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Private Notes
Documentary telling the story of Stax, one of the most influential soul record labels ever. Founded in a black neighbourhood of Memphis by a white brother and sister in the 1960s as a studio with an open-door policy, the label went on to sign such iconic acts as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and their house band, Booker T and the MGs. Featuring interviews with Jesse Jackson, Elvis Costello, Chuck D, Justin Timberlake, Bono and Pete Townshend.
Documentary exploring what really happened throughout the world in the seminal year of 1968, a time of music and of revolution, asking why so many hopes were disappointed and what is the period's true legacy.
Drawing on archive footage from the US, Vietnam, Britain, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy and Mexico, the film dynamically reconstructs the hopes, the fears and the ultimate sense of despair that pervaded the events of 1968.
Documentary focusing on Shillong, North India, where each year the village comes together to celebrate the birthday of their musical hero - Bob Dylan. At the heart of the celebrations is Lou Majaw, a local celebrity who tours India performing Dylan's songs to rapturous crowds. This film takes a behind-the-scenes look at Majaw's life, seeing how the rock and roll lifestyle seems to be tearing him apart.
Documentary that gets to the heart of an extraordinary artworld cause célèbre.
In the span of only a few months, 4-year-old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international renown - and sold over $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. She was compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, and called 'a budding Picasso'. Inside Edition, The Jane Pauley Show, and NPR did pieces on her, and The Today Show and Good Morning America got in a bidding war over an appearance by the bashful toddler. There was talk of corporate sponsorship with the family fielding calls from The Gap and Crayola.
Then, five months into Marla's new life as a celebrity, and just short of her fifth birthday, a bombshell dropped. CBS's 60 Minutes aired an exposé suggesting strongly that the paintings were painted by her father, himself an amateur painter. As quickly as the public built Marla up, they tore her down. The New York Post asked whether 'the juvenile Jackson Pollock may actually be a full-fledged Willem de Frauding'. The Olmsteads were barraged with hate mail and ostracized, whilst sales of the paintings dried up and Marla's art dealer considered moving. Embattled, the Olmsteads themselves turned to a documentary filmmaker to clear their name.
Torn between his own responsibility as a journalist and the family's desire to see their integrity restored, the director finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a situation that can't possibly end well for him and them, and could easily end badly for both.
Acclaimed film comprising an extended interview with 81-year-old Traudl Junge, who recalls her role as Adolf Hitler's personal secretary during his final years.
In October 1972, a student rugby team boarded a small plane in Montevideo to fly across the Andes for a long weekend of playing rugby and partying in Chile. But they never reached their destination as a storm brought their plane down in the high Andes, leaving the survivors stranded on a remote glacier.
Ill-equipped, with no food and little hope of rescue, the survivors faced extreme hardship and many life-or-death situations, including the agonising decision to eat the flesh of those killed in the crash to stay alive. Thirty years later, those that got down from the mountain relive their 72 days 'up there' to give this extraordinarily powerful, vivid and immediate account of human endurance and heroism.
Series showcasing the best in international documentaries. In 1989, a woman was brutally murdered in broad daylight on a beach in Brittany. The detective assigned to the case was a young homicide cop, Jean Francois Abgrall. Abgrall was soon convinced that the murderer was a weird drifter called Francis Heaulmes who, despite an alibi, kept dropping mysterious hints. Abgrall recounts how he trailed Heaulmes through France to bring him to justice.
Documentary telling the story of the Funk Brothers, the Motown session musicians who were behind more number one hits that the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined. Drawn together from Detroit's jazz and blues scene, the film recounts their evolution of the Motown sound from its origins to its demise in LA during the 1970s, and reunites the surviving Funk Brothers for the first time in thirty years.
Documentary about internationally-renowned author Ariel Dorfman, the third generation of his family to know exile. His father's leftwing beliefs saw the family uprooted from both Argentina and the US, before settling in Chile. When Allende came to power, Ariel was a prominent member of his circle, but the bloody 1973 coup saw many of his friends and colleagues killed or disappeared and Ariel forced into exile again. Peter Raymont journeys with Ariel as he looks back on his life.
Barking has one of the highest levels of immigration in Britain. Over ten thousand residents have recently voted for the BNP, making them the second largest party in the area. Film maker Marc Isaacs meets the locals, including a BNP activist and a mixed race couple, to ask questions about prejudice and integration.
Henry Marsh is one of Britain's leading brain surgeons. Ten years ago he befriended Igor Kurilets, a fellow neurosurgeon who works in the Ukraine, and ever since he has travelled to the Ukraine twice a year to operate on patients for free.
Geoffrey Smith's moving film follows Henry as he travels to Kiev to help Igor operate on a young man called Marian, who without surgery has just months to live. When Henry arrives he faces a serious challenge - Marian must be awake when his tumour is removed, and Henry must use the most basic tools, including a Black and Decker drill.
Documentary about the extraordinary life of Baroness Moura Budberg - caught up in a plot to topple the Bolsheviks, lover of men like HG Wells and Maxim Gorky and a true heroine were it not for sinister rumours of murder and betrayal. Dimitri Collingridge, her great great nephew, attempts to find out whether she was actually callous Soviet agent.
As part of a season marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Liran Atzmor's film documents a battle that took place in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948 from three points of view - photojournalist John Philips, whose pictures for Life magazine depicted the Jews being evacuated from the Old City; Jack Padwa, the producer of a feature film which tells the story from a Jewish British perspective; and photographer Ali Zaarour, who tells the story from the Palestinian viewpoint.
Part of a season marking the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, a documentary about Yulie Cohen, a patriotic Israeli who survived a terrorist attack in London that killed a colleague. Her later friendship with a Palestinian changed her life and led her to attempt to free the surviving terrorist who attacked her, to question the myths of the state that she grew up in and to reconcile with her ultra-orthodox brother after 25 years of estrangement.
Documentary telling the story of the Funk Brothers, the Motown session musicians who were behind more number one hits that the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined. Drawn together from Detroit's jazz and blues scene, the film recounts their evolution of the Motown sound from its origins to its demise in LA during the 1970s, and reunites the surviving Funk Brothers for the first time in thirty years.
Documentary focusing on Shillong, North India, where each year the village comes together to celebrate the birthday of their musical hero - Bob Dylan. At the heart of the celebrations is Lou Majaw, a local celebrity who tours India performing Dylan's songs to rapturous crowds. This film takes a behind-the-scenes look at Majaw's life, seeing how the rock and roll lifestyle seems to be tearing him apart.
Documentary about the 2002 murder of Iranian football star Nasser Mohammad Khani's wife, the subsequent confession to the crime by his mistress Shahla and her fight to escape the death sentence.
Documentary which looks at what it takes to run a successful restaurant business in China. Owner Qin Linzi and her staff keep everything running smoothly, while the chefs' skills are put to the test in a competition. The restaurant prepares for a 70th birthday banquet. Qin Linzi discusses her difficult childhood and introduces her daughter, who has led a more privileged life. There's a banquet for a newborn baby and an anniversary show organised by the restaurant to celebrate its third year.
Second of a four-part series looking at China's largest restaurant features the wedding between a wealthy property developer and his beautiful bride and examines attitudes towards marriage in contemporary China.
Part 3 looks at the strong sense of duty implicit in family relationships in China. Waitress Peng has sacrificed her own education to support her sister's studies, while owner Qin Linzi discusses her own difficult childhood and introduces us to her privileged daughter. The restaurant prepares a 70th birthday banquet for Sun and her family, with special dishes including steamed longevity buns and stir-fried turtle.
Part 4 looks to the future with a banquet for a new baby and the anniversary show organised by the West Lake to celebrate its third year. Managers, chefs and waiting staff take to the stage in an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza rounded off with a star turn by the owner, Qin Linzi. The restaurant addresses the high rate of staff turnover and gives the waiting staff a pay rise, while Qin discusses how important it is for her to drink with her customers.
As part of a season marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Yoav Shamir's documentary looks at why so many young Israelis use their National Service discharge bonus to go backpacking in northern India and Goa, with a high proportion experimenting with drugs and consequently suffering mental breakdowns.
Documentary which tells the story of how a cabal of undertakers in the sleepy Polish city of Lodz conspired to bribe paramedics and doctors into murdering their patients, just to provide them with extra business. However, when bitter infighting and an assassination attempt divided the gang, prosecutors began to get suspicious. Featuring access to the key players and bizarre courtroom footage.
Documentary revealing how the cult of Marshall Tito remains alive and well in the former Yugoslavia over 25 years after the Communist dictator's death. Every year Tito devotees celebrate his birthday as if they hadn't noticed that the country he helped found had long since vanished in bloody civil wars. The protective fog of nostalgia surrounding his legacy has started to clear, and the hidden story of his long reign is now finally being told.
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.
Documentary which looks at what it takes to run a successful restaurant business in China. Owner Qin Linzi and her staff keep everything running smoothly, while the chefs' skills are put to the test in a competition. The restaurant prepares for a 70th birthday banquet. Qin Linzi discusses her difficult childhood and introduces her daughter, who has led a more privileged life. There's a banquet for a newborn baby and an anniversary show organised by the restaurant to celebrate its third year.
Second of a four-part series looking at China's largest restaurant features the wedding between a wealthy property developer and his beautiful bride and examines attitudes towards marriage in contemporary China.
Part 3 looks at the strong sense of duty implicit in family relationships in China. Waitress Peng has sacrificed her own education to support her sister's studies, while owner Qin Linzi discusses her own difficult childhood and introduces us to her privileged daughter. The restaurant prepares a 70th birthday banquet for Sun and her family, with special dishes including steamed longevity buns and stir-fried turtle.
Part 4 looks to the future with a banquet for a new baby and the anniversary show organised by the West Lake to celebrate its third year. Managers, chefs and waiting staff take to the stage in an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza rounded off with a star turn by the owner, Qin Linzi. The restaurant addresses the high rate of staff turnover and gives the waiting staff a pay rise, while Qin discusses how important it is for her to drink with her customers.
Documentary about Father Michael Cleary, an unlikely superstar of the Irish Catholic Church who had his own TV chatshow and two hit albums to his credit. He was the man who could seemingly do no wrong, but a year after his death a shocking truth emerged about his private life that would rock the Church to its foundations and leave his family's life in tatters. Alison Millar, who met with Cleary as a young film student, revisits her archive to discover the truth about the 'real Father Ted'.
Documentary which tells the story of how a cabal of undertakers in the sleepy Polish city of Lodz conspired to bribe paramedics and doctors into murdering their patients, just to provide them with extra business. However, when bitter infighting and an assassination attempt divided the gang, prosecutors began to get suspicious. Featuring access to the key players and bizarre courtroom footage.
Documentary revealing how the cult of Marshall Tito remains alive and well in the former Yugoslavia over 25 years after the Communist dictator's death. Every year Tito devotees celebrate his birthday as if they hadn't noticed that the country he helped found had long since vanished in bloody civil wars. The protective fog of nostalgia surrounding his legacy has started to clear, and the hidden story of his long reign is now finally being told.
Documentary about the inheritance of a Gothic home and a family's unspoken past.
78-year-old Ruth has promised her beloved estate to one of her twin daughters, with whom she has lived for the past 35 years. As tensions mount, Ruth flees to France into the arms of her other, estranged daughter.
Ruth's granddaughter Elizabeth documents the struggle, unaware of the dark secrets that lie within the house's walls, as Ruth's turbulent journey sees the unravelling of a family consumed by the legacy of silence and denial.
Documentary which follows the story of Mark Devlin and his team of scientists as they try to figure out how all the galaxies formed by launching a revolutionary new telescope under a NASA high-altitude balloon.
Their adventure takes them from Arctic Sweden to Inuit Canada, where failure forces the team to try again on the desolate ice of Antarctica. The obsessions, personal and family sacrifices, and philosophical and religious questioning of a professional scientist are all laid bare.
