Documentary following a team of technicians in Italy as they reconstruct a number of historic Middle Eastern artifacts that were vandalized at the hands of Islamic State.
A unique interview with Tooba Gondal, the woman who groomed and lured scores of Western women to join ISIS. Using social media, she became a deadly matchmaker, recruiting a number of high-profile “jihadi brides” for ISIS militants in Syria: she allegedly helped organise the transporting of three British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, to Syria.
The eight-year Iran-Iraq War was one of the most brutal conflicts to devastate the region in the 20th century. Zahed was 13 years old when he enrolled in the Iranian army. Najah was 18 when he was conscripted into the Iraqi army, and he fought against Zahed in the Battle of Khorramshahr. Fast forward 25 years, a chance encounter in Vancouver between these two former enemies turns into a deep and mutually supportive friendship. Expanded from the 2015 short film by the same name.
A documentary made for television that looks back on the development and rapid rise of Oasis from being a band practicing nightly in the Boardwalk to one the biggest British bands of the last thirty years. Building from the formation of the band (with Liam apparently just fed up waiting for other bands to release records and decides to do something himself), the film uses contributions from key people really well to tell the story in an engaging way.
A powerful investigation into the political and criminal enterprise of kidnappings as ISIS rose to power in war torn Syria. It inter cuts exclusive footage with interviews of negotiators, investigators, fixers and even a used car salesman who are caught up in the confusion.
Between 1968 and 1970, J M Goodger, a lecturer at the University of Salford, made a film record of the living conditions in the slums of Ordsall, Salford, which were then in the process of being demolished. Under the title 'The Changing face of Salford', the film was in two parts: 'Life in the slums' and 'Bloody slums'.
The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.
The make or break story of a Somali-Australian refugee who went back to where he came from to do battle with ruthless pirates and Islamic militants - and transform his broken homeland into a modern African State.
Carol Morley returns to Manchester, where in the early 1980s, five years of her life were lost in an alcoholic blur. The Alcohol Years is a poetic retrieval of that time, in which rediscovered friends and acquaintances recount tales of her drunken and promiscuous behavior. In Morley’s search for her lost self, conflicting memories and viewpoints weave in and out, revealing a portrait of the city, its pop culture, and the people who lived it.
A documentary on the events when a bomb went off at the Ariana Grande concert.
Beginning at the industrial revolution of the ‘great north’, Jenn Nkiru draws lines between peoples, cities, countries, buildings, movements, bodies and spaces(s) using a mixture of archive materials and new footage. There is little stillness as we are pushed and pulled through Black histories and communities across the city of Manchester and beyond. Nkiru has termed this filmmaking process “cosmic archeology”, and it is grounded in Afro-surrealism, experimental film and the Black arts movement.
Brass Tacks was a current affairs programme shown on BBC2 between 1977 and 1988. On this episode called Punk Rock, broadcast on 3rd August 1977, it focuses on the Manchester Punk scene, bands and its iconic club, The Electric Circus.
As the forces of ISIS and Assad tear through villages and society in Syria and Northern Iraq, a group of brave and idealistic women are taking up arms against them—and winning inspiring victories. Members of “The Free Women’s Party” come from Paris, Turkish Kurdistan, and other parts of the world. Their dream: To create a Democratic Syria, and a society based on gender equality. Guns in hand, these women are carrying on a movement with roots that run 40 years deep in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. GIRL’S WAR honors the legacy of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK who was assassinated in Paris in 2013, and reflects on the sacrifices made by all of the women in the movement, who have endured jail, rape, war, and persecution in their quest to liberate their lives and sisters from male dominance. With scenes of solidarity, strength, and love amongst these brave women soldiers, GIRL'S WAR is a surprising story of Middle Eastern feminism on the front lines.
When a British-born actor abandons his Hollywood career to volunteer to Join the Kurdish YPG to fight ISIS in Syria, many see him as a selfless hero battling America's most insidious enemy. But others think he's a hot-tempered narcissist, staging a publicity stunt to further his career - and when his service ends, neither the UK nor the US welcome him back. Through incisive interviews with the actor, his supporters, his detractors, and top-tier experts - and featuring the actor's own jaw-dropping helmet-cam video of deadly battles with and interrogations of ISIS fighters - Heval gives viewers unprecedented access into a war against evil and one man's controversial role in it.
Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi, survived genocide and sexual slavery committed by ISIS. Repeating her story to politicians and media, this ordinary girl finds herself thrust onto the world stage as the voice of her people. Away from the podium, she must navigate bureaucracy, fame and people's good intentions.
On the front line of the Syrian war, a 30-year-old commander leads her female battalion to retake an ISIS-controlled city and emerges severely wounded, forcing her to redefine herself in this empowering tale of emancipation and freedom.
A disturbing portrait of four Western volunteers who risk their lives to fight ISIS alongside Kurdish forces. The feature documentary 'My War' probes the complex motives behind the need to take up arms on someone else’s behalf.
Ma Guerre
A look at the homeless problem in Manchester
A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.