First Cut

With the credit crunch biting deep, money-saving has become the nation's favourite hobby. The first film in the new run of First Cut, by new director Claire Braden, looks at what happens when money-saving spills into madness. Claire meets the men and women who have devoted their lives to saving money in the most extraordinary ways.

Tom Pearson's film follows two parents who turned their children in to the police after discovering they had committed crimes, and the difficulties each parent faced in making a complicated moral decision on the matter, and the consequences of their choice: keep the crime a secret, or turn their children into the authorities.

In 2008, Levi Bellfield was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of two women and the attempted murder of a third. His unsuspecting family were left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. This documentary follows Bellfield's eldest daughter Bobbie-Louise as she approaches her 18th birthday hoping for a future free from the burden of her father. Though free from guilt for any of Bellfield's crimes, the family was vilified by the community and the children were bullied at school. They recall the years being victim to their father's abusive and often strange behaviour. *There was no episode on friday 23 January due to the launch of Celebrity Big Brother.*

Paul Parker is a hunter with a singular mission: to kill every grey squirrel in Northumberland. Unfortunately for Paul, he's outnumbered two million to one by the little Yankee bleeders. To licensed pest-control officer Paul, grey squirrels are recent immigrants. They came to Britain in the 1820s from America, and their population has been multiplying ever since. The main losers in the squirrel wars have been the British red squirrels, falling victim to a deadly squirrel plague whenever the greys move into their patch. It seems that Britain isn't big enough for the both of them.

Poet Luke Wright teams up with director Zara Hayes to create Seven Ages of Love, a short film that combines both documentary and performance poetry to give seven differing perspectives on what 'love' means in Britain today.

First-time director Jamie Balment explores the extreme lengths to which some British homeowners will go to defend their property from burglars and intruders. An Englishman's home has always been his castle, and today's castles are being fortified with the most advanced security systems ever known.

First-time filmmaker Cat McShane delves into the little-known world of adult doll's house enthusiasts, exploring the attraction of creating miniature worlds through the stories of some very British eccentrics. Hello Dollies offers a window into these charming houses and explores what drives these British enthusiasts to create tiny, perfect worlds.

First-time filmmaker Vanessa Stockley's powerful and moving film is a raw and intimate portrait of two women from very different backgrounds as they face the final stages of their officer training at Sandhurst Military Academy before being sent to Afghanistan.

Filmmaker Tim Wardle's debut tells the tale of his quest to find the most statistically average person in Britain. According to the stats, the average Briton drinks 1,000 cups of tea a year, goes to the toilet six times a day, believes in God, hates Brussels sprouts, is caught on camera 300 times a day, has 14 friends, spends 19 minutes preparing their dinner, and has sex eight times a month. Who is this person? What do they look like and where do they live?

Rowan Deacon meets a group of devoted health food worshippers, the Raw Foodists.

Claire Sessarego travels from her home in Hereford to Antwerp to collect the remains of her now deceased father, and to discover who he really was and how he died. As a mercenary or “gun for hire” involved in secretive “black ops” across the world, Philip had taught the Taliban how to fight the Russians in the 1980s, double-crossed soldiers in the Balkans by faking his own death in the 1990s, and wrote a book about his time in the SAS in 2001 (later revealed to be lies and fantasy). Uncovering the murky truth about her father, Claire’s journey allows her to finally lay his memory to rest - but as what? An heroic larger-than-life soldier of fortune or simply a man who abandoned her and his family to live out his fantasy?

This quirky documentary explores the world of personalised car number plates and some of the people who spend thousands to own the right combination of numbers and letters; among them several people with the name Nigel, who crave the same ultimate number plate.

The story of a radical 1970s commune where the children were all given the surname “Wild”, in the hope that they would grow up to be wild and free from the traditional confines of the nuclear family.

Every day, over 1,200 cremations take place in the UK - that’s more than 1,500 tonnes of ash that has to be dealt with every year. Whilst tradition might dictate that we should scatter or inter our relative’s remains, now it seems, we as a nation are discovering more unusual ideas for dispersing of – and indeed holding onto – our loved one’s ashes. In Ashes to Diamonds filmmaker David Brindley sets out to meet some of those families across the country who have decided on a far from conventional farewell for their loved one. From a widow having her husband turned into a diamond to a family putting their father into a steam train’s furnace, this film seeks to discover why some of us form such a strong relationship with these ashes and how the decision concerning what to do with them can impact those that are left behind.

For the fourth run of First Cut, Susannah Price's compelling documentary tells the story of one of the biggest swindles in music industry history. In 2003, Joyce Hatto became one of the most famous pianists in the world, thanks to an elaborate fraud perpetrated by her delusional husband William Barrington-Coupe, who claimed he simply "wanted people to realise just how wonderful piano music was." This accomplished film tells the story of the scam, and talks to people who were hoodwinked by it.

The fourth run of the First Cut strand continues with Sally Ashby's intriguing film that lifts the lid on the exclusive world of super-rich Russians who want an English public school education for their children. Dina Karpova, a glamorous international property broker, is capitalising on Russia's love for all things British, fast-tracking her clients' children into Britain's high society by introducing them to aristocratic families and getting them into our most prestigious public schools.

In Estephan Wagner's poignant debut, he meets Noel Martin. Paralysed from the neck down 13 years ago when a concrete block was thrown through his windscreen by neo-Nazis in eastern Germany, Noel's lifelong dream came true 3 years ago when he bought a racehorse to compete at Royal Ascot and it came in first. Although the horse has given him a passionate reason to live, his health has been deteriorating and he has decided that he wants to go to Switzerland for euthanasia.

Frank Evans, Britain's only professional matador, retired from the sport in 2005 to undergo knee replacement surgery and a quadruple heart bypass. Last year, unwilling to hang up his cape for good, he announced he would make a comeback at the age of 65. In the latest run of Channel 4's First Cut series, filmmaker Molly Clarke follows Evans' progress over three months as he prepares to re-enter the dangerous world of professional bullfighting.

Hard-working but hard-up singleton Rebecca, 28, from Essex, who has never been in a long-term relationship, guides us through her entertainingly shameless and impressively inventive quest to bag herself a wealthy man.

Jon is a typical teenage boy in all respects except one: he was born a girl. Brought up as Natasha for 15 years, Jon can remember feeling male since he was only five years old. He has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition that affects over 100 British children every year, and is now embarking on an extraordinary journey of transition. In Green Bay's Channel Four film, Director Julia Moon follows mother and son through the first three months of Jon's life-changing treatment as the testosterone pushes his female body into male puberty.

First-time director Leon Dean meets Britain’s most notorious car clamper. Ted Evans is the thorn in the side of the beautiful Yorkshire village of Haworth, the home of the Bronte sisters. Residents spurn him and tourists fear him. He has been accused of immobilising a car while its driver was asleep, clamping a minibus for disabled children and clamping the Prime Minister of Australia. In 2003 his company, Carstoppers, won the RAC Dick Turpin Award for the nation’s worst clamper. And Ted’s car park ends up being debated in Westminster when he clamps former Parliament speaker Betty Boothroyd.