Terror in the Skies

Wenn Mutti früh zur Arbeit geht

This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

An investigation into the fascinating discovery of the first State Bed of Henry VII & Elizabeth of York. This fascinating bed is one of the most significant examples of Tudor furniture in existence today, and its iconography sheds new light on our understating of the Tudor Monarchy. The film represents the culmination of many years of in depth research. A team of experts, including the beds current owner, have decoded the bed’s story via its iconography and symbolism. These tell the story of the bed to academics, historians, and anyone with interest in the Tudor period.

In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.

The Old Summer Palace

Gigant des Nordens

It is the world’s most mysterious manuscript. A book, written by an unknown author, illustrated with pictures that are as bizarre as they are puzzling — and written in a language that even the best cryptographers have been unable to decode. No wonder that this script even has a part in Dan Brown’s latest bestseller “The Lost Symbol”.

Sonia Reich- who survived the Holocaust as a child by running and hiding, suddenly believes that she is being hunted again, 60 years later.

Regular opening times do not apply as we accompany Sir David Attenborough on an after-hours journey around London’s Natural History Museum, one of his favourite haunts. The museum's various exhibits come to life, including dinosaurs, reptiles and creatures from the ice age.

In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.

The highlights and newsmakers of 2018 are brought to the fore in this year-end review.

Music documentary by director Rafael Marziano Tinoco from Venezuela

Historian David Starkey tells the story of the Protestant Reformation and how it transformed the face of modern Europe, unleashing fundamentalism, terror and religious violence.

"Mexico begins where the roads end ”. Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes tells us about the history of Mexico: its invasions, its revolutions, its sacred lands, its forgotten legends, its religious rituals and this frightening misery. François Reichenbach and his camera sink into the dust, on this sacred land, where "the land never ends."

In JINGLE BELL ROCKS!, director Mitchell Kezin delves into the minds of some of the world’s most legendary Christmas music fanatics and hits the road to hang with his holiday heroes – including hip hop legend Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons of RUN-D.M.C., The Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne, filmmaker John Waters, bebopper Bob Dorough, L.A. DJ and musicologist Dr. Demento, and Calypso legend The Mighty Sparrow. In his search for the twelve best, underappreciated Christmas songs ever recorded, Kezin both asks and answers the question, “Why, when Christmas rolls around, are we still stuck cozying up with Bing Crosby under a blanket of snow?”

A picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. you've never seen before - new interviews, rare video, intimate new details.

A roller-coaster ride through the history of American exploitation films, ranging from Roger Corman's sci-fi and horror monster movies, 1960s beach movies, H.G. Lewis' gore-fests, William Castle's schlocky theatrical gimmicks, to 1970s blaxploitation, pre-"Deep Throat" sex tease films, Russ Meyer's bosom-heavy masterpieces, etc, etc. Over 25 interviews of the greatest purveyors of weird films of all kind from 1940 to 1975. Illustrated with dozens of films clips, trailers, extra footage, etc. This documentary as a shorter companion piece focusing on exploitation king David F. Friedman.

The Handley Page Halifax four-engined heavy bomber was the unsung hero of Bomber Command during the Second World War. It flew over 39,000 sorties over enemy territory, towed gliders, dropped agents, carried cargo, and pioneered electronic warfare. In all 6,178 were built. Today only three remain.

Using a thermo-camera to reveal long-lost artworks and never-before-seen architectural layers in some of the city's most famous landmarks, Art detective Maurizio Seracini reveals an unsavory history.