Don McAlpine, legendary cinematographer. World renowned Australian. A documentary of his life journey from teaching physical education in Temora, NSW, Australia to Hollywood, making the visual imagery of an outstanding movies.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
From bespoke baubles to extravagant gifts and £615000 diamond-encrusted tree toppers, this programme meets the people supplying and buying a top-end Christmas.
In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.
When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.
About Lauri, and through him the story of other victims of both school bullying and a separate childhood trauma: victims full of white rage, which may lead to school shootings and other extreme acts of violence. The film is also about our society: a society without sufficient understanding or desire to address the emergence of school violence.
The year is 1764. For over a year, Josef has been leading a precarious life in Venice. He hopes to become an opera composer. The city, full of talented and already-established composers, seems closed to him. Looking for work as a violinist, he comes into the orbit of a rich young woman. Thanks to her, he gets the opportunity to play at salons. But his real opportunity arises when he becomes the lover of a libertine marquise. She teaches him worldly manners, rids him of signs of a provincial upbringing and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Thus transformed, Josef gets an incan incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, Europe's largest theatre.
A documentary about Tintoretto.
Nostradamus writes a letter to his young son, and his prophecies are compared to events of the French Revolution.
Professor James Shapiro goes in search of the mysterious man behind The Duchess of Malfi, the son of a coachmaker who ended up rivalling Shakespeare.
In the early nineties, before the massive gentrification of many of New York's then slums, several young people from very disparate backgrounds left their broken homes and ventured onto the brutal streets of the city. United by their love of skateboarding, they formed a family and built a unique lifestyle that eventually inspired Kids, a groundbreaking and outrageous film directed by photographer Larry Clark and released in 1995.
Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
In celebration of his ninetieth birthday, Sir David Attenborough shares extraordinary highlights of his life and career with broadcaster Kirsty Young, including the inspiring people he has met, the extraordinary journeys he has made and the remarkable animal encounters he has had across the globe. Joined by colleagues and friends, including Michael Palin and Chris Packham, Sir David shares some of the unforgettable moments from his unparalleled career, from capturing unique animal behaviour for the first time to the fast-paced advances in wildlife filming technology, as well as stories of the wonder and fragility of the natural world - stories that Sir David has spent his life exploring and championing.
Pasteur, l'homme qui a vu
A three-part study that introduces audiences to the celebrated Martinican author Aimé Césaire, who coined the term "négritude" and launched the movement called the "Great Black Cry".
Documentary about Alberto Spencer, Ecuadorian-Uruguayan footballer, regarded as the best Ecuadorian footballer of all time.
It tells the story of the Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann and her life in Berlin, Zurich and Rome, her relationship with Max Frisch, her trip to Egypt and her radical texts and readings.
Haló, hlásí se redaktor Laufer!
Armando Iannucci presents a personal argument in praise of the genius of Charles Dickens. Through the prism of the author's most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, Armando looks beyond Dickens - the national institution - and instead explores the qualities of Dickens's work that still make him one of the best British writers. While Dickens is often celebrated for his powerful depictions of Victorian England and his role as a social reformer, this programme foregrounds the elements of his writing which make him worth reading, as much for what he tells us about ourselves in the twenty-first century as our ancestors in the nineteenth. Armando argues that Dickens's remarkable use of language and his extraordinary gift for creating characters make him a startlingly experimental and psychologically penetrating writer who demands not just to be adapted for television but to be read and read again.
In the Eighteenth Century, London was the biggest city in the world - a global centre for trade, manufacturing and industry. Bigger and richer than ever before there was money to spend - and much of that money was spent on sex. The capital was a hotbed of prostitution and promiscuity upon which tens of thousands of women and girls worked. This docudrama offers a scholarly yet sensational romp through the brothels, bordellos, bath-houses, and baronial bed chambers of the capital, with eye-opening accounts, from the time, anecdotes, rich and vivid illustrations and rousing dramatic reconstructions with a narrative featuring recurring characters. We unveil a world in which tens of thousands of women (and men) were used for sexual pleasure.