Storyville

Storyville looks at the role played by anti-war bloggers in the Connecticut Democratic Senatorial primary race of the 2006 mid-term elections.

For three years before his death from poisoning, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko had been making a documentary with his friend Andrei Nekrasov about authoritarianism in post-communist Russia. Here is that film, the unexpected ending of which made world headlines at the end of 2006. Andrei Nekrasov was a friend of Alexander Litvinenko. They'd met when Nekrasov was making a film about the effect of the Chechen war on children. The two became closer as Nekrasov became interested in Litvinenko's career - from KGB man to critic of Putin and, latterly, critic of the entire society which had allowed KGB-style practises to continue in post-communist Russia. As Litvinenko says in the film, "In the old days there were communists and there were criminals. Now there are only criminals." Nekrasov's film, which was completed for the BBC with the assistance of Leslie Woodhead, is an extraordinary document. He doesn't attempt to 'solve' the Litvinenko murder. Instead he re-creates Livinenko's life and, more importantly, his consciousness. And he tells us how terrifying it is to be an intelligent, critical individual in contemporary Russia. The real subject of the film is Nekrasov's's admiration for Litvinenko, who was a remarkable and courageous man. His wife, too, appears in the film, and she is also remarkable. This is a wholly unexpected film - an intimate portrait of a man who was murdered in the most bizarre public circumstances at the end of 2006.

In June 2002 a suicide bomber destroyed a rush hour bus in a Jerusalem suburb. Filmed 16 months later, 29 people who are connected by the attack trace the memories and the outcomes of the catastrophe to give an alarming snapshot of our times.

Documentary in which Ivy Meeropol tells the story of how her family was torn apart in 1953 when her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were executed for 'conspiracy to commit espionage'. Their names were seared into American history that day as both martyrs and 'atom spies', but the young Jewish couple left behind two orphaned boys - Ivy's dad Michael, and six-year-old Robert. The film sheds new light on a chapter in American history and provides a personal perspective on an iconic event.

Storyville documentary about atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, who was brutally murdered back in 1995.

Documentary which follows the war crimes trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic from its beginnings at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to its final stages in The Hague.

Documentary which follows the war crimes trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic from its beginnings at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to its final stages in The Hague.

Storyville documentary. A portrait of one family's response over five years to the debilitating neurological condition ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig 's Disease.

Documentary which details the turbulent history of controversial American proto-punk rockers The New York Dolls through the eyes of bassist Arthur Kane, telling the story of the band from its formation, through drug problems and the deaths of several members. After the Dolls' break up in 1975 Kane faded away into virtual obscurity and battled alcoholism in LA, but in 2004, Morrissey asked the surviving three New York Dolls to play at London's 2004 Meltdown Festival, of which he was the curator.

In Al Franken: God Spoke, the makers of The War Room capture the emergence of Al Franken as a political commentator. The film is shot over the course of two years and follows Franken from his highly publicized feud with Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly to his fierce campaign against president George W. Bush during the 2004 election.

The remarkable story of a 13-year-old Japanese girl abducted by North Korean agents while on her way home from school. For twenty years, her parents remained unaware of her fate.

As Rock band System of a Down visit locations of genocide, the lead singer's grandfather talks about surviving the Armenian massacres of 1915-17.

Documentary about the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1989-1994), one of the first signs of Soviet collapse. Journalist Vardan Hovhannisyan was in the trenches alongside the soldiers and captured their last words to their families and their reflections on life and war. Ten years later he returned to the villages still in ashes, to the soldiers, nurses and ordinary people who survived to find out how people continue to live their lives after experiencing such extraordinary and traumatic events.

First of a two-part documentary telling the story of Cuba's interventions in Africa from the 1960s onwards and the USA's response, which captures the superpower rivalry, revolutionary idealism and the events that sowed the seeds of later wars. From Che Guevara's campaign in the Congo to the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, Jihan El Tahri shows how Cuba tried to carve out an alternative path for Third World nations, with unique archive stills and footage of Che and Fidel Castro.

Second of a two-part documentary telling the story of Cuba's interventions in Africa from the 1960s onwards and the USA's response, which captures the superpower rivalry, revolutionary idealism and the events that sowed the seeds of later wars. From Che Guevara's campaign in the Congo to the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, Jihan El Tahri shows how Cuba tried to carve out an alternative path for Third World nations, with unique archive stills and footage of Che and Fidel Castro.

Documentary which deconstructs the mythologies and controversy surrounding the JFK assassination. Featuring interviews with Norman Mailer, Gary Hart, Tom Hayden, Mark Lane and others, it probes the deep psychic wounds it made on American politics and culture, leading to a decade of governmental skullduggery, political paranoia, demagoguery and division on a huge scale. With the subsequent assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and the revelation of President Nixon's constitutional subversion in the early 70s, the last hopes of American idealism were shattered.

Storyville examines the work of attorneys as they take on cases of wrongful death.

Documentary about Hugues de Montalembert, blinded in a random street mugging in 1978, but who defied expectation and continued to travel the world, alone. Using Montalembert's own voiceover to show how he dealt with the life-changing event, film-maker and composer Gary Tarn constructs a poetic meditation on an extraordinary life without vision.

Classic rock film documenting David Bowie's last public appearance as his androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. This memorable final concert at the Hammersmith Odeon includes Changes, Time and Suffragette City.

Documentary looking at Shanghai Circus school, where the gruelling training regimes result in some of the best acrobats and circus performers in the world. Children as young as eight have their unformed bodies stretched and tested to breaking point as they learn to master the most taxing feats of acrobatic grace and daring. Harsh demands are also made of teachers and parents as their proteges strive to be number one in the circus, the Chinese way.

Documentary which examines the history of the Third Reich through the jokes told by and about the Nazis and the fate that befell some of the joke tellers. In the early days of the Nazi era, jokes about Hitler were punishable as treason, and during the war they were even seen as unpatriotic, a crime punishable by death. Cabaret artiste, Werner Finck, was imprisoned in a concentration camp, but then released, while actor Fritz Muliar's anti-Hitler jokes landed him in a penal battalion in Russia.

Documentary in which filmmaker Jamie Kastner goes on a personal journey to find out what it means to be Jewish in the modern world. Along the way he meets anti-semitic politician Pat Buchanan, Israeli novelist AB Yehoshua, British anti-Israeli curmudgeon Richard Ingrams and Hasids in Brooklyn; he causes a near-riot in a Parisian suburb simply by asking what people think about Jews; and he meets the 'dominatrix' behind Berlin's largest memorial to dead Jews

First of a four-part series which goes inside the closed world of Western corporate outsourcing in the Indian town of Chennai. It's based around ambitious Office Tiger employees such as Amita and Sunita, who eagerly soak up the language and style of their bosses while holding on to the aspects of their own culture that serve them best, and the Americans who strive to guide them, including Joe (co-CEO), a former Goldman Sachs banker who believes in pushing himself and his workers to the limit.

Four-part series which goes inside the closed world of Western corporate outsourcing in the Indian town of Chennai. It's based around the ambitious Office Tiger employees such as Amita and Sunita, who eagerly soak up the language and style of their bosses while holding on to the aspects of their own culture that serve them best, and the Americans who strive to guide them, including Joe (co-CEO), a former Goldman Sachs banker who never sleeps and is always asking his workers for more effort.

Four-part series which goes inside the closed world of Western corporate outsourcing in the Indian town of Chennai. It's based around the ambitious Office Tiger employees such as Amita and Sunita, who eagerly soak up the language and style of their bosses while holding on to the aspects of their own culture that serve them best, and the Americans who strive to guide them, including Joe (co-CEO), a former Goldman Sachs banker who never sleeps and is always asking his workers for more effort.

The seventies in America were a time of growth and experimentation. Clothes became different, hairstyles exotic, and music was heading in strange new directions. With a wave of high-profile imports it was hoped soccer might become the next big thing. Players, coaches and journalists recall the The Cosmos, the high octane New York club whose all-star team were equally famed for their antics at Studio 54 as for their footballing skills.

Four-part series which goes inside the closed world of Western corporate outsourcing in the Indian town of Chennai. It's based around the ambitious Office Tiger employees such as Amita and Sunita, who eagerly soak up the language and style of their bosses while holding on to the aspects of their own culture that serve them best, and the Americans who strive to guide them, including Joe (co-CEO), a former Goldman Sachs banker who never sleeps and is always asking his workers for more effort.

Director Simon Chambers follows the lives of young Bengali sisters - and close personal friends of his - as they travel from London to Bangladesh to undertake the arranged marriages that have long been planned for them. Although apparently reluctant to submit to the agreed arrangements, the sisters nonetheless seem unable or unwilling to ultimately escape their traditional destiny.

Documentary about drug addiction. When he got a camera at the age of 14, Rick Kirkham began recording his life on tape. After his first break on TV he rose from local news to a job as correspondent for the daredevil magazine show Inside Edition. His girlfriend then got pregnant, and they married. Everything was golden... or was it? As well as capturing the good times, his camera shockingly reveals the dark side of his life with candour and vigour. What unfolds is a riveting journey into the heart and mind of a drug addict, with Rick's fight for survival caught on tape in an unprecedented way. He tries to be the devoted father and husband his family need, but his work assignments tip him back into his hellish cycle of drugs and despair. Directors Michael Cain and Matt Radecki have tackled the task of editing 3,000 hours of footage down to an intelligent and compassionate cautionary tale of a TV Junkie.

Documentary which follows five families as they deal day-to-day with the challenges of living with children suffering from cancer, a film in which a possibly daunting and depressing subject is made involving and life-enhancing. With a rare intimacy and closeness, the presence of the camera seems to fade away and the viewer is left with no sense of being a voyeur as the story unfolds.

Director Don Boyd's portrayal of the extraordinary love story between a retired bus driver from Croydon and a retired teacher from Chelsea. One took to cruising public toilets and succumbed to drug addiction, crime and prison before personal rehabilitation. The other moved in a social sphere of dinner parties and T S Eliot readings at the seaside, yet had struggles of a different kind.

Storyville presents Yunis Vally 's quirky examination of life at the height of the Apartheid era in 1960s South Africa.

Documentary about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system and its effect on American culture. Implemented in 1968, the system, with its age based content classification using letter grades G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17, has become a cultural icon. But behind its simple facade is a censoring process kept entirely secret, and the film's director Kirby Dick tries to uncover the identities of the ratings board members themselves.

Storyville presents a profile of Irish-American poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch.

Documentary which illuminates post-war Iraq in three acts, building a vivid picture of a country pulled in different directions by religion and ethnicity. Mohammed Haithem is an 11-year-old auto mechanic in Baghdad with a missing father. Inside the Shiite political/religious movement of Moqtada Sadr, men push for regional elections and Islamic law, as moderate views are swept aside. Iraqi Kurds assert their bid for independence, through both the secular and the religious voices of the people.

In 1989 a youth radio station, B-92, started up in Belgrade. It almost immediately became a symbol of the resistance to Serbian nationalism and all that Slobodan Milosevic decreed. Here, the young radio workers give a candid account of life in Belgrade throughout the years of war. They also describe their own contribution, despite all the authorities' efforts to suppress them, to the liberation of their city and their country.

When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first ever elected female head of state, filmmakers Siatta Scott-Johnson and Daniel Junge were there to follow her. It was the start of an extraordinary year they spent with the Liberian president as she struggled to take control of a country devastated by years of civil war.

Weijun Chen's film takes us into the world of Chinese schoolchildren, learning about democracy for the first time as they try to vote for their class monitor. Elections are uncommon in China, so when the children in a school in Wuhan, Central China are presented with the chance to choose their own class monitor they don't quite know what to make of it. It doesn't take them long to get into the swing of it and soon all sorts of dirty tricks are going on. Urged on by their parents, the candidates launch elaborate campaigns of bribery and coercion. After tantrums and tears, it's finally time for the vote. Who will win - the sweet girl who woos her voters with her flute playing, the bully who beats his classmates or the boy who has the best sweets?

Documentary in which three Egyptian women, unable to sit by while their country is on the brink of drastic change, start a grass roots movement to educate and empower the public by raising awareness of the meaning of democracy. It shows footage from the first year of their Shayfeen ('We are watching you') movement, and looks at how ordinary citizens can shape and secure democracy.

Humorous and insightful documentary in which Japanese/American filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda follows his friend Yamauchi on the campaign trail. He's been 'parachuted' in to run for the seat and has just six weeks to make an impact on the local city, but his political skills aren't quite up to the task and his political mentors become ever more worried. Things aren't looking great, but then his party leader - Prime Minister Koizumi himself - comes to town to help him out.

Documentary about Russian patriot and businessman Mikhail Morozov, who owns Durakovo - the 'Village of Fools' 100km southwest of Moscow. When people come to live in the village they pledge to obey Morozov's rules, a place where democracy is a dirty word.

Documentary. Oscar-nominated director Alex Gibney investigates the story of Dilawar, a young Afghan taxi driver arrested and questioned by the US forces at Bagram airbase, who died just days after his arrest. Gibney looks at the methods employed by Dilawar's interrogators and traces the chain of command which authorised the techniques, ending up at the White House itself. He then explores how these interrogation methods migrated from Bagram to places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Documentary which looks at how, after winning the Bolivian election, ex-coca leaf farmer Evo Morales nationalised the oil industry and passed laws on agrarian land reform, but struggled to wipe away the old system of corruption and nepotism. His movement is paralysed as the landowners conspire against him, and the film shows the growing tension as the people and Morales fight to achieve their revolution.

Documentary in which President Musharraf explores the different worlds and influences on political life in Pakistan at a dinner in his official residence, the Army House. Labourers and intellectuals, journalists and industrialists add to the debate, as the role that a military leader can play in guiding a state towards modern democracy is questioned.

Documentary in which Indian filmmaker Lalit Vachani retreads the route taken in the 1920s by Mahatma Gandhi as he led a march that was to change India's destiny. His famous Salt March saw him walk 240 miles to Dandi in Gujurat, where he broke the British ban on Indians making salt and started the slow journey to independence. Vachani tries to see what Gandhi would make of the modern India, the biggest democracy on Earth, and he finds a country still riven with caste divisions and racial tension.

Filmmaker Richard Symons asks members of the British government to support his campaign for truth in the Houses of Parliament, and attempts to get a pledge from MPs that they will never tell a lie.

Documentary about ex-Labour MP Oona King. Only the second black female MP and one of the most media friendly of the 'Blair Babes', her support for the Iraq War alienated her from her Muslim constituency in London's East End, and led to her defeat by George Galloway and his anti-war Respect Party in the 2005 election. King asked her childhood friend Nora Meyer to make a film about the issue but Meyer was also opposed to the war and wonders if her friend's youthful radicalism has been dulled.

Life and livelihood were threatened when a small Danish newspaper chose to print a selection of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Karsten Kjaer looks at the events that resulted and travels the world to question the protesters and explore their motivations. He considers whether the cartoons could have affected the future of free speech.

Storyville documentary account of the Rolling Stones' turbulent free concert at the Altamount Speedway.

Showing as part of the Why Democracy? season. Following Belfast artist Noel Murphy as he completes a commission to paint all 108 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Storyville documentary about the two men behind Europe's worst act of terrorism, in the Spanish capital.

Storyville documentary about Jorgen Vig , an elderly Danish man who bought a castle 50 years ago with the intention of turning it into a monastery. His dream is about to come to fruition with the aid of Sister Ambrosija, a Russian Orthodox nun.