Dr Janina Ramirez travels across glaciers and through the lava fields of Iceland to find out about one of the most compelling of the great Viking stories - the Laxdaela Saga. This hour-long film explores how the unique literary achievements of the Saga writers were possible at a time of such immense cultural, political and religious upheaval.
Speech-making is the art of persuasion. Well-honed rhetoric appeals not just to the mind, but to the heart and, deeper down, in the guts. Examining the speeches that provoked radical change, surprised pundits or shocked listeners, poet Simon Armitage dissects what makes a perfect speech. Simon gets the inside story behind some of the famous speeches of the modern age, talking to Tony Blair's speechwriter, to Earl Spencer on his controversial address at his sister's funeral and the woman who challenged the rioters in Hackney. We hear how Peter Tatchell confronted the BNP, Paul Boateng on how Enoch Powell's divisive speech personally affected him as a child, and Colonel Tim Collins, whose charge was to motivate his troops on the eve of the Iraq war. Simon discusses the nuts and bolts of speech writing with Vincent Franklin, aka the blue-sky thinking guru Stuart Pearson from The Thick of It, and gets tips on powerful delivery from actor Charles Dance.
Drama about domestic violence in a cosy middle-class relationship starring Hermione Norris and Mark Strong. Won a Bafta awards for Best New Writer and Best New Fiction Director.
13 years after Bella, Martin and Lee were there, the manager of their children's home is retiring and the home being shutdown. As they meet up together at a reunion/retirement celebration it sparks old memories of their time together at the home.
"We are the renters of this world, not its masters," reminds Pooshkar, a precocious 13-year-old member of a youth environmental defense group in India. He and his fellow voraciously energetic students actively rally against the use of plastics. In Africa, a renaissance man teaches citizens to harness solar power to cook food. In Papua New Guinea, villagers practice sustainable logging to save their rainforests. A woman in London uses her PR savvy to start a successful environmental communications firm. Self-described "hillbillies" in Appalachia battle the big business behind strip mining. In this rich and inspiring documentary, director Brian Hill takes us around the world to find the ordinary people taking action in the fight to save our environment.
It is not easy to be an albino in Tanzania. White skin is distinguishable and it burns quickly under the African sun. However, the constant fear is by far the worst part. According to local superstition, albino body parts bring wealth and luck; hence witch doctors pay generously for a leg or an arm.
Lucy Kirkwood’s Maryland takes us to the dark heart of male violence against women but manages to do so with humour and wit. An outstanding cast explores an urgent issue.
A loner from an early age, Thomas Quick went on to become Sweden's most notorious serial killer, openly confessing to the gruesome murders of more than 30 people. Held for decades in a psychiatric institute, Quick's confessions emerged after years working with a group of touchy feely therapists, convinced that the recovery of memories would cure patients of their criminality. In a country with a low crime rate, the nation watched with horror as Quick's confessions mounted, accounting for many of the country's unsolved murders. With testimonials from a range of people whose lives have been dominated by this story - including Quick himself - and dramatic reenactment, Brian Hill weaves a stylish noir thriller that works a treat on the big screen. What appears at first to be a tale of unimaginable evil evolves into something much more layered as Hill digs deep into the motivations behind those working closely with Quick.
An insight into no win, no fee compensation cases.
Violent. Visceral. Anarchic. Some call it music. Others call it a problem. One film asks the big question surrounding the controversial Drill music scene: does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? Go beyond the headlines to unearth the roots and the impact of a divisive form of self-expression. From musicians and gang members to victims of violence and industry professionals, discover a new human narrative on a disaffected generation and understand the origins of the most talked about cultural phenomenon for decades.
A documentary film crew go into Feltham young offenders prison where the teenagers who left are 75% likely to re-offend. The film talks to a handful of inmates about life in prison and how they got there in the first place. Oh yeah - and it's a musical!
Fifty years on from the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK, this BBC Two documentary explores how safe it is to be gay in Britain today. With homophobic hate crime on the rise, this film takes a 360 degree look at the issue, hearing from the victims, their families and the police. What makes someone attack another person because of their sexuality? How do victims deal with these unsolicited and unprovoked assaults? And what are we doing about this in Britain in 2017?
Women who work in the adult film industry talk and sing songs about their experiences making pornographic films for a living.
Documentary following Serbian football coach Zoran Đorđević as he helps form South Sudan's first national football team.
Documentary following a group of primary schoolchildren over the course of a year as they learn to read. Some of them make a flying start, but others struggle even with the alphabet. The film takes us into their home lives, where we find that some parents are strongly aspirational, tutoring children late into the night, while others speak English as a foreign language, if at all. As the children master the basics, they discover the magical world of stories and look with fresh eyes at the world around them. The film gives us privileged access to a profound process that all of us only ever do once in our lives.
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.
Work colleagues Becky and Steve get drunk at a work party at an up-market hotel and end up having sex. She claims it was rape; he claims it was consensual. A mock trial follows in which a jury of ordinary people, real barristers, solicitors, and a judge hear the resulting case.
The remarkable story of Alex Skeel, a 23-year-old man from Bedford who survived an abusive relationship with his girlfriend Jordan Worth
Off the coast of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal is a tiny 'brothel island' populated by women forced to sell their bodies to men who arrive by the boatload. Each of the women came to inhabit the 100m long and 10m wide piece of land for different reasons, whether through a sister, the need for money, or in search of love and affection, but for all of them it is a life tougher than they could have imagined. Deepening their troubles is the island's existence at the frontline of climate change, and with the increase of cyclones, floods and soil erosion the prospect of losing their homes, and the island itself, is closer than ever. Beautifully shot and subverting expectation, Bad Weather is a documentary that carves out a message of hope in extreme adversity.
'Nobody Someday' is an intimate, no-holds barred documentary of life on tour with Robbie. Robbie said to filmmaker Brian Hill that nothing was off limits to camera. The result is a refreshingly honest account of what it's like to travel on tour bus after tour bus, jump on stages (and sometimes unwittingly off them), belt out the hits, play some cards and orally satisfy fifteen thousand screaming fans a night!
