Category: Documentary

July 29, 2023 / Documentary

Beatles’ “significance” pushed to the breaking point in this bizarre documentary that juxtaposes their songs (sung by a number of rock stars) with World War II newsreel footage. Helen Reddy sings “Fool On The Hill” while Hitler relaxes at Bertchtesgaden, and Rod Stewart husks “Get Back” while Nazi troops goose step.

July 27, 2023 / Documentary

The fundamental questions of human life about guilt, repentance, and redemption are addressed in the two-fold documentary essay delving into the grief of the women from Sliven Prison who give birth to their children behind bars. Binka Zhelyaskova anatomizes a deep collective trauma through the unique stories of her heroines. The film wasn’t screened in the theaters until 1989, following a series of changes in the country’s social milieu.

July 26, 2023 / Documentary

At the age of 12, child activist Craig Kielburger, began his extraordinary fight against child labour. He went to India to find out about the realities of children who are forced to work in the carpet trade. He confronted the Canadian Prime Minister and then he toured the world, speaking out wherever he could. The film explores the complex issue of working children, and looks at “Free The Children” – the movement Craig and his school friends founded. Shot in India, Brazil & the Philippines.

July 26, 2023 / Documentary

Produced in the 1970s, and at the time dubbed “The greatest wildlife film ever” by the BBC, this dramatic film records the struggle in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park to protect elephants from bow and arrow hunters supplying a rampant international ivory trade…. The film follows Tsavo’s warden, the late David Sheldrick, and his ranger force in their daily fight against armed poachers intent on wiping out Tsavo’s magnificent elephant herds and its dwindling population of Black Rhinos. We also follow the story of the baby elephants, rhino and other animals that have been orphaned due to poaching, and watch them as they are hand-reared and eventually return to the wild.

July 24, 2023 / Documentary

A portrait of Raymond Francombe, jobbing gardener and composer. Ray is a familiar figure around the centre of Bristol. What will not be known by most of those who pass him every day is that for years he has been composing sacred music – and, until this programme was made, he had never actually heard a note of it performed. In this film Derek Jones gets to know Ray, and attempts to have his music professionally assessed.

July 24, 2023 / Documentary

In 1974 the film Emmanuelle redefined the adult movie, with the British Board of Film Certification chairman James Ferman describing it as making “sex respectable in cinema”. With an X certificate it made a star of actress Sylvia Kristel and launched one of the most successful film franchises of all time. In the programme film-maker Alex Cox reviews the controversy, the censorship, and the way that Emmanuelle altered what was acceptable for film-makers to show on screen.

July 9, 2023 / Documentary

This film reveals the extraordinary story of the Japanese Kamikazes of World War II and the world’s first suicide bombing campaign. Using archive, drama reconstructions and interviews with the survivors and their relatives, this film explores how thousands of young Japanese men were persuaded to sacrifice their lives in the name of war, and the lasting effect it has had on their families.

July 9, 2023 / Documentary

Father James Harold Flye is best known as the life-long friend and mentor of writer James Agee. In this touching portrait of James Flye, the man to whom the Letters of James Agee to Father Flye were written, Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Ross Spears gives us a record of several visits with Father Flye spanning a ten-year period and culminating with the occasion of Father Flye’s 100th birthday.