, more than fifty years after his death, he is challenging Donald Trump from beyond the grave.

With enormous influence on successive generations of musicians like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez and Billy Bragg, this film proves he has a true place in 21st-century culture.

A star-studded account of Oscar Wilde’s glittering and controversial career before his trial for homosexual crimes and tragic fall from grace.

Highlights from Oscar’s brilliant comedies such as The Importance of Being Earnest and stories such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost are adapted and performed by a cast including Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet. Wilde enthusiasts and experts, including Stephen Fry, Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland and his latest biographers, provide revelatory accounts of how his own life informed his work. His Irish roots, his early career, his marriage and the importance of women as well as men in his life all combine in a complex and compelling characterisation and celebration that adds flesh to the bones of a man who is too often caricatured.

Paul Adams investigates illegal and unsustainable fishing off the west coast of Africa to find out how one of the most fertile ecosystems on earth has been pushed to the brink.

2019 marks the 50th birthday of the Open University.
In its five decades, the OU has educated more than two million students. Sir Lenny Henry is one of them.
Sir Lenny presents this documentary, which tells the story of the OU from 1969 to 2019, with archive and interviews with past graduates, observers and academics. It is nostalgic, affectionate, funny and a piece of cultural and social history.
The story begins with Harold Wilson’s idea of a ‘University of the Air’ through the times of late-night black-and-white TV programmes to modern-day landmark series such as Blue Planet II. Today the OU works with space research and avatars and looks forward to the next 50 years.

John Lee Hooker was one of the greatest bluesmen of the 20th century. Born into poverty and racial segregation, he lived through a monumental time in American history.

This is the story of a cultural icon, and his far-reaching impact on popular music, told in his own words and those of his family and closest collaborators.

Interviews with Keith Richards, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray tell how an illiterate man from the rural and impoverished backwaters of the Mississippi Delta influenced their own musical journey. We reveal his part in bringing the Blues to a new generation of young British musicians and how, in turn, those musicians introduced young, mainstream Americans to their own cultural heritage.

His is an astonishing tale of survival and creativity, ingenuity and reinvention - of a man who became a superstar against extraordinary odds. It is also the story of modern America, portrayed through the incredible and touching journey of a singer-songwriter who has left an indelible mark on today’s music.

The fine line between dedication and obsession with Scotland's most successful bodybuilding couple as they push themselves to the limit for the world finals in Vegas.

A brutally honest film about grief and the ripple effects of knife crime.
When Chanell Wallace was 11 years old, her brother Daniel, 20, was stabbed and killed on the streets of Nottingham. His murderer was given a life sentence, but 13 years on his parole process will soon begin.
Daniel’s family have been invited to write a Victim Personal Statement that will be considered in the parole process, and Chanell, now 24, has volunteered to write it. A child when the murder took place, Chanell was shielded from much of the detail, so first she needs to find out what happened to her big brother, why he died so violently, and get to grips with how she feels about the man responsible.
Looking into the broader context of knife crime both then and now, Life After My Brother’s Murder is a brutally honest film laying bare the grieving process of one family who lost a son and brother to violent crime.

Iolo Williams investigates the worrying decline of wildlife in Wales. Although there are still some good wild habitats which are full of fantastic species, they are becoming fewer and rarer. Iolo fears that the decline is escalating and unless we reverse it, we are in danger of losing much of the wildlife that makes Wales so outstanding as a land of the wild.
In a passionate plea to save Wales's wildlife heritage, Iolo documents the unprecedented loss of wildlife that he has seen during the past 50 years. Many of the wild species that he grew up with in the countryside near Lake Vyrnwy in Powys have disappeared. Birds, including lapwing, curlew and yellowhammer have gone. Water voles are no longer found in the streams and rivers, and fish numbers have plummeted as well. The statistics are staggering. Many species have declined by over 60 per cent and some species, like the hare, as much as 98 per cent. Added to this is the serious decline in insects, particularly pollinators such as bees, which have declined by more than 50 per cent. Iolo uncovers a very disturbing trend.
He shares his concerns with Claire Pilman, chief executive of Natural Resources Wales and Lesley Griffiths, minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs in the Welsh government. He talks to farmers and scientists to get an understanding of what has changed in the countryside during the past 50 years, and demands answers to some crucial questions.

After an accident leaves Stuart with a life changing brain injury, he and his film-maker friend Ciaran reflect on their shifting 20-year friendship in the face of memory loss and Stuart’s altered personality.
Exploring how they have both coped with Stuart’s brain injury, the two friends try to understand what remains and what it is that endures when a friendship is fractured, leaving one with more memories than the other.

Teenage Kicks is an eye-opening exploration of the impact of technology on sex and relationships among young people today.
Snapchat is changing the way teenagers form relationships. Instagram is changing the way teenagers see themselves and each other. And internet pornography is changing their sexual behaviour.
This one-hour documentary delves into the lives of a diverse range of teenagers as they navigate our increasingly tech based world, share their vivid stories and give unguarded opinions on how they approach sex and relationships in the digital age.
We live in a time of massive social change driven by technology. But rather than be fearful and judgemental, maybe it’s time to listen to our children and young people and learn as much as we can about the world they live in?

Trafficked into the sex industry after defecting from North Korea, two young women spent years in captivity in China before finally being helped to escape. BBC Korea Editor Su-Min Hwang reports on their extraordinary ordeal.

In the past 40 years Iraq has endured three major wars, a violent coup, two invasions, a decade of bombing, two insurgencies, attack by the so-called Islamic State group and a sectarian civil war. Living through such relentless bloodshed has taken a heavy toll on the nation's mental health. More than one third of Iraqi children are thought to have moderate to severe mental illness and all social indicators, from divorce to suicide, show significant increases.

Was Cleopatra a seductress or a great politician? Shakespeare scholar Dr Islam Issa's exploration of why history and literature have recorded two very different Cleopatras.

Two great rivers - the Tigris and the Euphrates - have been the lifeblood of Iraq for centuries. But last summer, toxic water in the southern Iraqi city of Basra sparked an explosion of anger and unrest as people across the city fell sick.

Fair competition is one of the underlying principles of sport. Although recently, issues surrounding gender within sports competitions, have raised questions about maintaining a level playing field. Are all athletes competing on an equal basis, does an unfair advantage exist? As Alex Capstick reports campaigners are divided and the sports authorities are struggling to find an answer.

In May 2014, fire tore through the west wing of the Glasgow School of Art, destroying its famous library. Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the building was one of the finest examples of modern architecture in the world. What followed was the biggest conservation project in Europe: to restore the building to Mackintosh's original vision. It was on the verge of completion when a second, more devastating fire struck in June 2018.

Featuring behind the scenes access following the restoration process, this documentary charts five extraordinary years which saw the Glasgow School of Art make headlines around the world. A tale of passion, dedication and emotion: as the building is brought back to life only to be destroyed once more, we hear from the highly skilled conservation workers, architects, former students, local residents and artists in a compelling portrait of the battle to save The Mack.

Follows the story of a diver trapped on the bottom of the North Sea. At the time of the accident, Chris Lemons was relatively new to saturation diving. It was an exciting time in his life: he was engaged to be married and building a dream house in the highlands with his fiancee. After a system failure on the dive support vessel, Chris becomes stranded on the seabed with five minutes of oxygen, but no chance of rescue for more than thirty minutes. What unfolds next is a frantic rush against the clock to regain control of the ship and find the lost diver. The original participants deliver emotional first-hand accounts of an incident which has reshaped their lives forever.

The Singer sewing machine, international icon and a symbol of the Industrial Revolution, helped put the town of Clydebank on the map. Over the course of a century, it employed tens of thousands of 'bankies' before its demise nearly 40 years ago.

This documentary charts the story of those workers: how their lives were intertwined with the fortunes of Scotland’s first US multinational company. The programme pays homage to the Singer machine, and the huge impact it made on families and households all over the world.

The shocking story of Gemma, a young woman with a learning disability who was abandoned by the system and brutally murdered by people she thought of as friends.

What are the areas in which Britain’s coastal towns are thriving, or just surviving? BBC Look East’s Susie Fowler-Watt presents a series of special reports from Great Yarmouth.

To celebrate Queen Victoria’s 200th birthday, historian Dr Lucy Worsley explores the character and legacy of the famous monarch in a way that has never been attempted before – through music. Lucy reveals how Victoria used music to transform the monarchy from a political power into a benevolent cultural force that brought the country together during a time of great upheaval and change. Lucy also examines the central role music played in Victoria’s own life - as a queen, a private person and in her marriage to Prince Albert.

Victoria and Albert also took an active role in reshaping the musical culture of Britain by establishing institutions like the Royal College of Music and the Royal Albert Hall. Together they laid the groundwork for a musical renaissance in Britain which saw a new generation of great British composers reshape the sound of Britain in the 20th century. To bring the story of Britain’s great musical revolution to life there are performances from Sir Willard White, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Black Dyke Brass Band and many more.

Twenty years ago, Peter Mullan’s film Orphans shocked and wowed audiences around the world. This funny and poignant documentary reunites the cast as they remember the film that changed their lives.

Peter Mullan is famous for being an actor, director and writer. He has had roles in the iconic Scottish films of the 1990s and is now in much demand in America. Orphans was his first feature film, and he filmed it in the Southside of Glasgow, around the streets he grew up. Peter takes us on a tour of his Govanhill and Pollokshields, to show us the alleyways were he filmed his short films and the locations for Orphans. He tells us about the films that inspired him to ‘create his own world, based on the people I saw around me’.

Bringing the orphans back together again, actors Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Stephen McCole and Rosemarie Stevenson reminisce over an exciting time for their careers and the impact the film has had on their lives. The ambitious film is a time capsule of the Scottish filmmaking scene, and even the smaller roles are brimming with talent. Alex Norton is the angriest barman ever witnessed on screen, Frank Gallagher is a dodgy crook, in a role that paved the way for River City’s defining gangster, Lenny.

Darkly comedic and painfully poignant, Orphans is now regarded as a cult classic of European cinema. It cemented Peter Mullan’s career as a writer-director and also helped its cast and crew on their roads to success. Twenty years on it’s time to revisit this audacious classic of Scottish and world cinema.

In one of his first and only interviews since he was imprisoned in April 2018, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks with journalist Kennedy Alencar about his imprisonment, the state of Brazil, his past, and his future.

Decision makers and witnesses describe the power struggles, miscalculations, and media censorship that led up to the 1979 revolution in Iran, which ended the rule of its last monarch and turned the nation into an Islamic republic.

When 21 year old Calum Barnes – better known as Glasgow rapper Lumo - takes his own life aged 21, it sends shockwaves through the Scottish hip hop community. As his family and friends try to make sense of his struggle, they uncover hidden clues in the lyrics and video diaries he left behind, which tell a complex story of identity crisis culminating in suicide. Suicide is the biggest killer of young men in the UK. Devastated by his passing, and determined to make a difference to this sobering statistic, Lumo’s close family and friends take action to raise awareness and become a force for change.

Film marking a year since one of the deadliest days of violence in the Gaza Strip for a generation. Made by award-winning documentary maker Olly Lambert, One Day in Gaza examines, moment by moment, what happened on that fateful day.
14 May 2018 started as a day of mass protest at Gaza’s border with Israel, and would end as one of the most deadly days in Gaza for a generation. For weeks, Palestinians had been protesting along the border fence, but tensions were running particularly high due to the opening of the new United States embassy to Israel in Jerusalem - the controversial step ordered by Donald Trump. As Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and other senior US officials gathered in Jerusalem to inaugurate the new embassy, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered at sites along the Gaza border, barely 40 miles away. As the sun set that day, over 60 Palestinians were dead or dying, and over two thousand lay injured, many by live ammunition.
Drawing on more than 120 hours of archive footage filmed on both sides of the border that day - including exclusive videos released by both Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that dominates Gaza, and the Israel Defense Forces, this film reveals the complex reality and human toll of the day, and asks who is to blame for the bloodshed. It also features exclusive interviews with senior commanders and intelligence officers from the Israel Defense Forces, as well as political leaders of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group, and civilians who were present on both sides of the border. What really happened that day? Israel said its troops only opened fire in self-defence or on people using the protests as cover for an armed infiltration, while Palestinians and human rights groups have accused Israeli troops of using excessive force against unarmed civilians who posed no threat. This 60-minute film reveals extraordinary new details of what happened.

This film tells the stories of three British soldiers who died in 2018 following lengthy battles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Family, friends and fellow riders reflect on the life of William Dunlop, one of Northern Ireland’s best ever motorcycle road racers. The programme also features many of his most famous race victories

Film-maker Martin Read has chronic insomnia and hasn't slept properly for more than 30 years.

He's on a mission to find answers and hope from the UK's leading experts. Over four months, Martin and four fellow sufferers track their progress as they test different treatments, all in pursuit of the good night’s sleep they desperately crave.

Since Nadiya Hussain won Bake Off in 2015 she’s rarely been off our screens. But behind the scenes Nadiya suffers from extreme anxiety and debilitating panic attacks, which she’s had since childhood. For decades, she has kept her anxiety a secret, ashamed to speak out.

She’s never had a proper diagnosis but thinks she has an anxiety disorder, and with around 5 million people suffering from the condition in the UK, Nadiya is not alone.

In this one-off documentary for BBC One, Nadiya sets out to find the cause of her anxiety, exploring the most effective, available treatments, whilst having therapy herself, in the hope of managing her anxiety.

She speaks bravely and honestly about what it’s like to live with anxiety and panic attacks; undergoing a course of cognitive behaviour therapy, each session is a step into the unknown. At times, it’s a difficult process, revealing buried memories and key moments from her past. These sessions are raw and honest, but Nadiya hopes her openness will inspire others to seek help rather than suffer in silence.

She wants to understand how anxiety is affecting the nation’s health, meeting fellow sufferers in the hope of understanding her own issues. Nadiya talks to Laura Bartley about her experiences of treating her anxiety with medication, visits a school in Brighton to see how they are tackling anxiety in their students, and goes online to meet Barry McDonagh, who offers support and therapy to an online community of around 250,000.

Nadiya wants to find out if her anxiety was something she was born with, fearing she might pass it onto her children. At Kings College London, Nadiya hopes groundbreaking research into the role of genetics and environment on anxiety disorders can give her the answers she needs.

Raw, open and honest, this documentary will speak to the millions of people in the UK suffering with anxiety disorders, shining a light and starting a debate about on an increasingly pressing issue.

In 1989, Jocky Wilson was crowned world darts champion for the second time. Featuring rare archive footage and told in his own words, this is the story of the rise and fall of a cult Scottish sporting hero.
Known for his heavy drinking and unorthodox throwing style, Jocky was propelled to fame through a sport that went from pub pastime to mass entertainment. Darts took him from the dole queue in Kirkcaldy and made him one of the most recognisable faces in the country.
Everything was on offer for a skilled arrowsmith; fame, glory and a potential fortune. But for the cheeky lad from The Lang Toun with the enigmatic smile, lasting riches were somehow beyond his reach. Poor choices, a love of a drink and bad management meant Jocky left the sport penniless.
In 1995, he abandoned the game and returned to the same council estate, in the same town, near the same pub where his incredible journey to stardom began.
Following his humble upbringing, his onwards rise to national treasure and sad descent, ‘Jocky Wilson Said’ features exclusive interviews with his friends and darts contemporaries such as Bobby George, John Lowe and Phil Taylor - this is the complicated, bitter-sweet story of a Scottish folk hero, Jocky Wilson.

David Harewood had a breakdown at the age of 23. Here he opens up about his experience and meets young people living with mental health problems and the NHS staff treating them.

On the 25th anniversary of Mandela's election, BBC Correspondent Fergal Keane goes back to examine his reports, and considers why history did not turn out the way he expected.

At the heart of the film is an interview in which Fergal explores his decades of reporting in South Africa, from the fear being caught up in violent protests to the joy of reporting for BBC Newsbeat as Mandela was sworn in. He also meets historians and other experts as he considers how Mandela’s legacy has played out.

With a week to go before the UK takes part in EU elections, and nearly three years after the UK voted to leave the EU, Andrew Marr and guests explore how we reached this point. What were the factors behind the leave vote? How do the EU elections work? And what could happen afterwards?

HRH the Duke of Cambridge, Gareth Southgate, Peter Crouch, Thierry Henry, Danny Rose and Jermaine Jenas gather together in the company of Dan Walker for an extraordinary and revealing conversation about men's mental health.

In a world of constant flux and chaos, it is almost a shock to discover some experiences remain unchanged, natural, primitive even. In the middle of London lies Hampstead Heath, 320 hectares of forest, parkland and wildlife, plus three swimming ponds. People take their waters all year round, just as they did in the time of Constable and Keats. Capturing all the beauty of the English seasons, the film follows the swimmers over 12 months as they shiver, laugh, complain, ruminate, philosophise or simply seek respite from all that life threw at them. Swimming Through the Seasons is a heartwarming celebration of eccentricity and sheer bloody-mindedness as these unusual people, united by a shared passion, meet to take on the weather, the water and life.

A heartwarming story of homelessness, belonging, adventure and hope, told over the course of a year in Oxford, as an unlikely group of homeless people throw loneliness aside and come together to create and perform an entirely new piece of theatre.

In an intensely personal and often surprising film for BBC Two, Alastair Campbell candidly talks about his experience living with depression and explores if radical new treatments can make a difference.

Alastair is best known for his role as Tony Blair’s formidable and often contentious spin doctor, but, away from the public eye, he has been dogged by crippling bouts of depression for most of his life. Some days, just getting out of bed is too hard. Therapy and anti-depressant medication is helping him keep his head above water, but is that really the best he can hope for?

Encouraged by his family, Alastair sets out on a journey to explore if cutting edge science can offer him - and the millions of people like him - the hope of one day living depression-free. As he tries to understand his depression better, he also reflects on key events in his life and asks if they could have had a negative effect on his mind.

Ewan McGregor narrates a captivating portrait of wild Shetland - the remote islands at the northerly limits of Britain - and traces the course of a breeding season from the depths of winter to high summer as the animals on the islands battle for survival. In never-before-seen footage, an orca pod hunts seals along the rocky coasts while a mother otter struggles to protect her twin cubs from marauding male otters and spring storms. We also meet some comical puffins, spectacular diving gannets and mysterious storm petrels nesting in an ancient Pictish tower. The programme also features stunning scenes of human life, from crofting and boat building to the jaw-dropping Up Helly Aa fire festival with its Viking hordes.

A year on, Warwick University is still reeling from the fall-out over a Facebook group chat where male students made rape threats against their female peers. After two of the men had 10-year campus bans reduced to 12 months, serious questions were raised about the university’s handling of its investigation into the messages.

In this documentary, those at the centre of the Warwick University rape chat scandal reveal new details about what went on behind closed doors, in a story that is far from over.

One family’s fight for answers after their daughter took her own life. Natasha Abrahart was one of 11 students at the University of Bristol to kill themselves in 18 months.

Until recently, centre left social democrats held power in many countries across Europe. Since the financial crash of 2008 and high levels of immigration into Europe in recent years however, parties who once prospered from their "third way" centrist policies have suffered some major reverses. While the nationalist right and socialist left have found many new voters across the EU, the social democrats have struggled. Mark Urban reports from Germany and Italy on what the future now holds for this once all conquering political creed.

Exploring what happened to Father Francis Joseph, a Catholic priest who negotiated the surrender of some of the rebel commanders at the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka.

All over the world cities are grappling with apocalyptic air pollution but the capital of Mongolia is suffering from some of the worst in the world.

And the problem is intrinsically linked to climate change.

The country has already warmed by 2.2 degrees, forcing thousands of people to abandon the countryside and the traditional herding lifestyle every year for the smog-choked city where 90% of children are breathing toxic air every day.

In the last few decades hundreds of mansions have sprung up in villages throughout Pakistan's Punjab. Each mansion represents a successful migration to the West. This film tells the story of three local men who migrated to Oslo where they have worked, married, had children and lived their lives for decades. All three have realised their dream to have a mansion back home, all three experience the complications of return and the varying demands of family.

Victorian society is often viewed as buttoned up and prudish. Historian and author Dr Fern Riddell holds the opposite view and takes us on a journey deep into Victorian culture.

The story of Scotland's superstar DJ you’ve never heard of. A crowd-pulling DJ at 15, Stuart 'Scoobs' Cochrane performed from Bannockburn to Ibiza and all points in between. A pioneer of the rave scene in Scotland, Scoobs' entrepreneurial spirit and hedonistic attitude saw him host raves in the most unlikely of places including Blair Drummond Safari Park. But at 56, having struggled with his mental health, Scoobs had forgotten some of his younger adventures, so he bought a tape recorder and went to interview the people he'd partied with to see if they could fill in some of the gaps.

Scoobs and the Rave Years is a whistle stop look at the birth of rave and electronic dance music in Scotland between 1987 and 1993 and some of the riotous moments that happened as Scoobs and other promoters built up a fan base for this new music. Scoobs talks to a variety of people from back in the day and they remind him of some of his more bizarre and funny exploits. This is the story of the rave generation told by the people who were there at its conception.

Documentary looking at the growing phenomenon of co-parenting – where women and men have a baby together without being in a romantic relationship. Many are friends, while others meet through co-parenting websites. They all have one thing in common – a very strong desire to have a child of their own.

Friends Alex and Miriam are both in their 20s, both gay and both want to be parents – so why not have a child together? Their efforts are complicated by the fact that Alex lives in Birmingham and Miriam is in London. “Alex got me a turkey baster for Xmas as a joke present’, says Miriam. They synchronise diaries and fertility apps to ensure that they meet on peak fertility days. But it doesn’t always go to plan.

Desirée, a postal worker from Liverpool, met Jamie through a co-parenting website and now they are thrilled to be expecting a baby. It is not all plain sailing though. Jamie’s mother has revealed that there is muscular dystrophy in the family and he needs to be tested – there is an agonizing eight week wait for the results. Now they must make essential arrangements on how they are going to share their baby. Can their trip to a mediator help them get their all-important co-parenting agreement in place?

Richard is gay and knew when he turned 30 that he definitely wanted a child of his own. Now he is 35 and even more determined to find a co-parent. He visits a co-parenting meeting and is delighted to discover that he is not the only one that feels this way.

Saschan has had serious fertility issues due to complications with her contraception. She was told that if she wants a baby of her own she should to get pregnant before she is 27 – and she is 26 now. At a co-parenting meeting she meets Joseph and they go on a ‘date’ to the zoo. They get on really well and share their fertility worries but the distance between their homes could prove to be a bigger stumbling block.

Stephen and Ellen are co-parents to four-year-old twin girls Ch

Sugar dating websites aim to connect attractive, young women and men, known as ‘sugar babies’, with older, wealthy men known as ‘sugar daddies’. The websites claim sugar babies can receive thousands of pounds in cash each month, as well as luxury gifts, and the right sugar daddy can even introduce them to a world of business opportunities.

In this programme, presenter Tiffany Sweeney meets 18-year-old Valentina, who has seven sugar daddies who each give her a monthly cash allowance, and goes undercover to find out for herself about the reality of sugar dating and the potential risks involved.

The Royal Academy summer exhibition is the world’s longest running and largest open-submission show. What does that mean? That any artist can enter and stand a chance of hanging alongside the great and the good within these hallowed halls.

Kirsty Wark and Brenda Emmanus follow every step of the way with three hopeful amateur artists, and delve into the fascinating process of curating and hanging the most complicated exhibition in the British art calendar. They visit celebrity artists creating work for this year’s show, including Bob & Roberta Smith, Polly Morgan and Jeremy Deller, and get to know this year's co-ordinator Jock McFadyen.

The programme finishes by taking viewers behind the scenes of the glamorous opening night party where some famous faces hope to snap up an art bargain and hear chart-topping singer-songwriter James Bay perform live.

Award-winning author Darren 'Loki' McGarvey reveals the history of Scottish hip-hop.

Looking back at over 30 years of culture, he speaks to the pioneers in music, dance and art, telling a story of young men and women in Scotland overcoming adversity to express themselves in often-challenging circumstances.

Exploring status in culture and language and how young people in the 80s caught on to a industry now worth ten billion dollars a year but are still relatively unknown.

Documentary telling the story of hip-hop's rise to become a highly lucrative global business with some of its stars making hundreds of millions of dollars. Famous artists including 50 Cent, Ice T, Chuck D, Young Thug, Grandmaster Caz, Melle Mel along with music industry moguls explain their recipe for success.

The film tells the story of those names that have changed the rules of the game and have entered what has previously been a new frontier for black artists: Wall Street. Today's consumer culture has ensured that hip-hop stars are more than just artists - they are now brands.

Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl is an intimate portrait of British singer-songwriter Kate Nash and follows her journey over several years in her pursuit to remain a creatively and financially independent artist. After being dropped by a major label, Kate learns (the hard way) how to navigate the music industry as a self-sufficient businesswoman and creative. The film provides a unique insight into the challenges an independent artist goes through, and the resilience required to live and create art on their own terms.

A deeply personal film from the Academy Award-winning team behind Virunga (2014) and The White Helmets (2016). Fourteen years after the suicide of their son and brother Evelyn, director Orlando von Einsiedel and his family decide to walk the length of the UK and try to talk about him - something they had failed to do in over a decade. This poetic feature documentary explores the fabric of grief and the longevity of love. Part quest film, part road trip, part memoir, Evelyn is an exposition of the taboos of mental health and male emotion, and a tribute to our times.

Ewan McGregor narrates a unique nature special looking at the wildlife of the North Atlantic through the eyes of the Vikings.

Combining historical re-enactment with jaw-dropping Natural History sequences, Wild Way of the Vikings features vast herds of reindeer, huge gannet colonies, cute Artic foxes, seal-hunting orca, mystical ravens and giant walruses.

David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making.